Posh wine

The posh vinho verde mentioned above. Well fairly posh, with amazon offering half a dozen of something which looks very similar for £43.94. On the other hand it involves Alvarinho and Trajadura grapes, so none of your bog-standard sauvignon blanc here. Odd that it seems to be the non-French but European countries which go in for exotic varieties of grapes, while the French seem to have settled for just the three or four we have all heard of.

Not like other fruit and vegetables, where there are usually lots of varieties of everything. Something to suit every pocket and every terroir. Or at least there were before the big producers took over the world.

I passed on the flan involving lots of sugar and baked condensed milk which could have come with it. A bit hard core for me.

Group search key: vxb.

Derelict

A long derelict house, opposite the Vauxhall Griffin. I feel sure than I have noticed it before, but search failed to find anything. Unlike the Brazilian restaurant of the previous post which emerged from behind a number of posts involving the innocent Brazilian electrician shot dead by police on a train at Stockwell, police under the command of the lady who is now our commissioner. All of which remains something of a mystery to me.

As does this house. Who owns it? How did it get left behind, tucked into a corner of the school visible behind? Why is there no movement? Is it a listed building which no-one wants to take on?

Group search key: vxb.

Pubs down

Last week saw the first Bullingdon after our holiday: Falcon Road, Clapham Junction to South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, with a journey time of 19 minutes and 24 seconds.

Started off with a puzzling absence of signal on the phone, that is to say an icon of  little staircase with a no entry sign on top of it, top left. I thought no signal. I had also thought it was some topological vagary of our road, with some of our neighbours getting odd signals. Confusingly, email and OneDrive were still working. Maybe a separate circuit. But the absence persisted into Epsom and onto the train, and by the time I got to Clapham Junction I though some action was needed. So I wandered hopefully into St. John's Road, more or less opposite the exit from the station, to find an open O2 shop almost immediately. Where a young foreign lady was able to sort me out in about 30 seconds flat. Simply a question of a reboot, which had not crossed my mind, despite this being standard when the PC plays up. Second question - after 'have you turned the power on' - that the help desk asks.

Very much struck by the number of smartly dressed, bright young things rushing about. Not something one comes across on the Island and not to anything like the same extent at Epsom.

Picked up a Bullingdon to continue my journey, during which I came across two newly shut public houses, one of which I managed to snap while waiting at a traffic lights. An establishment which I had occasionally used in the past for its sheltered front-of-house smoking den. It used to have a rather dark interior, which may have had pretensions to club. Presumably the 'guardians' referred to on the Lowe sign (click to enlarge) meant that the people minding the building let it out on a short term basis to young people who were not too fussy. Very public spirited of them, given the shortage of housing in the capital. Impressive growth on the wisteria.

First sighting of two young men riding a Bullingdon two up, with the front luggage rack serving well as a seat. Didn't look particularly dangerous, although I guess it would not be clever if the road was busy, which it was not at this point.

First stop on arrival, the Vauxhall Griffin, formerly the Builders' Arms or some such. To find that their once green and comfortable smoking den to the side had been taken over by the next door building site. According to the barman the deal was that the builder paid some rent and promised to both enlarge and reinstate the den on vacation. Better class of trade than in the olden days.

Second stop, the Estrela for a spot of paella and vinho verde. Bread and olives up to usual standard. Paella good, but of the damp rather than the dry variety, which last I prefer. Wine posh. Brandy posh, and served in tasting glasses with the full warming up performance, involving a white towel and a small stainless steel milk jug (we have one at home) full of hot water. In true Anglo fashion, I guzzled rather than tasted. Waiter looked mildly shocked. Resisted the notion that I should take a cigar with the brandy, seemingly available from under the counter.

Elaborate meal involving at least one long skewer was served to a couple opposite, reminding me of the meal we once took in a Brazilian flavoured restaurant in Victoria, a restaurant which came with large screens showing more or less pornographic films of Brazilian fiestas. See reference 1.

Changed at Earlsfield on the way home, but no aeroplanes seen at all in the short time available.

Evening closed with a taxi driver who knew all about the Builders' Arms, being a native of Vauxhall, now transplanted to the provinces.

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

Group search key: vxb.

Another tidemark

I was not particularly aware of serious rain last night, but there had clearly been a lot of water down the Longmead Road stream over the past few days.

Water not particularly high this morning, but the plants on the first foot or so of bank above water had taken a recent bashing and there were three tide marks on the grass above the stream towards the northern end of the road.

The inner two can be seen in this snap, with the outer third not visible at this angle, but not far from the pavement. Doesn't look as if the water made it to the road on that occasion. My guess would be that these tidemarks would be messed about when the grass was mowed, which seems to happen every few weeks, but they were probably not the work of last night's water.

See reference 1 for the last recorded occasion, a bit more than a year ago.

PS: notice also the two carex pendula, with the one further away from the camera being a particularly fine specimen. See reference 2 for this year's snap of a similar specimen on the Isle of Wight, and reference 3 for last year's snap. I might add that I am encouraging some young plants in the southern end of our new daffodil bed, where the daffodils are not doing much. Plants which are making a slow start to life.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/rain-2.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/carex-pendula.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/carex.html.

Another irritation

As befits the older person, there are lots of things about the world which annoy me. Lots of evidence that the world is falling apart and is generally not up to the scratch that it was in my golden days. I have noticed several such things in recent posts.

Now it is the turn of fake personalisation, for example emails which are dressed up as if they were communications from people that I know, people who have every right to say 'dear Jim' at the beginning and 'love and kisses, Lucy' at the end. Where the Lucy in question might actually be the director of customer relations at the people from whom I buy gas or perhaps potatoes. Somebody of whom I have never previously heard. She might, of course, be non-existent, a simple fabrication put together by the marketing people in the gas or potato company concerned.

A further layer of fakery is introduced when such emails include facsimile signatures of the apparent originators.

A further layer still when one has a communication assembled by computer but delivered on paper and where the words have been faked up as handwriting. Or, more cunning still, the 'dear Jim' bit has been faked up as if someone had got their fountain pen out to write the salutation. With the hint here of a sender who important enough to have their letters written for them, but with you being so important too that the sender got their pen out for you. Rather in the way of letters going out over ministerial signatures from ministries. To which was added all the flummery of grades of writing paper and grades of envelopes.

