Closure

This blog is now closed for new business. Its successor is to be found at reference 1. The result of a belief that it is better for such things not to get too big.

For completeness, I include a list of the other blogs in the series.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/. Active.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/. Closed.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/. Closed.

Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/. Closed.

Barrow boy

Time for more cheese last week, so off to London Bridge, for a change.

Clock in the ticket hall was five minutes fast, resulting in what turned out to be an unnecessary run up the stairs onto the platform. However, there was some consolation in that the train, when it did arrive, was a smart new train from Siemens, a first for me. Smart new indicator boards inside, probably capable of displaying advertisements, and used on this day for displaying rather more information than the old indicator boards could manage. No rolling lights, more like a regular computer screen. But thin, hard seats which might not be very comfortable for a long run.

Something going on at Ewell West involving lots of builders' huts. Something to be checked out in due course.

Passed the time to Waterloo pondering on French aspects of playing the alphabet game with towns. Did, for example, the letter 'K' count?  Checking later, I find K present in both Littré and Larousse, but thin and mainly foreign. The only common word being the various sorts of kilo. Perhaps a thorough check is needed as I seem to recall that K is not the only anomaly. That sort of thing apart, I thought I managed quite well, managing at least 20 out of the 26 letters.

Bullingdon'd from Waterloo Station 3 to the Hop Exchange in 10 minutes 48 seconds.

Into the cheese shop to find that the inner shop was still shut and one was still buying one's cheese in what used to be the entrance or yard. But Lincolnshire Poacher all present and correct. As was a city boy in his mid thirties, who struck me as having a very well developed sense of his own importance.

Out to head off to the Barrowboy and Banker, and nearly there I was accosted by a smartly dressed Japanese lady coming the other way. She wanted to know where London Bridge was, maybe fifty yards behind her. I point and she gets very excited, explaining to me that she wanted the river, not the railway station. Eventually we get onto the same wavelength and she heads off, looking a bit sheepish rather nicely.

Into the BB&B, which was busy, and we had to wait a little while before we could sit down. I managed to slow things down by wanting to pay cash, which no longer seems to be the thing. Entertained by the rather pretentiously got-up Christmas menu which I removed from an unattended drawer, snapped above and featuring delicacies like Mrs Owton's bacon with roasted figs (a main course, seemingly) and Black Cab Christmas Pudding (perhaps moulded into the appropriate shape). But their wine is OK, and they only charge a premium of about a pound a glass for buying wine by the glass, rather than by the bottle.

Back to Waterloo, managing the run back in 9 minutes 40 seconds, which was odd as there was a fierce cold wind in Southwark Street. Foolishly, I pulled all the way up the ramp, which turned out to be full right up, so I had to roll back down again.

Not impressed on the train by the advertisement for something called Body Worlds, which I believe to be an exhibition of garishly dissected human corpses, all yellow and pink, the work of a German doctor now deceased. All rather unpleasant as far as I am concerned (and no doubt plenty of others), but I seem to remember that he claimed that he had dying people queuing up at his door, as it were. And the Internet was not working on my telephone for some reason.

Half moon just rising east at Ewell West at 2115. Round left, flat - that is horns to be - right. Some years now since I was trying to work out - and remember - whether horns right meant waxing or waning.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/03/razumovsky.html. Two and a half years to be precise.

Trolley 174

Trolley 174 captured on private land, in the front yard of the University of Creation student residence on East Street.

Returned to Kiln Lane, to what was, on this occasion, a well-filled stack.

Gaskell redux

A couple of weeks ago, at reference 1, I noticed Wentworth Woodhouse, noticing in passing that the place was used for the BBC costume drama called 'Wives and Daughters'.

The costume drama was subsequently bought from Amazon for a fiver plus P&P, for which we get four episodes totalling around 300 minutes of viewing. Not bad value at all.

Along the way we got to know that this was the last book that Gaskell wrote, barely finishing it before she died at the age of 55 from a heart attack. Just about a generation after Jane Austen.

Much of what one would expect from a costume drama of this sort. Much inflation of house size - an irritating feature of most Jane Austen adaptations, although we did get plenty of splendid views of Wentworth Woodhouse, inside and out. We associated to all of Clandon House (deceased) , Holkham Hall (seaside) and Houghton House (Walpole), all of which sport similarly grand halls. Much coarse behaviour from all classes of people. Much aping of their betters by people of a middling sort. Lots of big hats and big hairdo's. But really a story about the love of gentlemen for those beneath their station - servants even - and the trials and tribulations of step parents and step children - of which there must have been a great many in those days - rather as there are now, albeit for rather different reasons. How the good girl gets her man in the end. Providing suitable occupation for girls too posh to go out to work. Plus a Sean Bean body double. Mostly matters of perennial interest. Surprisingly gripping; a salutary reminder that television does not need to be content free and affectively dead. Perhaps we really do watch too much early evening ITV3.

