No.768

This being the occasion of bread batch No.768.

A red letter day in that I started a new bag of flour - Royalty from Wright's of reference 1 - and got to play with the string with which one end of the bag is sewn up; very artisanale. String which I sometimes get through with great ease, just pulling out the key end, sometimes not.

For the first time, I noticed that the string closes the bottom of the bag, while glue closes the top - with the top end probably being a lot easier to open than the bottom end. And maybe you want the extra strength of the string at the bottom when you are lugging the bag about. Notwithstanding, on this occasion I opened the bottom with a knife.

Which proved quite straightforward, yielding the debris snapped above. Plus the blade of the knife in question.

Just before the lid goes down on the first rise of something more than two hours. To be precise, two hours and fifteen minutes on this occasion.

All done, just after 16:30; around six and a half hours start to finish. Not very convenient if you are supposed to be at work. However, the first loaf was very good - both the same day when it had only just cooled and the following morning when a bit more flavour had developed.

In the margins, I noticed the candytuft out front, which has been flowering more or less continuously since about this time last year. Maybe it never stops? I think from a stray seed dropped in by a bird. See reference 2.

And the jelly lichen out back, continuing to do well in the mild, damp weather.

Up close and personal.

PS: the latest offer from Cypress, Texas. Having read so much about the place over the years, it seems rather a pity that I am most unlikely ever to make it there in person.

Sadly, inspection of the archive suggests that 'over the years' is a rather free translation of five years, nothing like as long as I had thought. See reference 3.

References

Reference 1: https://wrightsbaking.co.uk/shop/royalty-flour/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=candytuft.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-puzzle-for-wednesday.html.

Group search key: 20260220.

Ashtead

Last week saw a rare visit to Ashtead, a busy suburban village a little to the south of Epsom which we rarely visit. Even more rarely now that we no longer walk through the Common to Lower Ashtead. But on this occasion we had accumulated a small collection of odd jobs.

First, there was the matter of the freebie reproduction of a painting by one Dod Proctor, noticed at reference 1, which I finally got around to deciding was fit to be hung in the study, which meant a visit to the framer in Ashtead, the one or two we used to have in Epsom having closed.

Next, the matter of our fake gas fire - NuFlame - which had suddenly stopped firing. The one noticed at reference 2. The chap who had sold it to us was still present and correct in Ashtead High Street, and while he was not going to mend it himself, he had the card of someone who would. Work in progress. And we have learned that alien gas fires are not covered by our all singing, all dancing maintenance contract with British Gas. But their engineer was able to offer the very same card! Perhaps it was his brother-in-law or something of that sort.

Next stop lunch, but we were a little early, so we took an apéritif in the Leg of Mutton, a house which we have visited rarely, if ever before. Seemingly specialists in rugby, but their pint was decent enough.

From there to Zia Vitalia of reference 3, a place which we have been meaning to visit for years, being connected with the Ponte's in Ebbisham Square in Epsom ( see reference 5) which we used to use before it morphed into a Picture House - which we have yet to use.

The waiter told us that 'Zia' was aunt, which is confirmed by Webster's Italian section - while 'Vitalia' is missing. However, Bing/Copilot tell me that:

'The name Vitalia is of Italian origin, derived from the Latin word "vitalis," which means "vital" or "life-giving." It signifies a person who is full of life and vitality, often associated with energy and a zest for life. The name reflects a vibrant and dynamic personality, embodying qualities of resilience, determination, and a strong will to succeed'

Auntie Lively sounds quite plausible.

Withycombe allows 'Vitalis', apparently the name of several early saints, Italian, although she does not allow 'Vitalia'. Brought to England by the Normans, but it did not make it through the the subsequent ten centuries. Name of a saint sounds even more plausible.

Gemini has lots to offer, including, in response to a supplementary:

'... The reason Withycombe suggests there are "several" Italian saints of this name—and why they are mostly men—is due to the Roman military. Vitalis was a very popular name for Roman soldiers (meaning "full of life" or "vigorous"). Since many early martyrs were converted soldiers, the list of "St. Vitalis" entries in the Martyrology became quite long, while the female version, Vitalia, remained a rarer civil name during that period...'.