With such hints only doing anything for someone old enough to have written letters by hand themselves, before the dark days of communication by tweet set in.

And then there are the people who go to all the bother of having fake handwriting in the bodies of their emails. Which is a bit silly really, since everybody knows that the thing has been tapped in on a telephone, with never a pen in sight.

So all in all, plenty of annoyance.

But then we happened to make a donation to a charity, Mencap, noticed at reference 1. In fairly short order we got a thank you card and letter back through the post. And on the card we had what appeared to be a hand written message in felt tip, a ten line message occupying a fair amount of space, which appeared to have actually been written by one of Mencap's customers. Possibly someone in sheltered employment with them. I should be disappointed to learn that this was a fake too.

While Dignity-in-Dying, an organisation which has my full support, sent me a whole lot of stuff about a chap presently going through the courts. The package included what, at first sight, appeared to be a handwritten letter of several pages, to me. Closer inspection revealed that the salutation was slightly different from the body of the letter, so probably additional. The whole being very neat, far neater than I could manage - so who or what did that? With the address on the envelope in which it all came being in the same handwriting as the letter. Which last I found particularly annoying. With the complication that I might have been still more annoyed had it turned out that they were paying people to address the envelopes by hand, rather than letting the computer do the addressing and the money do something more useful.

And then there is the point that we spent centuries devising printing machinery to make the printed word legible - and that now we are chucking all that machinery away, reverting to the handwritten stuff that had once been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Complicated old world.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/metro-bank.html.

Commercials

BH divides her custom between the three majors, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose. The general pattern seems to be a couple of weeks here, then a couple of weeks there. Her activity is mirrored by that of the sales computers of said majors, punting out flurries of bogoff coupons to try and steer her back in their direction.

While I am now dividing my custom between bing and google. That is to say between the browser, search engine and maps provided by Microsoft and the same services by Google. With a similar result, that is to say, if I am using the gear from one, I get irritating pop-ups from the other, reminding me how much better their offering is.

While I am not sure that there is much to choose between them at all. I just hope that all the huge amount of effect involved in all this duplication is worth it. That the spur of competition does what the far right would claim for it.

But then again, maybe there is not as much duplication as at first appears, with the core of all the services being provided indifferently to both Microsoft and Google by some shadowy infrastructure outfit from China that one does not yet know about.

PS: I remain loyal to gmail, having been with them since not long after the beginning. Anyway, it would be a bit tricky for me to mix and match on that front, with one's email address being an important form of personal identifier these days. Ironic, given all the fuss we made in this country about the idea that there should be a national register of all the people living here - or otherwise claiming allegiance. Fuss at a time when the power of computers was not what it is now. Don't want the government, whom one might suppose to be acting in our interests, to do that sort of thing, but we are happy to let in the big technology companies. Which brings me back to the lecture, read to me some years ago now, by a young Irish barman in a small bar in Reading, about how core computer services ought to be provided by governments, neutrals (like Ireland) or perhaps the United Nations.

Stones 2

And again.

Neither crows nor hawks on this occasion, despite this being a favoured spot, with the landslip behind presumably being full of birds and small animals. Maybe a few snakes and lizards. All grist to a kestrel's or a buzzard's mill - although, as I tap the keys, I have no idea whether kestrels or buzzards go in for grinding stones in the gizzard, in the way of some other birds. And dinosaurs.

Group search key: yvc.

Stones 1

The Yaverland stone man had been at it again. Clearly not deterred by the Yaverland demolition man. For his previous efforts see at and around reference 1.

Note the lump of concrete, probably derived from one or other of the second world war installations on the cliffs round about. Was the beach used to practise the Normandy landings?

Thinking about it this morning, I wonder about the merits of an island like the Isle of Wight as a stepping stone to the invasion of the mainland. I think the Vikings used islands in estuaries for their forward bases and I remember about at least one disaster on the island of Walcheren (of the Scheldt) from my school days.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/thrones.html.

Group search key: yvc.

Junk shop

At St. Mary's, Brading.

Seemingly, Sir Oliver Oglander, Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey, who died in 1536, with his son in the niche above. It seems that Sir Oliver picked up the knight in armour, carved in oak, during his travels on the continent, thinking that it would do for his own monument in due course. Clearly not bothered that this sort of armour was probably a bit obsolete when it was carved, never mind when it was put up in the Isle of Wight. Various other Oglanders nearby.

In the centre aisle a rather sad memorial set in the floor to one Isaac Newman and his wife, all of whom, I think, died in the eighteenth century. He went first, then his wife a few months later, and a few days after giving birth to a child who survived for a few weeks.

Another memorial to one the Reverend Richard Palmer M.A., who died in 1763 aged 62, presumably some relative of the Reverend James Palmer M.A. (Oxon) who died about a hundred years later and was memorialised as noticed at reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/back-to-bembridge.html.

Group search key: yvc.

Yaverland seven

The last day of our recent holiday in the Isle of Wight saw the seventh visit to Yaverland of the holiday. A day with a brisk breeze from the south so we did not swim on this occasion. But we did buy the cakes noticed at reference 1.

The day had started with finding an older lady in the car park at Brading, a long time resident, who turned out to have come from Sutton and to have achieved the distinction of being sacked from the Epsom branch of Elys - long gone, but Elys still hangs on in Wimbledon - what must be one the last remaining suburban department stores which has not either died or been gobbled up by one of the national chains - although it has been gobbled up by Morleys Stores. She was sacked for the offence of being late back after a lunchtime swim in the lido which has since become Marshalls Close, roughly behind what used to be the Eclipse public house. She had compounded the offence by having wet hair.

Gastro Heima failed to open for lunch (not a good sign), so back to the Kynge's Well for toad in the hole, washed down with a drop of cheap Chablis - in a bottle with a rather mouldy label - despite which bing seemed to think it was good stuff, possibly the same as that of which it was said 'this fantastic direct import has been in the Moreau family since the late-1800s, who have acquired an impressive range of parcels in Grands Crus, including a monopole, and Premier Crus. Classic Chablis crispness with a nose of clean clay and minerals. On the palate, good mid-palate weight with meyer lemon [a sort of lemon from China], limestone, nectarine and kiwi. An excellent vintage for Chablis with an even more excellent price'. Hmmm.