So interest stimulated. But any Gaskell which we once owned has long been recycled, so off to Epsom to see what could be done there. And I am pleased to say that our not very big Waterstone's had a copy, along with several of her other books. While I think it a fair bet that Epsom Library would not have had any of them on shelf, although I dare say they could have got them in from the provinces fast enough.

Much fatter book than I was expecting, proper Victorian three decker. So we shall see how we get on.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/fake-46.html.

Fake 48

Quite an old fake this one, rather tired Surrey clapboard behind, brick with trimmings and sash windows in front. Quite possibly built like this in the first place, by someone who wanted a prestige house on a prestige spot on the High Street, but who could not afford brick all the way through.

This end of the building, rather appropriately, occupied by the estate agents that fancy themselves, that is to say Hamptons.

Viewed here from just outside the Assembly Rooms Wetherspoon's, in the passage which leads to the Ashley Centre. High Street and Market Place off snap to the left.

I must have passed it hundreds of times over the years and never noticed before.

PS: Tuesday morning: on this morning's Ewell Village Counter-clockwise, I noticed a number of other, older buildings around Epsom and Ewell doing much the same thing, with cheap out-back and posh up-front. From where I associate to the much grander churches in Florence, most of which are at the same stunt. Large and rather tatty brick shed, rather like a cinema or something like that, out-back, all fancy marble work up-front. Polychrome even.

Trolley 173

The first trolley of the new month, captured outside Crystal Nails and returned to Waitrose this afternoon.

I had thought that we would be celebrating the 200th trolley over the Christmas holiday, but that now looks like it is going to be a bit of a push. It would take going to look for them, rather than sticking to passing trade.

Clear and present danger

Not impressed that a council contractor saw fit to leave a hole in the eastbound lane of West Hill in this state: a job half done, which did not move between 1100 this morning and 1500 this afternoon - which means that it is a fair bet it will be there overnight, at the very least. A cycle catching it with his front wheel in the wrong way could have a very bad time.

At the very least, they should have patched over the hole with a temporary filling of blacktop, over a bit of plywood or some such to protect the drain cover. Or put up some cones and warning signs.

If the council can't manage to actually inspect work in progress, why don't they operate some system whereby a contractor does not walk away from a job without taking and uploading some pictures for the record?

PS: Tuesday morning: first concerned citizen found a traffic cone from somewhere and placed it over hole. Inebriated young man thought it would be clever to take the cone out of the hole. Second concerned citizen (me) replaced cone. Hopefully no-one will fall into it during the day to come.

Fish

My reading of reference 1 continues with a lesson about French words for white fish of the cod family, mainly, it seems, derived from Dutch words. Presumably because the Dutch were the first off this particular block. Prompted by Maigret, while riding the platform of a bus, one spring morning, snuffling some merlan out on some fishmonger's display. One of the joys of spring.

The Larousse entry for merlan explained that a merlan was a member of the family called the gadidé and given that one of the members of this family listed was a morue, which I was fairly sure was a cod, the merlan was another member of the cod family, known to cognoscenti as the family gadidae.

Larousse also supplied a small picture of a merlan, and there did not seem to be a black stripe, so probably not a haddock.

Elsewhere it explained that that a smoked églefin was a haddock, from the English, which confirmed that a merlan was not one of those. Perhaps the French read lots of Agatha Christie and think that we always breakfast off the smoked version.

Still stumped for merlan, so reduced to using the French-English section of Collins-Robert, sourced from Tunbridge Wells, a sourcing noticed at reference 2, which explained that a merlan was a whiting. A fish which I had completely forgotten about, and had anyway not thought of as a sort of cod. Nor as something which one ate in the spring. And as I like white fish with firm flesh, like cods and haddocks, not a fish that I am very keen on. Perhaps like their fish a touch soggy, the better to soak up all those sauces. From where I associate to the fresh fish of Asterix, ox-carted up to Paris from Marseilles.

In the margins I learn that colin was a big tent which includes our hake, saithe, coalfish and coley, this last being a staple of my student days, but not something we eat very often now. In those days it was very cheap, like breast of lamb, these last then being a shilling (or 5p) each. Not so these days.

Reference 1: Le Voleur de Maigret - Simenon - 1966 - Volume XXIV of the collected works.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=tunbridge+rock+collins.

