Going through Mitcham Eastfields on the way out, interested to see a cluster of blocks of flats which must have been among the last such blocks to sport chimneys. Perhaps from the 1950's.
Arrived at Balham to find that my Travelcard did not work in the machines there. And it failed to work thereafter, despite there being no sign of a fold, never mind a crease.
Arrived at Tooting market to pitying looks when I failed to understand the point of being asked whether I wanted a roasting or a boiling breadfruit (technically, botanically speaking a pseudo-fruit, comparable to an apple or a melon). I associated to the time, many years ago now, when I wanted to buy some plaster, to pitying looks when I failed to understand that bonding was not the same as top coat. I forget now what they actually gave me. Things may have moved on since then (during which time I have barely hefted a float, never mind done any plastering), because at reference 1 they talk of backing coat and skim coat.
Beverage at Wetherspoons. Checked the New York clocks on both Tooting Broadway and Balham platforms, first noticed at reference 2, after which I had a near half hour wait at Balham. Not feeling up to nipping down the Regent, I played the aeroplane game, with Balham turning out to be a very good spot, with the Epsom platform more or less facing the flight path with more or less no obstructions. One unconfirmed four, that is to say after swinging left to catch the fourth aeroplane disappearing into the sun, I swung back right and failed to find the first aeroplane again quickly enough, as by the time I had found it, the fourth had vanished. Several near fours and several threes. Plenty of planes on other trajectories to confuse things.
Scored a first in that my train from Balham was a ten coacher. A first, albeit a Southern Trains first rather than a Southwest Trains first. The loudspeaker explained that I was in coach nine of ten, which meant that I would have been unable to get off at Ewell East, should I have been desperate for a beverage from the Toby Carvery, an establishment mainly famous for meaty pensioner lunches, an establishment which we used to visit with FIL, but visits which I do not appear to have noticed here. A sign that Network Rail is not spending as much money on the Victoria line as it is on the Waterloo line. Have they given up on Southern?
A polite and well-dressed young man, possibly from somewhere Levantine, offered me his seat. I declined, preferring to get a lady sitting in an aisle seat (in this very full carriage) to get up to let me pass through to the window seat. Interesting that those offering me seats are nearly always either ladies or foreign, or at least foreign looking.
PS: note the polygonal tiling on the rind, tiling which looks to me more like irregular pentagons than regular hexagons. Maybe there is some good biological reason for this deviation from the mathematical norm. Instructions left.
Reference 1: http://www.diyplastering.co.uk/.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/cheese.html.
Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_Winding_Clock_Company.
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