A jolly enough meal, nicely presented, but the toad in the hole was made after the fashion of many pub pies, with the hole part being warmed up out of the freezer, the toad part being cooked separately and then dropped in the hole. Not like the sort of thing you might have at home at all. Furthermore, they had used very cheap sausages, unusual in these days of sausages coming with all kinds of bizarre flavourings and chefs' recommendations.

Onto St. Mary's (Brading) to inspect the flowers and the monuments. With a chunk of the church next to the chancel being given over to the Oglanders, people who came over with the Conqueror and were big cheeses on the island until maybe a hundred years ago.

PS: oddly, bing fails to find any mention of the swimming pool in question. One might have thought that some local history buff would have posted something somewhere. The National Library of Scotland turns up the relevant two and a half inch map of 1950 or so from Ordnance Survey fast enough, but all it offers is a small blue blob at about the right place. Before the days when such maps were clearly marked with leisure spots.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/more-soduku.html.

Reference 2: http://www.elyswimbledon.co.uk/.

Group search key: yvc.

New crop

This morning saw the first campaign in this year's blackberry harvest, just one or two days after we ate the last of last year's, in the form of stewed apple and blackberry.

A campaign in two parts. Part one, just before the turning into Horton Lane from Christchurch Road, just by the new telephone mast. Part two, just before the roundabout on Horton Lane from which one can turn into West Park Road, say bing reference 51.338436, -0.292337. Maybe six pounds of fruit altogether, now in fridge awaiting BH freezer action.

There were plenty of ripe berries about, probably a little earlier than last year, but a bit plumped up and soft after the recent rain, although dry to touch this morning. And complete with a small amount of livestock, some of it of the thin wriggly variety. Hopefully it will all freeze OK.

Snap taken during part two, looking north.

PS: a bonus being the discovery than latitude and longitude are accessible on bing maps in just the way that they are on gmaps. Not more than 30 seconds to get the hand of the small changes involved. And furthermore, if you put the bing coordinates into gmaps, you get taken back to the very same place. Wonders never cease.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/hedgerow-fruit.html.

Palsgraf

I read recently, in a book about a murder in Louisiana, to which I shall return in due course, that a case called Palsgraf  vs. Long Island Railroad Co. is much used as a case study, in law schools in the US, into how the law apportions blame. What happens when you have a long chain of events and actions leading to a disaster? How do you assign blame and responsibility for that disaster?

I mention it today because I have once again been annoyed by our readiness to reach for the criminal law when something goes wrong, in this case the Grenfell tower block.

No doubt there were errors of judgement and mistakes in and around the local authority concerned, with terrible consequences. But what on earth should we expect when we elect a government which made no secret of its intention to make deep cuts in public services? If you take away half the budget of a local authority, you leave it with the hard choice of delivering 20 poor services or simply cutting out 10 services. In these circumstances there are going to be errors of judgement and mistakes.

But I assume that there is no question of taking the politicians making the cuts to court, or the electors that put them in office so to do.

Maybe someone should sent a copy of the case study mentioned above to all involved.

Reference 1: https://www.princeton.edu/~ereading/Palsgraf%20v.%20Long%20Island%20Railroad%20Co.pdf (Princeton).

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palsgraf_v._Long_Island_Railroad_Co. (Wikipedia).

Trolley 82

The first trolley after the holiday and the first trolley ever from the Co-op. A rather cute little trolley, maybe half the size of the Sainsbury's version.

Found towards what I had thought was the last section of my morning constitutional, on the tip side of the footbridge over the railway at the end of West Street. I almost left it, but I then thought that I did know about two Co-ops in reasonable range, one at the top of Longmead Road and the other in Ewell Village proper. In the event, the one at the top of Longmead Road got it, despite the one already in the rack having a black plastic wrapper to the handle rather than a green one.

In the basket, some more English cherries and some more runner beans.

The cherries were the very dark ones, not bad, but a little thin on flavour. I think I prefer the ones which are not so dark.

The beans were a little elderly, to which the BH response was to simmer them in a little butter for a few minutes, then add a small amount of water and simmer for another fifteen. Nothing like as good as fresh young runner beans done in water, but a lot more edible that elderly runner beans done in water, which are apt to be full of impossible fibre.

Oddly, done in butter, the fibre had vanished. Perhaps the stuff is cow-oil soluble. The girl who told BH about this wheeze, maybe forty years ago now, had a father who was something scientific at Aldermaston, so perhaps he was a chemist who knew all about these sorts of things.

PS: still thinking about whether I am going to walk the heavy duty trolley from Wickes from the Marquis at the West Hill end of Epsom, all the way through town and up East Street to Kiln Lane. It has been there for some days now, but it is a bit of a long push. Maybe, even, a touch conspicuous.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/trolley-81a-and-81b.html.

Epsom echium

We had the miniature version of an echium on Culver Down, noticed at reference 1. Today we had the slightly less miniature version from a planter in the front garden of a house near Kiln Lane near Epsom.

Clearly a popular flower format.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/echium.html.

Trainers

Despite the remarks on April Fools' Day, and despite the short five month life of the outgoing pair, another new pair of Moab Ventilator trainers from Morrell via Cotswolds.

Same model, same price. Certain amount of flapdoodle on their website where I was confused for a while by US pricing and had trouble getting the quantity right. Delivery a few days later, right on schedule.

As far as I can recall, the outgoing pair did not need much breaking in, which was good. But if this pair goes below five months, I think I shall have to look around again. It is not as if my use has changed significantly, with my still clocking a steady six miles a day. Might even be reduced to going to Kingston, which at least as far as trainers are concerned, I have avoided for some years now. Place not the same since the French flavoured restaurant on the river shut, although the German flavoured restaurant in the High Street is some compensation.

PS: should you think of shopping online at Cotswolds, make sure you have a sharp knife to hand when you open up the package. They use strong tape & plastic for the wrapping.

Reference 1: http://www.merrell.com/UK/en_GB/home.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/cotswolds.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/detritus-3.html.

Fourth coat

The back door never got the fourth coat thought about at reference 1, with the smeared result illustrated. Just to the left of the reflection of the strip light above.