City boys: episode 1

The book noticed at reference 1 has now turned up and the current plan is to drip feed pearls of its wisdom. The first of which is a list of bad things which banks get up to, taken from reference 2, from which it is easy enough to get hold of, via Excel. For the Robert Jenkins in question, see reference 3.

In descending order of importance, I presume in terms of the amount of money involved. Finance Watch don't seem to tell us anything about how the list was constructed and I don't pretend to understand what most of it is about, but it looks a lot less healthy than brewing better beer or building better houses.

Robert Jenkins’ partial list of banking misdeeds to date

1: Mis-selling of payment protection insurance
2: Mis-selling interest rate swaps
3: Mis-selling credit card theft insurance
4: Mis-selling of mortgage-backed securities
5: Mis-selling of municipal bond investment strategies
6: Mis-selling of structured deposit investments
7: Mis-selling of foreign exchange products
8: Fraud related to the packaging and selling of mortgage-backed securities that institutions knew to be “toxic waste”
9: Misleading statements to investors involving capital-raising rights issue
10: Misleading investors in the sale of collateralised debt obligations
11: Abusive small business lending practices
12: Predatory mortgage practices
13: Abusive or in inappropriate foreclosure practices
14: Abusive imposition of unwarranted fees and charges
15: Conducting false appraisals and charging customers for them
16: Aiding and abetting tax evasion
17: Aiding and abetting money laundering for violent drug cartels
18: Violations of rogue-regime sanctions
19: Manipulation of Libor
20: Manipulation of Euribor
21: Manipulation of SF Libor
22: Manipulation of Yen Libor
23: Manipulation of FX markets
24: Manipulation of gold fixing (London)
25: Manipulation of commodity markets via metals warehousing practices
26: Manipulation of electricity markets (California)
27: Manipulation of the swaps market benchmark index (Isdafix)
28: Collusion relating to credit default swap market dealing in violation of US anti-trust laws (“settlement” reached with authorities to resolve allegations)
29: Filing false statements with the SEC (London Whale)
30: Keeping false books and records (London Whale)
31: Reporting failures relating to Madoff
32: Withholding of critical information from Italian regulators
33: Bribing civil service employees in Japan
34: Mis-reporting related to Barclays emergency capital raising
35: Stealing confidential regulatory information by a banker
36: Collusion with Greek authorities to mislead EU policy makers on meeting Euro criteria
37: Financial engineering with the aim of moving Italian debt off-balance sheet
38: Manipulation of risk models with the aim of minimizing reported Risk Weighted Assets / capital requirements
39: Electronic FX trading related market manipulation
40: Process and control failures with respect to dealings with the ultra-wealthy/ “politically exposed persons”
41: Failure to prevent bribery of African officials
42: Peddling complex tax avoidance strategies to corporate clients
43: Improperly providing information about a Japanese company to its clients
44: Abuses relating to dark pool trading platforms
45: Failure to disclose conflict of interests to wealth management clients
46: Misleading investors with wrong / incomplete information
47: Conspiracy to commit multi-million dollar securities fraud
48: Overcharging customers for FX transactions
49: Failure to meet the terms of the 2013 Mortgage foreclosure abuses settlement
50: Repeated violation of federal laws connected with sourcing securities for client shorting
51: Manipulation of Korean stock market
52: Unfairly jumping the creditor queue to secure (confiscate?) collateral relating to Lehman
53: Publishing research and trading in the shares of a company it was advising
54: Other mortgage related abuses including: failing to accurately track payments by borrowers; charging unauthorised fees; and providing false and misleading information in response to complaints by customers
55: Use of minority owned non-consolidated subsidiaries to arbitrage capital requirements
56: Investment bank analysts altering stock research recommendations to curry favour with companies they are researching
57: Use of illegal offshore schemes to avoid paying income tax on bonuses
58: Ex Federal Reserve employee working at Goldman conspired with former Central Bank colleague to leak confidential information
59: Overcharging custody clients through the use of undisclosed or secret mark-ups on foreign exchange transactions in contradiction of its promise to clients of "best execution rates"
60: Mis-selling of loans to small business customers under the UK's Enterprise Finance scheme
61: Offers to procure prostitutes to curry favour with SWF clients
62: Manufactured 7.2 billion euros of deposits by sham transactions to inflate reported deposit base during the crisis
63: Predatory practices connected with the issuance of banking debit cards
64: Supervisory failures connected with Chicago Mercantile related exchange and clearing fee
65: Falsifying accounts (manipulating mark-to- market pricing of derivatives positions) to reduce reported unrealised losses
66: Dismissal of whistle-blower who complained about the above
67: Creation of fake client accounts and making unauthorised transfers to achieve bonus driven sales targets - involving some 2 million clients and no less than 5000 employee offenders over some 5 years
68: Misleading investors via misclassification of private client asset accounts with a view to inflate reported Net New Assets for the bank
69: Executives awarding themselves generous pay packages at a time when their institution was requesting state aid
70: Knowingly avoiding a written record of defects in MBS pools by reducing applicable quality controls
71: Breach of duty to be fair and open with the regulator (hiding information relating to US investigations and penalties with respect to sanctions violations)
72: Conceiling from (lying to) thousands of customers the existence of dormant accounts (RBS / Sunday Times Almee Donnellan)
73: Divulging and Sharing confidential client information with friends and acquaintances on social media
74: Seeking government reimbursement from the Federally-backed US Small Business Administration on bad loans that it knew were based on fraudulent or potentially fraudulent information. In other words – seeking to defraud the government for reimbursement of defrauding clients
75: Collusion - sharing loan pricing info with a competitor in violation of Competition Act