He did not need to be told who Withycombe was in this context.

I don't suppose I shall get around to checking the detail of his response, some of which looks a bit iffy - but not to the point of disturbing the drift of his contribution.

The restaurant carrying the name turned out to be rather bigger inside than might appear from the outside, with our particular corner snapped above.

We both took mushrooms to start and very good they were too. Very lightly looked in a way which we don't seem to be able to manage at home. Were they tinned with with a little flavoured butter poured on top?

We both took calves' liver to follow. BH found the accompanying bacon a little salty, but between the two of us it all went.

Power gravy, but just a dab which was fine. Rather than the small lake of the stuff that you often get if you forget - as I all too often do - to ask for it to be put into a jug on the side.

Wound up with a slice of something described as cheese cake. Not much like a cheese cake which I knew about, but good all the same. Helped along with a little grappa, Earl Grey, etc.

Maybe we will get back there before too long, perhaps when the Proctor is ready.

Wound up with a visit to the butcher adjacent where, to my surprise I was able to buy a Slomer's white pudding. Sold to me by the chap who had been in the butcher's at Manor Green Road, abandoned over discrepancies in the accounts. The same problem as took his predecessor down. See towards the end of reference 6.

We had thought to go to Milner's to see about a slip of carpet for our hallway, but decided that siestas called instead. Chambres separées - which I now know does not mean the same thing in Stockholm as it does in Maigret. See reference 7.

Out again later on in the day to take in an earlier state of the wall noticed in the last post. Proper footings for the new wall. 

The old wall had been taken out with the help of a miniature digger, rather than doing the job properly with sledge hammer, club hammer and cold chisel.

I shall check with OED later. I remember now that 'sledging' in a term for abuse between cricketers - a term which Gemini says was probably invented by the Australians, who take their cricket almost as seriously as sub-continentals.

And, despite the substantial lunch, on to buy a spot of natural smoked haddock from Waitrose with which to knock up some soup with a little left over potato.Very well it did too, with my having managed to get the texture of the potato broth base just right.

Before starting on the potato, the haddock had been lightly cooked in a little butter, cooked enough that I could get the skin off without bother.

PS 1: I associate now from the Proctor nude of reference 1 to Galsworthy's penchant for tragic love stories involving apple trees. Stories which are not so far in time from the painting.

PS 2: Google Images tells me that the painting was done in 1934, so perhaps twenty or thirty years after the stories.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolley-967.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/01/suburban-bliss.html. 

Reference 3: https://ziavitalia.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://legofmuttonandcauliflower.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/epsom-at-play.html. 

Reference 6: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/out-of-order.html.

Reference 7: https://thenordicnomad.com/eat-drink/stockholms-most-spectacular-chambres-separees-and-private-dining-rooms/.

Group search key: 20260219.

Bifanas, Epsom style

Bifanas, which were last noticed at reference 1.

This day started with a circuit to buy some soft rolls from Waitrose, a circuit which included the trolley snapped above, outside the undertaker in Pound Lane. A Wanzl Light 100 from Sainsbury's, containing two rat traps and some bits of old wood. A trolley which had been made in January 2010, so quite old, and last looked at by the Wanzl service team in August 2024. Three of the wheels were probably original, while one, back right, was one of the black plastic wheels used for a while to lock trolleys if you attempted to remove them from Kiln Lane. I think they gave up on that one.

Not captured.

The bifanas were made with some slices of left over pork tenderloin, plus some onions fried in a little butter and seasoned with some carraway seeds. This after the fashion, I am given to understand, of the people of Évora, in the south (of Portugal).

Not bad at all, although I thought the bread was a little too soft and damp. Perhaps a bit more cooking is indicated, at least for these purposes.

A bit later on, a second circuit, during which I was able to inspect the wall going up in front of our local Wellingtonia, No.11 of reference 3, the previous wall having been disturbed by various roots. Looks like a good job is being done, so maybe £20 a brick all in?