This new acrylic paint might have its points, but quick and easy coverage, in the way of Dulux gloss (now down to about five colours from their peak of lots, probably around a hundred), is not one of them. I remember lots of Dulux jobs where a single coat was good enough.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/trial-by-paint-job.html.

Heritage trees

Following a first go at the heritage trees around Brading noticed at reference 1, I had another go a few days later, the idea being to identify the significant, numbered trees on the leaflet, at least the first eight of the fourteen on offer at reference 2.

First observation: the leaflet talked about the relative rarity of beech trees on the island, but did not mention the large amount of ash in the woods to the west of Brading. I did not count but there did seem to be more ash trees than anything else.

Tree 1 was easy, being a yew of moderate size behind the bull ring.

We pass over tree 2 as this is a place rather than a tree.

Tree 3, the field maple was tricky, as when I got to the spot indicated (the map not being that careful about placing its numbers), I was not at all clear which was the tree in question.

But the snap above may be the tree in question, with its leaves being given in the next snap.

Which seems to agree fairly well with the story from the internet about such trees, where I learn that 'acer campestre, known as the field maple, is a flowering plant species in the soapberry and lychee family sapindaceae. It is native to much of Europe, the British Isles, southwest Asia from Turkey to the Caucasus, and north Africa in the Atlas Mountains'. It can grow to be quite a large tree.

Tree 4, the big beech on the right was not found. The best I could do was the big beech on the left, already noticed, but reproduced here from the other side, the tree of the swing.

I think I did better with tree 5, a common oak, and the one snapped below is certainly large and old, if a little bare. Roughly on the right place on the map. An ancient pollard, a bit like the ones to be found on our own Ashstead Common.

Tree 6 is the lime trees for which this part of the walk is named. I am fairly sure I found some large lime trees, but I was not at all sure about which one was the largest. Do not be confused by the chestnut leaves in front of the large tree snapped below.

With tree 7, back with the beeches, and once again I was unable to track down the pair of trees in question with any certainty, although those snapped below are a possibility. They were certainly tall.

And tree 8 is the corpse captured in the previous post, not reproduced here.

We will try again next year, taking a bit more time and maybe taking notes. Maybe we will get all the way round. Will we be reduced to participating in a guided walk for seniors? Led by some earnest tree nut.

PS: I may be a tree nut, but I would hope that in the unlikely event of my being pressed into guiding such a walk, I would neither be nor appear to be earnest. 

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/beech-down.html.

Reference 2: http://walks.wildonwight.co.uk/histree/Histree-Legends-and-Landscapes.pdf.

Yelfs

The main street leading from the sea front up into Ryde is full of relics of past grandeur. Including, for example, an old-style shopping arcade and quite a lot of old-style shop windows, elaborate steel framed affairs with large areas of glass, quite common when I was a child, quite rare now. I say steel framed, but I am not really sure about that at all. Certainly metal, usually a dark green-brown in colour and takes a polish.

Also a branch of Hurst's, the fine, old-style hardware store with branches dotted across the island. A place which sells, for example, lots of different sized key rings, plain rings that is, without expensive & tawdry nick-nacks attached to them. All kinds of interesting hinges, including the surface mounted hinges used to attach garage doors to their frames sixty years ago, and what Tradefix Direct now call 'heavy hot spelter galvanised reversible hinges'. The nearest thing to it that we have at home being Robert Dyas.

Among the relics we also have Yelfs Hotel, said to be one of the oldest on the island, with an extensive bar and restaurant area on the ground floor. Small apartments which we might investigate on another occasion tucked away somewhere upstairs.

We took an entirely satisfactory lunch in the conservatory which had been tacked on, in what had been the yard out the back, including the elaborate dessert illustrated. I contented myself with the amber nectar to its left. We puzzled about exactly what sort of function was booked into the conservatory for 1430, with my punt being that it was a retirement do - but I did not think to ask reception for the right answer.

Full of lunch, we decided against walking back along the pier to the station at the end, fine views and ancient station notwithstanding, settling for a train which, as it happened, was just about ready for the off at the station on the esplanade.

PS: I should say that we were rather impressed by the efforts which have been made to smarten Ryde up. The place looks a lot better than it did a few years ago.

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

Reference 2: https://hurst-iw.co.uk/.

The new smoke

Designed in Switzerland by Philip Morris Products S.A. and made in Malaysia, the new way to get your nicotine.

The white box at the top of the snap is the charger, essentially a battery. The small cigarette like object is the active ingredient, is in fact more or less a real filter cigarette, and is pushed into the bottom of the cigar like object to its right. It is this last which one smokes, from the other end.

The cigarette is heated inside the cigar, the heat driving off volatile components which give the user something of the flavour of the cigarette. It seems that nicotine is not volatile in the same way and this has to be sprayed onto the tobacco.

The duration of the smoke has been arranged to be about the same as that of a regular cigarette.

The product of a lot of expensive R&D, brought to us on a wave of a lot expensive sales & marketing, and said to be the best-yet alternative to regular cigarettes. A good compromise between the desire to smoke and the desire to stay alive. But then, they would say that, wouldn't they?

It takes about five  minutes to recharge the cigar like object.

Reference 1: https://www.iqos.co.uk/.

Bible belt

Some three and a half years ago, eager for knowledge about why a young mother would choose to become a martyr, I bought a book about a Carthagian saint called Perpetua from a bible gang called Eden. See reference 1.

Since then I have received an email pretty much every day inviting me to buy more of their stuff. Laura must be a very busy girl.

This morning, for a change, I pressed the button for open rather than the button for delete and thought I would share this aperçu into the commercial side of the bible belt.

PS: I am reminded this morning that, inter alia, Perpetua is the patron saint of cows.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/perpetually-perpetua.html.

A curiosity

An advertisement for both volumes of the book illustrated left appeared in a recent number of the NYRB, apparently paid for by Amazon.

The scope of the book looked a little ambitious, reminding one of those DVD lecture courses on the history of everything often advertised in the same place. Nevertheless, the subject matter, certainly of the first volume, was of interest, so I thought I would follow it up.

But neither bing nor google managed anything other than the Amazon site itself. The web footprint of 'D. D. Wells' is nowhere to be seen. So who is he? Is he a creature of Amazon or their computer? A collaboration between the Amazon computer and the deep mind people over at Google?