76: “Re-ordering transactions” so as to maximize overdraft fees
77: Defrauding institutional investment clients by charging hidden mark-ups plus failure to disclose material information about the operation of the bank’s electronic platform for US Treasury trading
78: Supressing and eliminating competition by fixing prices for eastern European, Middle Eastern, and African currency currencies
79: Placing bogus futures orders to move mislead the markets and clients and move markets – criminal market abuse called “spoofing.”
80: Manipulation of precious metals markets (gold/silver/platinum/palladium - Switzerland)
81: Manipulation / collusion of the US Treasury Market auction/client sales
82: Manipulation of energy markets
83: Short changing clients a second time in not paying settlements in full
84: Violations connected with emergency fund raisings
85: Falsifying customer data and records
86: Misleading shareholders ahead of RBS rights issue
87: Misleading shareholder information with respect to Lloyds takeover of HBOs
88: Conspiracy to force small businesses into bankruptcy to the benefit of the lender
89: Insertion of illegal rate floors in Spanish mortgage lending
90: Faking customer files to justify predatory foreclosure practices
91: Misleading profit and capital statements based on questionable accounting practices
92: Bribing (“Improper payments”) officials in connection with license applications in Saudi Arabia
93: Hiring sons and daughters of senior officials in return for favours
94: Fabricating complaint letters after the fact to justify dismissal of a whistle-blower who raised alarms over possible mis-selling of mutual funds.
95: “Mis-informing” (lying) to 4500 people over existence of dormant accounts
96: Use of “mirror trades” ($10 billions worth) to circumvent Russian related sanctions
97: Overcharging customers who are past due on their credit cards
98: Market rigging of Gilt trading
99: Hiding failed Loans in the commercial real estate portfolio in 2009 and 2010 whilst issuing new stock to repay government bail-out money
100: Non transparent and excess charges for FX transfers by major UK banks to small businesses in the UK
101: Manipulating shareholdings around dividend payment dates to trigger dishonestly acquired tax reimbursements
102: Manipulation of the Australian “bank bill swap rates”
103: Manipulation of the government sponsored bond market (supranational, sub-sovereign and government agency debt or “SSA market”)
104: Use of secret / undisclosed payments of circa $500mio connected with emergency capital funding
105: Knowingly acquiring “dirty debt” (a loan used as part of a multi-million pound embezzlement scheme) and using it to demand compensation from an African government
106: Conspiracy with borrower to falsify work estimates totalling $400 million of fraudulent accounts receivable
107: Facilitating fraudulent activity by customers via use of import advance payments
108: “Spoofing” in trading of US government bonds
109: Laundering the proceeds of Petrobras related corruption
110: Mis-selling of “lobo” loans to UK Local Councils
111: Fraud and criminal mismanagement in connection with account management for the former prime minister of Georgia
112: Forcing customers to switch from variable (“tracker”) mortgages into fixed rate mortgages – in a falling / low rate environment
113: Mis-selling expensive life insurance products to little old ladies in France
114: Facilitating African money laundering on a grand scale
115: Misleading Libor submissions with the aim of boosting confidence in the bank’s perceived credit worthiness
116: Conspiring to facilitate VAT evasion through manipulative carbon trading transactions
117: Knowingly misleading a major investor in a high stakes deal
118: Misleading inexperienced officials in nascent Libyan SWF into complex and ultimately loss making derivative trades
119: Mishandling of the proceeds of securities offerings for a state investment fund
120: Offering for use, false and misleading valuation opinions on M&A transactions to curry favour with wealth management clients
121: Abusive practices in handling mortgage arrears
122: Errors and abuses connected with reverse mortagages and related foreclosures in NY State
123: Manipulation of Australian Bank Bill Swap Rate – BBSW.
124: Forging client signatures to create unwanted credit card account and then harassing the individual for non payment of charges relating to a card never applied for
125: Dismissing employees who failed to make their sales targets through fraudulent behaviour
126: Forcing distressed banking clients to hire a turn-around consultant who recommended expensive new lending facilities and from whom the banker received personal kickbacks
127: Collusion to falsify accounts of Italy’s third largest bank
128: Violations in connection with IPO underwriting and distribution (UBS/DB HK)
129: Lending money to investors who then invest in the bank’s stock in violation of the law (Iceland proven / UK under investigation)
130: Firing employee for statements made while cooperating with an official investigation/misuse of confidential info
131: Fabricating insurance policies
132: Improper charges to customers who contracted to lock in mortgage rates
133: Forging client signatures and falsifying file documents to bring client records “up to date” and/or cover up wrong-doing.
134: Facilitated Russian money laundering exceeding $700 mio involving flows via fake British companies
135: Faked meetings (lied) with customers to hit tough targets set by superiors
136: Stonewalling government officials investigating abusive practices with respect to retail bank accounts
137: Facilitating Netherlands related tax evasion and money laundering
138: Supplying personal loans, equal to 24% of the bank’s capital, to the presidential campaign manager by the head of the bank who coincidentally was an advisor to the campaign
139: Committing “Fraud on the Board”: knowingly steering its advisory client into a disadvantageous sale to profit later from business from the buyer
140: Front running client Foreign Exchange orders
141: Improperly extending customers’ mortgages – changing terms without client or court consent
142: Forcing unwanted auto insurance on bank car loan customers
143: Failure to pass on to thousands of home loan customers lower mortgage charges in violation of the rights of borrowers to “tracker rates” contractually tied to the falling ECB rate
144: Manipulation of government backed small business support programs – pushing borrowers into the scheme and then cutting back other credit facilities to the same borrower