For the moment, I shall pass this opportunity up.

PS: or perhaps it is the master work of some scientifically literate, self-made billionaire, determined to prove that he is not just a wallet. There is precedent for same. And to my mind, unlikely to be a she.

Yaverland six

Tuesday past saw the last swim of the year at Yaverland. With a bit of body surfing, not too clever as the waves were not quite right; they looked OK, but did not seem to have any power.

A windy day, with the north wind whipping the sand up over the beach, as illustrated. Not that that stopped our one and only confirmed naturist of the holiday, a middle aged male striding up the beach, towards the secluded north end.

Several kitesurfers out, one of whom managed to come a cropper in front of us, being dragged along the beach to ram his head into a breakwater with a very audible thud. No helmet. Followed by some very audible roaring. Fellow surfers and others attended, and after a while he quietened down and was able to sit up. In the end, walking wounded, but we hope that he went to the hospital to be checked out just the same.

Towards the end of the day we had rather an odd sky, with my more or less contemporaneous note saying furry, but I cannot now picture what I meant by the word. Maybe a smudged sort of mackerel sky? But there was certainly plenty of it and I needed my sunglasses even when the sun was not out. Sun hat not enough.

Beech down

The corpse of a once famous beech tree. A little diseased, so perhaps fell prey to a winter storm.

In margins, from the leaflet about these woods, I learned that beeches were sometimes grown by bundling. That is to say planting a bunch of beech saplings tied together, so that eventually they fused into a single tree. A variation, I suppose, of grafting several scions, from different trees onto the top of the one rootstock.

Good to know that there are other tree nuts out there. But do not be confused by reference 2 which seems to be something quite different. Reference 3 is what you want.

Reference 1: http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/morestuff/relatedorganisations/South+East/Histrees+Project.

Reference 2: http://histreetrail.com/.

Reference 3: http://walks.wildonwight.co.uk/histree.php. Legends and landscapes is the one in question.

Group search key: hta.

Fragonard fail, aka Yaverland five

On Monday past, our first walk in the Brading, once the Nunwell, woods, where we thought to have a go at Fragonard (last noticed at reference 1), despite there only being the two of us, rather than the three needed to do the job properly. The swing was attached to a large old beech tree, growing out of the side of a small quarry, but it was too high me for to get myself up onto it, let alone BH. No upper body strength these days.

Next stop another huge beech, unfortunately down since our last visit, along with several other large old trees around the same crossing of the paths.

Pushed on to make sure that the farmer beyond the woods was still doing broad beans, which he was. And then far enough to make sure that the sea mark was still there, which it was. Loud and clear on top of the next hill.

Quick picnic at home, then onto Yaverland for a quick swim.

After which it was time to give the Bugle another go, despite BH's unfortunate experience with mussels the year before, an experience which had not been noticed, not at least under that name, the only notice of the place being from back in 2010, at reference 2. This time we went for the turkey and ham pie, which turned out to be very good indeed, although a little spoilt by the mashed potatoes which came with it, and which should have been freshened up a little before serving. Wondering about the flavour of the pie resulted in a visit from the chef who explained all about making his pies, a making which in this case included a little double cream to bind the lumps of meat and a little tarragon to flavour same. I think I would have used a bit less tarragon but we were very impressed that the place made its own pies. Pies with both top and bottom crust. None of these biscuit topped stews which are usually passed off for pies in pubs.

Taken with a drop of 2014 Fleurie, a red of the Beaujolais family, new to both of us, and unusual these days as I mostly stick to white. But given the poor standard of wine in the pubs of Brading, rather good. Possibly from the outfit at reference 5. It took a while to get into it, the barmaid taking a while to find a working corkscrew - to the point where we thought that she had popped across to the pub across the road to get one.

The chef also explained that the Bugle was one eight pubs owned by the same family, flying under the banner of' 'Character Inns'. I don't think that we have tried any of the others, although we have passed the 'Caulkheads' in Sandown, mainly because they are mostly well to the west of our range.

PS: bing certainly knew about the right stuff, even if reference 5 is the wrong stuff, coming up with 'la Madone, Fleurie, La Reine de l'Arenite is pretty, floral, elegant and aromatic. Spot on Fleurie! A heady perfume of freshly picked irises and peonies drift above the crushed berry fruit nose. The fleshy, luscious, cherry flavours and hints of rose are typically vivacious, backed up with a touch of spice and good depth. In winter, match with a roast leg of lamb. During the summer, chill lightly and serve with roasted or barbecued chicken or pork'. Perhaps I ought to tell these people about the merits of turkey and ham pie. A bit more than a third of what the Bugle charged, which I think fair enough.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/viols.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=bugle+brading.

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

Reference 4: https://www.characterinns.co.uk/.

Reference 5: http://www.domaine-de-la-madone.com/.

Group search key: hta.

Car booter fame

There was car boot action at Hook Road arena this morning, despite the overnight rain. Action which included these two coaches from somewhere in Sussex. Have the Hook Road car booters become so famous that people are running excursions to them?

I wish now that I had bothered to find a coach driver to tell me all about it. Didn't actually visit the car booter either, so I have not broken my holiday of what seems like several years now.

The website suggests that Hams Travel is the sort of company that our own Epsom Coaches used to be, before the founder's heirs sold out to the French. But I did not see anything there about excursions to car boot sales.

PS: don't have the patience this afternoon to check how long it actually is since I have been to a car booter, with the search terms I can think of returning far too many hits.

Reference 1: http://hamstravel.co.uk/.

Nuts

The grey squirrels may have stripped the unripe nuts off our nut tree, but there were still some left on the trees down Horton Lane this morning. Maybe there is enough grub for the squirrels in the area at this time of year that they don't get around to stripping all the trees.

I am also wondering whether there is not something to eat inside these immature nuts. Nothing much for us, but maybe a little something if you are a squirrel. A lot of fruitless bother for them otherwise. Fruitless in the literal sense of the word for once.

A bit further along the road a resting cyclist was doing a bit of light grazing on the blackberries, with a fair number now looking black and ripe. So time to start the annual picking.

Binding

Contents

• Introduction
• Activation processes
• Sinks and sources
• Varying the capacity of the channel
• The original column object
• Generalising the links
• What is the length of a link?
• Parts of a whole, sensed but not seen
• The wrong path?
• Descriptive layers
• Things we have not done
• Conclusions, Abbreviations, References

Introduction

We have our layered data structure, our LWS, and we have defined layer objects and their parts on that data structure. We have defined composite objects, that is to say, linked together layer objects which are juxtaposed, next to each other in a special way. See, for example, references 6, 7 and 9.

The idea has been – and remains – that we need to be able to link together layer objects which are not juxtaposed, often not even on the same layer, different layer objects which represent different parts or different aspects of the same thing out it the real world – quite often a real world object of the ordinary sort, something you can see, touch or move about. We will use different layer objects on different layers to carry different sorts of information about the same object. For example, on one layer we might have information about the visual appearance of some object, while on another we might have information about its smell. Or where we last saw it. Or whether we like it or not, our emotional response to it, this last often being a convenient shorthand guide to action.

Or we may have layer objects which are linked together, not because they are the same or about the same thing, but for some other reason: perhaps there is something that is common between them, and the UCS has used that something to leap from one to the other.

And connecting all this stuff up in the conscious experience is our version of what is often called the binding problem, introduced at reference 8. Over the months, we have come up with a variety of wheezes to do this linking, some properly documented, some not. Wheezes which need to be plausible in our world of neurons, and which should probably not use the sort of identifiers usually used in databases on computers for these purposes, things like national insurance numbers (for example, ‘YC763982B’) or NHS numbers (something with the format ‘987 654 4321’).

An early wheeze (see reference 1) was the column object, a column of high valued cells through all the layers of LWS, in contrast to the layer object, contained within a single layer. The idea was that all the layer objects which included the column, or more accurately included the cell which represented the column on their layer, were linked and together constituted an extended object.

Another wheeze (see reference 2) was the soft centred pattern, with the pattern being the pattern of values taken by the rectangular perimeter of the rectangular element of a part of a layer object, with, at that time, parts being made up of such rectangular elements. Not only did the pattern serve to define the parts of layer objects they also served, in some part, as identifiers. Parts in different places, defined on the same pattern, were linked.

More recently we have thought in terms of layer objects on different layers, but which share a sufficient chunk of boundary (the new word for perimeter, defined at reference 6), as being linked.

Then we thought in terms of matching curious shapes on the boundary, for example the growth on the right hand side of the right hand object in Figure 1 below. If two layer objects share such a curious shape then they are linked; a device similar, for identification and linkage purposes, to the soft centred pattern.

As well as being a little contrived, at least in the context of small sheets of neurons, all these wheezes relied on the links being defined in the data, a reliance motivated by the thought that LWS was all there was as far as consciousness was concerned. It all had to be there.

Activation processes

But did it? LWS is brought to life by activation processes, with consciousness being the result of the action of those processes on the data. Activation which, inter alia, will run around the boundaries of layer objects and sweep across their interiors.

The point of binding being to achieve activation of things which are bound together at more or less the same time.

The activation processes and their flow around LWS is something which is built by the compiler, and presumed to be expressed in the synaptic connections, rather than the activity, of the underlying neurons.

Which leads to the thought that if the compiler is using its knowledge of what is linked to what when it makes those synaptic connections, what further need is being met by expressing those same links in the data? This is very much part of what we were getting at in the introductory remarks at reference 6.

And part of the answer is belt and braces.

Sinks and sources

Figure 1

We now borrow a couple of terms from another place, sink and source. See, for example, reference 3.
In the snip above, using the surround convention introduced at reference 6, we suppose the left-hand and right-hand layer objects to be on different layers. But we want to link them, for one reason or another.

Then the blue and yellow pattern – the high valued cell surrounded by low value cells – and there may be more of these last, but not less than those shown here – in  the middle part of the left hand object is the sink, while that in the middle part of the right hand object is the source, with both these patterns being required to be inside a region, that is to say the interior of a part of a layer object, excluding here both background and foreground. The sink and source are connected by a vertical column, running between the two layers concerned – noting here that in Figure 1 we have lined the sink and source up, the sink is vertically above the source. Then some of the activation which flows over the sink is diverted to the source.

Figure 2

In the snip above we use a new convention, with a black bordered area being used to illustrate a vertical section through LWS. The rows stand for layers – of which there are not more than a dozen or so in total – and the columns might stand either for a horizontal or a vertical slice though those layers. So all the cells of one of the columns or all the cells of one of the rows in the square arrays, flat on the page, which express the layers.

We suppose here that the blue boundaries of the objects involved are orthogonal to the plane of the page – so we do not get to see much of them. In the case that the section happened to run along a boundary, we would get to see rather more.

So, at the upper layer we have a three part layer object, viewed in section and outlined in black (the Excel outline feature for a cell selection), plus two bits of background, in green. While at the lower layer we have two one part layer objects, plus two bits of background and two bits of foreground. For these last, see reference 7. With the distinctively patterned column object running between them.

As it stands, this definition is symmetrical. Such a pattern in a layer object is a sink if the level of activation of that containing layer object is higher than that of the layer object at the other end.

An alternative would have been for activation to flow from the higher layer to the lower layer – alternative which would exclude the linkage of two objects on the same layer, described below.

But, for the moment, we do say that a column objects links exactly two layer objects, one at the higher layer and one at the lower layer. We are not allowing intermediate connections.

These new links, these sinks and sources, are expressed both in the values of cells, in the activation levels of neurons, and in values of synapses, with our snips from Excel showing the former but not the latter. To that extent it is no longer true that all our data is expressed in the values of the cells of our layered data structure, our LWS.

Varying the capacity of the channel

Furthermore, we might vary the size on these sinks and sources, we can vary the speed and volume with which activation is moved about, a possibly useful feature not supported by the wheezes, which were binary, present or absent, at least as they were originally defined.

Figure 3

So in the snip above we show various possibilities, with the two on the right not being allowed. That at the top because the blue core is not connected, that at the bottom because the blue core is not properly surrounded by its yellow protective wrapper.

Furthermore, we do require the blue core to be the same through all the layers through which the column object extends. We are more relaxed about the yellow wrapper, provided only that it does wrap.