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/11/city-boys.html.

Reference 2: https://www.finance-watch.org/robert-jenkins-partial-list-of-bank-misdeeds/.

Reference 3: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-announces-appointment-of-robert-jenkins-as-an-external-member-of-the-interim-financial-policy-committee. Published 5th July, 2011. 'The Chancellor today announced that, in consultation with the Governor of the Bank of England, he has appointed Robert Jenkins to the interim Financial Policy Committee (FPC) as an external member to fill the vacancy left by the departure of Sir Richard Lambert'. So one might suppose that the chap has reasonable provenance.

Chemists

The Christmas decorated shop window of Bell & Croyden, on our way back from a little something at the Cock & Lion, rather noisy with football or some such.

Not, I fear the shop it once was, hit by Amazon and their friends, just like the rest of the retail sector.

But why is Christmas so early this year?

Group search key: eqa.

Diesel?

Some kind of engineering apparatus moving through Epsom station on the Waterloo line. Was it electric or some kind of diesel? My money is on the former, despite it having a Network Rail badge, with not all of the rail of this last including a third rail.

Group search key: eqa.

Endellion at 40

Last week to hear the Endellion Quartet give the opening London concert of their 40th season, having had their first ever rehearsal in January 1979. I don't suppose we have heard them 40 times, making our average up to one a year, but it is probably up to 20 times, with half of those being in Dorking.

Mendelssohn Op.44, No.1. Britten Op.94. Beethoven Op.59, No.2.

Started off badly with a ticket machine that refused to take my card and I was reduced to using cash. Then the Victoria train which we had planned to catch, because it was a strike day on Southwestern Trains or some such, was cancelled due to there being a person on the line. So we wound up catching a Waterloo train, strike notwithstanding, running 6 minutes late. So we managed.

Picnic'd in Cavendish Square and on into a very full hall. Flowers the same as the Sunday previous but looking a little fuller. A little riper would no doubt be accurate, but the word has a rather negative tinge in this context, which would not be what was intended.

I worried about the entablature, assuming it is permitted to use the word of a door, on top of the big brown doors at the back of the stage, one of which can be seen in the snap following, behind the rehearsing singer.

Given the extent of wall above the door, one did perhaps need something, over and above the frame, but on this occasion, for the first time, I felt quite strongly that the detailer had overdone it a bit, without being sure whether it was the strongly delineated shape or the size that was the problem. But looking at the snap left, turned up by Google, I am no longer so sure, so clearly something to be looked for on a future occasion.

Once again we failed to make a proper connection to the Mendelssohn, but otherwise the quartet were on their usual good form, with the Britten going down well and the Beethoven very well. They gave us as an encore the finale of Haydn's Op.20 No.5 quartet - in token of their view that Haydn, Beethoven and Bartók were the masters of the form.