The original column object

Figure 4

The original idea, back at reference 1, was that a column object extended through all the layers, as shown in the snip above, where we link a one part layer object at the top to a four part layer object in the middle through to a second one part layer object at the bottom.

What was being linked was the host layer objects and what we were saying was that the three objects, the three images so linked, were all aspects of the same real world object, the same object in which UCS was taking an interest, for one reason or another. So top might be smell, middle might be vision and bottom might be touch. In which it seems likely that there are going to be more parts to the square centimetre in vision objects than there will be in smell and taste objects. Vision is naturally structured, open to triangulation, in the a way the smell and taste are not – or at least that is our guess.

And, looking ahead, one or more of these three objects might be more or less tantamount to text, to language, albeit of a fairly simple sort.

The column object does not touch the other layers where it goes through either background, foreground or some dead bit of space, a hole, none of which can be linked in this way, which do not count.

Part of the price is the small hole punched through all the layers. A bit like having lots of blind spots, compared with just the one on each retina.

Figure 5

In the snip above, the layer depicted contains a one part layer object left, with the right hand part of the layer being given over to background. The column object left is in a hole in the light blue layer object left, and so has not bound to it. While the column object right is not bound to the background as the background does not bind to column objects.

An alternative would have been to have column objects which run between two layers and bind to whatever is at the two ends, perhaps by not allowing them to pass through regular layer objects at intermediate layers. We prefer the first solution, the stronger solution.

Generalising the links

So far we have talked about linking layer objects which are about the same thing, some thing for which there is, as it were, a single entry in UCS. Now we talk about linking layer objects which are not about the same thing, but links which express some relation or other between the things which the two layer objects stand for.

Figure 6

Here, we show two one part layer objects on the upper layer, each with their column object. While on the lower layer we show a four part composite object (see reference 9), containing two layer objects, separated by the low value cell at AG173, with both of them holding the other end of one of the column objects, with the composite object thus implementing an indirect link between the two objects on the upper layer, while maintaining the rule that a layer object implementing an indirect link should only contain one column object, should only represent one thing out in the real world, but relaxing this rule for the rather larger and richer composite object.

The top left layer object (A) and the bottom left layer object (B) represent, in some sense or other, the same object of interest to the UCS. The same is true of the top right layer object (C) and the bottom right layer object (D). With C and D being linked by being part of the same composite object CD, and with that composite object as a whole expressing what sort of a link, what sort of a relation we have between A and C.

And we would say much the same thing in the case that A and B were not on the same layer, while noting that in this case it would be more likely that A and B were versions or aspects of the same UCS thing.

Note that the relation (say R) will not always – or even usually – be such that R(A, B) implies R(B, A) or that R(A, B) and R(B, C) implies R(A, C).

What is the length of a link?

Chaining, we can make links of this sort of more or less arbitrary length, with, other things being equal, long links being weaker than short links.

Figure 7

In the leftmost of the three configurations, we have it that layer object A is directly connected to object B through one column object. A and B are, in some sense, different versions of the same thing.

In the middle, we have it that object C is connected to object E through one column object and one order border. Where it is the blue and yellow order border which both separates and connects object D and object E, making the composite object DE.

While in the rightmost, we have it that object F is connected to object I through two column objects and three order borders.

Without presently going so far as to put a partial order on link distances, and in so doing quite possibly distinguishing the direction in which these various obstacles are overcome, it is clear that the distances mentioned are increasing. The second object is getting to be further away from the first object. In the first configuration, we are talking about two versions, two aspects of the same thing, while in the third the relationship is much more remote.

All this will be reflected in the behaviour, in the flow of the activation processes across the data structure, across LWS.

Parts of a whole, sensed but not seen

Figure 8

Here we show four layer objects in the layer mostly responsible for the visual field, objects which are known, for one reason or another, to be part of the same real world object. So they are linked with four column objects, with the links being completed on another layer, shown below.

Figure 9

Most of this layer is occupied by a brown object, about which we may know nothing. But there is a large hole in this object, making a region of yet another object, a pale region occupied by the sources of the four sinks in Figure 7. We do not know much about this second object and are vague about its boundary, shown in yellow, using the conventions introduced at reference 6, but we have a clear sense, while concentrating on Figure 8, that the four azure objects there are all part of the same real world object.

Alternatively, we might not be vague at all, we might know full well what the shape of the real world object is, even if we can’t see it.

Figure 10

It which, note that we no longer need the brown object to contain the vagueness of the boundary. We can just sit the fully determined grey object on the green background.

But, either way, how do we know that the function of the container objects is indeed to contain? Can we say that these containers are on visual layers, albeit low activity layers, only just present in consciousness, and by default the connections are those of parts to wholes? Do we need some experimental evidence, evidence which is unlikely to be forthcoming any time soon? We shall return to this point shortly.

The wrong path?

We have linked layer objects together. We can have those objects activated, in consciousness, at more or less the same time.

But we have yet to say anything about the link. So we now give some suggestions about the sort of things one might want to say about the link and the parts or objects at the ends of link. Leaving aside for the present the question of where this stuff might be put and how it might be expressed.

Is it a link between one object and another, one part and another, or something in-between? We identify four things which might be linked:

#OBJUP
#PARTUP
#OBJDOWN
#PARTDOWN

Where ‘UP’ refers to the object or part on the higher layer, ‘DOWN’ to the lower layer. Bearing in mind that either or both of the objects involved might only have one part. A formulation which only works in the case that the column object links an up object to a down object, through an intermediate object holding some description, in these terms.

We then allow predicates involving those things. For example:

contains(#OBJUP, #OBJDOWN)

describes(#OBJDOWN, #OBJUP)

partof(#OBJDOWN, #OBJUP)

partof(#OBJUP, #OBJDOWN)

same(#OBJUP, #OBJDOWN) – the two things are identical. Represented by the same object in UCS.

same(#OBJUP, #PARTDOWN)

samekind(#PARTUP, #PARTDOWN) – the two things are the same kind of thing. Different instances, different representatives of the same object class, perhaps a single something n UCS, perhaps a single something somewhere in memory.

notsamescene(timeplace(#OBJUP), timeplace(#OBJDOWN)) – the two things come from different scenes, that is to say different times and/or places.

samescene(timeplace(#OBJUP), now) – where ‘now’ is a reserved word, with the predicate meaning that the object represented by #OBJUP is present, in the here and now

There are lots of ways of doing this sort of thing, but something of the sort would cope with a case where #OBJUP is the visual image of a man and #PARTUP is a distinctively coloured shoe, perhaps the important yellow shoes, as in ‘Maigret et l’Homme du Banc’, a story, inter alia, of bench life in inter-war Paris. And where #OBJDOWN is a quite different man but wearing the same kind of yellow shoe, #PARTDOWN, in some different time and place.