Their puff for their sponsor, Lark Music, an insurance company, was managed rather more gracefully than when we first heard it.

Tone rather lowered while we were waiting for the tube at Oxford Circus by two rather gross advertisements for fast food and by the rather gross headline on the wrapper of the day's Evening Standard. Public standards in these matters seem to be slipping - while to my mind gross is best consumed in private, perhaps in the public bar of old.

A long wait for an Epsom change, so we took refreshment at the Half Way House. Where I was confused by a number of people walking around with blind sticks and red cloaks. BH was quite confident that it was fancy dress - which may well have been the case, but I do not approve of such abuse of the blind stick signage.

Scored a three and several twos during the subsequent short wait at Earlsfield.

Onto the train, where a gaggle of young people rearranged themselves so that we could sit down together. They were English - and amused when I told them that such displays of good manners were much more common coming from foreigners.

Day closed by my finding out all about cross quarter days, a relic of Celtic times living on in the shadow of our modern quarter days. So, rather late in the day, I now know who Beltane was. See reference 5.

PS: my recollection had been that some years ago we had heard all the Mendelssohn quartets at Dorking and not got on terribly well with them, hence the 'once again' above. A recollection which is not borne out by reference 4, such as it is. Anyway, all rather a long time ago.

Reference 1: https://www.astonlark.com/. There are a number of lark flavoured musical offerings out there, but I think that this is the right one. A big insurance broker, with a number of specialist areas. They also seem to be into the business of fancy musical instruments as an investment - while I have noticed that quite a few string players play on instruments owned by some rich business man. A win-win arrangement, with the musician getting the instrument which he could not otherwise afford and with the business man being able to feel good about his investment, even if he does not get to stroke it every evening, in the way of a miser with his gold.

Reference 2: https://www.astonlark.com/larkmusic/. Bing turned up this one, but I have yet to find the way to it from reference 1.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/05/saint-endellion.html. The last outing of the lark.

Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=mendelssohn. Most of what little I can find about Mendelssohn.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_days.

Group search key: eqa.

Park and ride

Every year, for as long as I can remember, one of the Scout troops in Epsom has run a firework show on Hook Road Arena, a space better known here for its giant car boot sales, which make good use of the huge amount of car parking available. There was a time that we used to go to the fireworks and I have a dim memory that sometimes it was very cold, unlikely to be the case this year. No memory at all of the parking arrangements, but it would be a fair walk from where we live, with children, at night.

But the point of the post is this strange sign, to be found at the top of Longmead Road, on one of the main routes to the arena, straight ahead in this snap.

Why on earth are they banning car parking at the arena? A good part of the point of the place is that it is so big that there is always plenty of car parking, whatever it is that one is up to.

But careful inspection of reference 2 reveals all you need to know about park and ride - and confirmation that there is no on-site parking for the general public - just staff and disabled. You also click here to get a nice map of the site, which gives the impression that car parking has gone down under the combined attack of the funfair and health & safety.

In which connection, I might add that, about thirty years ago we organised a much more modest affair, in the aftermath of a storm which meant that there was a lot of fire wood lying about for anyone with access to a bush saw, DIY chain sawing not at that time having been invented. From this distance, my lack of proper arrangements for the on-site storage of fireworks looks careless indeed, not to say reckless. Luckily, there was no accident. But it was a most impressive fire, if not on the scale of that planned here.

Also a time when the sprogs learned how easy it is to split logs of quite substantial dimensions, provided only that they are fresh. All you need is a cold chisel and a club hammer. I believe teeth are the same: easy to split when they are still in the mouth, useful when getting awkward wisdom teeth out, hard to split once they are out and dry.

Reference 1: https://www.7thepsom.org.uk/activities/fireworks/. Closely related to the people who put on the giant annual book sale, something else which we have done in the past.

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

City boys

From time to time I inveigh against the overblown financial services industry of this country, grown fat in some large part by sucking wealth out of the rest of us. And, inter alia, hoovering up an unhealthily large proportion of our brightest and best to spend their time moving money around rather than doing stuff which is more obviously useful. Like brewing better beer or building better houses. Or running the Department for Work and Pensions (a rebadged version of what used to be called the Department of Social Security). So today, prompted by an article in the Guardian on 5th October which I have finally gotten around to reading, I have ordered up a copy of a new book by Nicholas Shaxson (reference 1).

A cosmopolitan journalist, born in Malawi and presently resident in Berlin, on something of a crusade against the iniquities of financial services industries across the world. Something of an expert on the role of tax havens in all this; a role which does not extend, it seems, to making sure that all the inhabitants of tax havens get a fair share of their ill-gotten gains. Plenty of poor people, for example, in Jersey.

Proof positive of the allegation that we all tend to read stuff which looks to reinforce our pre-existing prejudices.

Reference 1: The Finance Curse: How global finance is making us all poorer – Nicholas Shaxson - 2018.

Reference 2: Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil - Nicholas Shaxson - 2007. An earlier tale about how being resource rich may not be such a good thing after all. Here Angola, but presumably the same sort of tale as might be told about Venezuela, another resource rich country which is in a bit of a mess.

Pundits

At breakfast today, BH told me all about some pundit, probably on some far flung free-view channel, banging on about the dire state of some of our parades and high streets. It seems that Seven Sisters Road was bottom of the heap, while the not so far away Crouch End was top of the heap.

When are we going to stop deluding ourselves about these parades and high streets, mostly built for the needs of a quite different time? When, for example, married women were mostly housewives and did their shopping daily, locally. Visiting the butcher, the baker, the fishmonger, the greengrocer, the dry goods store and the candlestick maker. With the result that we are now left with far more commercial property on these parades and high streets than we need - and we need to let them shrink back to a more appropriate size for today, letting the outskirts drop back into the residential use much of it started out with.

In the meantime there seems to be a conspiracy, not to say delusion, of greed whereby councils conjure up the golden goose of fat business rates and developers conjure up the golden goose of fat commercial rents. Perhaps we could wean our councils off this nonsense, if we were to give them some proper fund raising powers, as they have in most other parts of the world, and reduce their dependence on the bounty of central government.

I associate to the lady from fashion retail, the darling of the media and chattering classes a few years ago, who would swan around the country waving her magic wand over swathes of moribund retail. A lady whose name I could not recall and Bing did not help with - but Google delivered the goods: Mary Portas. According to Wikipedia, a lady with lots of artistic pretensions, who started life as an Irish Catholic. See reference 1.

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

Painshill

A first visit to Painshill for a long time a few days ago, first noticed at reference 1. The long time being just about four years - see reference 2. The place being an unusual bit of heritage, proud not to have been swallowed up by the National Trust. A sturdy independent - see reference 3.

Block with alien left

We find a number of concrete blocks at the entrance, the result of an incursion of travellers at some point, travellers who left their usual display of mess and rubbish when they were moved on. Quite a bother and expense for the Painshill people. On a technical note, I had assumed that the intrusion bottom left was my hand over the lens of the telephone, but then I saw how blurred the boundary was and am now not quite so sure. Is that what happens when something is close to the lens?

River Mole

Arty bridge

Mole looking very peaceful from the arty bridge, no livestock of any sort to be seen, in or on the water. So, instead, we wondered about how much the bridge had cost and how an independent trust managed to raise the necessary million or so. Picture extracted by Bing from reference 5.

Industrial archaeology

A companion piece to that noticed at the top of reference 2. Perhaps a pump to fetch water up from the Mole for the walled garden? With a driving wheel to take the belt from the traction engine?

Mushrooms

One part of the Mole-side bank of the ornamental water was thick with mushrooms. Not obvious why. There was also some kind of rat or mouse who scurried into a hole in the bank on our approach, which failed to reappear despite our waiting. Plus some serious fish jumping action out on the water, perhaps evidence of a hunting pike, our having seen pike at more or less the same spot in the past, although no evidence of same to be found on any of the blogs.

Two or three heavily tooled up fishermen, complete with bivvies. Several grebes and quite a lot of greylag geese to be seen on the water. Quite a lot of chain saw action, mostly some time in the past, reasonably discrete, although the bird islands were looking a bit bare. Inevitable in an old park like this one, being recovered from a long period of neglect.

Woodland mushroom

Possibly one of those mushrooms for which the French involves 'tambour' - either a drum or a drum stick, as in chicken. The search term 'champignon tambour' turns up plenty of possibilities, but no positive identification. What caused the split at the base of the stem? Animal action or the ravages of time?

Large, enclosed cedar

Three ages of fence

A fence incorporating three fencing campaigns: Victorian iron followed by fifties concrete followed by eighties timber.

Stone terraces

We did not get to the bottom of what the shallow stone terraces, visible in the middle of the snap above, were about. Presumably some relic of past glories. Note the barbed wire: no hang ups here on that front. On which point, see reference 6.

Trophy

The trophy of the day, we thought perhaps pegs for holding down the bivvies mentioned above. We also thought that they might serve to amuse a visiting two year old.