A very limited selection of such connections could be carried by LWS conventions, perhaps the shape of the column objects combined with the order of the layers, and understood, in some sense, by the compiler. But this does not seem very satisfactory and we hypothesise that to go further one needs language, or something close to it. To hold more than one thing in mind at the same time one needs the machinery of language to link them together in a serious way, to add some value to their mere juxtaposition.

Descriptive layers

But where are we to put this language and how are we to link it to column objects and through them to layer objects?

Figure 11

So here we have a layer containing a four part composite object containing the end points of two column objects, an ordered object by virtue of being composite – and reading it from left to right is right and reasonable. The left hand object is on top. We hypothesise that this composite object is saying something about the relationship between the layer objects at the other end points. This is where we put the stuff about #OBJDOWN, stuff which is bound to the layer objects at the other end points by physical inclusion of these end points. We are still thinking about whether a part containing an end point can contain anything else, whether its texture can still tell us something despite the hole for the column object in the middle – and if so, what sort of something.

Note that along the way we have done away with UP and DOWN. There can only be one column object in any one place in our descriptive layer object, there is exactly one other layer object to be pointed to, not two. Our composite object, rather than saying something like ‘contains(#OBJUP, #OBJDOWN)’, is now saying something like ‘(subject=#OBJCOL object=#OBJCOL verb=contain)’, where we know which column object does for the subject and which does for the object by virtue of their inclusion in the appropriate phrase. No need for identifiers at all – identifiers which seemed a little contrived in a sheet of neurons.

Figure 12

All of which gives us something like the snip above. We have one version of something at the top, another version, perhaps felt rather than seen, at the bottom, with a layer in-between containing a four part composite object saying something about the relationship between the upper and lower objects.

A composite object which corresponds in structure with that at figure 11.
We will be saying rather more about how exactly this saying something might be done in the next paper in this series.

Figure 13

In the meantime, what do we do with the example kicked off at Figure 8 and illustrated vertically in Figure 13 above, dropping from four to three upper objects to keep things visible? In some circumstances this might be enough, in that focussing on any one of the parts would activate the larger object below.

But to go further than that, to replace the vague sense of something below, we add an intermediate layer which would implement four links between the four objects of Figure 7 and the one object of Figure 9 or Figure 10, an intermediate layer which held four descriptive objects of the sort we have in the middle of Figure 12, objects which would say things along the lines that #OBJUP was really just one chunk of the larger #OBDOWN.

Figure 14

A downside being that we have had to introduce an additional four column objects, or three in this illustration, coloured in grey. On the other hand, once we have paid the price of introducing the intermediate layer, the possibilities for description of the nature of the connections between the top layer and the bottom layer are infinite.

Note the three composite objects in the middle layer, with the order border reversed right, reflecting the reversed orientation of the link.

And when activation flows from top to bottom, it takes in those intermediate objects, bringing them into consciousness. Perhaps in the form of very lightly, silently voiced words.

Figure 15

While here we have a slightly different way of doing much the same thing, but this time we have stuck to the rule about just one column object to the layer object, we have added just one extra column object, at the cost of complicating the composite object which links them altogether, a composite object which is made up of four phrases, that is to say layer objects, each made up of a part holding an end of a column object and a part saying what that column object is doing there. The three on the left will all be much the same, all doing much the same thing, linking one of the layer objects at the top to the one at the bottom.  Roughly equivalent to a logical AND – or perhaps an OR, depending on how exactly the thing was set up.

The sort of information which we cannot subsume under the default description at Figure 4 of the three linked layer objects all being images of the same thing. One object being a part of another being different from two objects being different aspects of the same thing, with the difference between, for example, between the taste and smell of something being brought out in the different kinds of texture involved. While here things are different enough that getting the right sense of difference into consciousness needs a bit more help than can be supplied by texture or conventions about links. We need some words, and that is what the second of the two parts of the layer objects of the composite object in the middle can supply.

Things we have not done

We had thought to have focus layers and perhaps focus objects, with the focus serving to guide the meaning of our links, a guiding which might well involve more conventions, conventions rather than explicit content. With ‘active’ being an alternative word to ‘focus’. Ideas which we have dropped for the moment.

We also thought about making a list of different sorts of links and then just coding a link according to what sort of link it was. This one dropped in favour of using something rather closer to ordinary language to do much the same thing, probably involving something like the predicate names suggested above, for example, ‘samekind’.

Conclusions

We have sketched out a new kind of column object which can be used to link layer objects together, layer objects which might come from the same or different layers.

In round terms:

• Column objects are used link layer objects which represent the same thing in some sense or another
• Such links are direct and may involve two or more layer objects
• Usually, a layer object contains at most one column object
• Layer objects which represent different things are linked, indirectly, using a combination of column objects and composite objects
• To this end, composite objects may well contain more than one column object
• These composite objects can also be used to qualify those links, to say something about them.

Qualification which could make good use something like language. Going further, language is needed to qualify those links, to go beyond just saying this thing is related to that thing in some unspecified way. Humans can do better than that – and have been doing better since about the time that language
was invented.

We shall be suggesting ways in which language might be expressed in layer objects in the next paper in this series.

Abbreviations

LWS – local workspace. The proposed vehicle for consciousness. Named for contrast with the GWS – the global workspace – of Baars and his colleagues.

UCS – the unconscious. Most if not all of the rest of the brain, where all the heavy lifting is done.

References

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/layers-and-columns.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/soft-centred-patterns.html.

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

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

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/a-ship-of-line.html.

Reference 6: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/rules-episode-one.html.

Reference 7: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/rules-episode-two.html.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem.

Reference 9: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/rules-supplemental.html.

Group search key: src.