Café busy, half mothers with small children, half pensioners like ourselves. Food fairly hearty, with some otherwise respectable looking older ladies tucking into sausage sandwiches. I can't see my own mother ever doing such a thing, let alone in public; most unladylike. And I dare say most ladies of her generation - she was born in 1916 - would have agreed with her.

I settled for bacon and egg flan - not bad but it had gone a bit tough in its time in the freezer and it was a bit highly spiced to my taste.

On exit, puzzled by half a dozen cars awkwardly parked just outside the entrance. Why did they not use the free car park provided inside? Where were they going? It is not as if there was a railway station nearby, although I suppose there might have been a bus stop.

PS: I had taken the monocular (rather than the alternative free gift from the National Trust. See reference 4) in case there was a bit of tweeting to be had. In the event, I completely forgot about them and they stayed in my pocket for the whole time.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/fake-45.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/09/kingfisher-time.html.

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

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/toys.html.

Reference 5: https://www.moleseylife.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/09/trusty-time.html.

Group search key: psb.

Hackers out!

Yesterday morning, working away in Word, but with Edge open, my laptop suddenly started to emit a most unpleasant whistle. Which was traced to the display left, in a new Edge window.

A display which if not from Microsoft had been reasonably carefully dressed in Microsoft clothes. On the other hand, the address at the top of the screen (omitted from this snap) did not look very Microsoft flavoured, starting with a long messy looking string of characters, followed by '/cloudfront.net...'.

Then I got another display, even more threatening, but I was starting to think that someone was about to ask for some money, in some guise or another, in order to remove whatever it was that had landed on my screen. Time to close things down.

And as it happened, I was able to close the Edge windows involved and carry on as if nothing had happened. Perhaps I should have restarted to be on the safe side. But I did take an external copy of my important files, something which is a lot easier these days than it was say twenty years ago, before data sticks came of age. And I did ask Windows Defender to run a quick scan, which made a nil return. No threats to be seen.

I associated to a science fiction film in which the flagship of some star fleet under attack by the bad aliens, is saved, the only ship to be saved, because the commander is old-speak enough to refuse to have his ship online, and so be vulnerable to cyber-attack by said bad aliens.

I also spoke to the BT Help Desk who assured me that there was nothing to worry about, with most of the problem resting with some or other website that my laptop was in touch with, unbeknown to me. Windows Defender was on the case. Not altogether convinced by these blandishments, but so far all seems to be well.

While this morning I asked Bing about Cloudfront, which turns out to be a service from some part of the Amazon empire, but a name which is used by various bad people, for example those talked about at reference 1 - although the symptoms there were not those that I experienced.

Who are all these people who think it clever or find it profitable to do this kind of thing? One might have thought that someone with the necessary skills would know better; not like the young men who like smashing trolleys into lampposts at all. See reference 3.

PS: the laptop involved in an HP EliteBook built for Windows 7, but which is now running Windows 10. Generally well behaved.

Reference 1: https://malwaretips.com/blogs/cloudfront-net-virus-removal/.

Reference 2: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/. Appears to be some kind of a service for the developers of Internet based applications. Nothing to do with selling books or pots & pans at all.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/trolley-171.html.

Morse Ale

Morse Ale from the Civil Service Club, appropriately in Great Scotland Yard and not that far from New Scotland Yard down behind Whitehall.

With Dover House, the Scottish HQ in London just the other side of Whitehall. An association which is only something over 100 years old. So when did all these Scotland Yards and Scotland Places get their names?

The Morse Ale was a sensible session ale strength and apparently tasted OK. Contrariwise, while I might be a former bitter drinker who no longer has a vote, I always used to prefer branded beer which I knew and liked, rather than chance my arm on one of the many craft ales which were springing up towards the end of my bitter drinking days. Too many of these craft brewers were trying to hard to be different and complicated, for all the world like cooks on television. Thinking with my fingers, perhaps you get the same sort of overblown personalities in both trades. And paddling back the other way, I think I have tried and liked beers from this particular outfit before. See reference 1.

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

Group search key: kga.

String art

String art from the Goat of Stafford Street, which I am sure I have noticed before, but failed to trace the notice this morning.

In good company, with plenty of minimal art for sale in the fancy galleries round about, but somehow I can't see this one making it to the walls of one of said galleries. Perhaps the difference is that most of the stuff in those galleries does exhibit craft if not art; someone has clearly spent time on the stuff. Someone who usually knows how to make at least something out of the material in question, who can play to his or her medium. Something which whoever did the string art did not manage.

From where I associate to Hepworth's strings, noticed at reference 1. Strings which look a lot better in real life than they do in reproduction, at least than they do in my reproduction.

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/07/armed-hepworth.html.

Group search key: kga.