Hopefully the Wellingtonia will recover from the damage being done to its roots. No idea how shallow they are. Visible top right in the snap above.

Then a bit later on, coming back down Meadway, towards No.11 as it happens, I was able to inspect the reason for its closure. We have been noticing water coming out of the hill in the winter for years, and had assumed that it was just the lie of the land. Occasionally resulting in unpleasant ice at the bottom of the hill on winter mornings. But clearly Thames Water knew better, as they had dug a substantial hole in the road - full of water on this occasion.

And despite the piece of grass on the top of the hill being called Clay Hill Green, there is clearly chalk just a short way down. I have seen chalk down holes in our roads before, but this was what might be called a confirmed sighting. A lump of the wet chalk was abstracted as evidence.

PS 1: you can buy bricks for around £1 a go, depending on quality, type and the the number you are buying.

PS 2: at the end of reference 4 (about a table lamp) I included a picture of a modern wooden puzzle. The one I had in mind has turned up and is snapped above, with the key piece partially pulled out. I think Chinese, from Singapore, from the naval uncle who was stationed there after the war.

PS 3: Friday morning: I have been irritated for some time by my telephone's habit of turning anything that looks like a time or a date into blue underline - which is rather lost against the black background and which is rather irritating. Looking at settings was no good, but five minutes with Gemini did the trick. Blue underline is now off - blue underline, which, according to Gemini is not a popular feature.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/bifana.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vora.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/wellingtonia-11.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-table-lamp.html.

Group search key: 20260225.

Bury Lodge

For some reason, Bury Lodge of Hambledon popped into mind this morning, for no apparent reason at all. Bury Lodge being the place where we were living at the time of the birth of our first child, with me being on detached duty to what was then OPCS, now ONS, at Titchfield, near Fareham in Hampshire.

To be more precise, in the first floor flat of the East Wing, a sort of late 19th century granny annex to the earlier building. Right in the snap above, with the upper window being that of what we used as our sitting room when it was warm enough. Our six month interlude in the country. Lots of large green finches outside our kitchen window.

Our landlord was a retired Major General, while we were friendly with the gardener and his wife, a retired RMP sergeant major. Not a chap to tangle with outside a pub.

A place which Google knows all about. The nearest we ever came to stately living. See references 1 thru 5.

PS 1: the Strawberry Hill gothic of Bury Lodge can be compared to the Greek revival of The Pro in Dublin, built some thirty years earlier, that is to say around 1820 - the pro-cathedral, now finally promoted to full cathedral, popping up in yesterday's Financial Times, despite the date being just before Christmas.

In the margins, I learn that Dublin's St. Patrick's cathedral has remained in the Anglican fold and is also very much of the time of our own cathedrals, with the building dating back to the 13th century - although a lot of what can be see in the snap above is the result of a mid 19th century make-over.

All very odd. A testament to the tangled history of Ireland. See references 7 thru 10.

PS 2: it occurred to me later that perhaps the Irish church did not want to be saddled with two ancient monuments to look after, but did not like to say so out loud.

References

Reference 1: https://auctionet.com/en/themes/942-six-generations-the-contents-of-bury-lodge-hambledon.

Reference 2: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1095548?section=official-list-entry.

Reference 3: https://www.thefugitiveking.uk/index.php/visit-to-hambledon/. Why on earth would King's Rest Cottage adjacent be more or less derelict in 2022. It certainly wasn't in our day.

Reference 4: https://research.hgt.org.uk/item/bury-lodge/.

Reference 5: https://media.rightmove.co.uk/42k/41066/152537597/41066_WIN012357264_DOC_01_0007.pdf. The source of the snap above.

Reference 6: https://www.army.mod.uk/learn-and-explore/about-the-army/corps-regiments-and-units/adjutant-generals-corps/provost-branch/royal-military-police/.

Reference 7: Dublin gets its first official Catholic cathedral since the Reformation: St Mary’s in a relatively poor part of the Irish capital only had a ‘pro’, or temporary, designation - Shane Harrison, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 8: https://www.stpatrickscathedral.ie/worship/.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Patrick%27s_Cathedral,_Dublin.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Cathedral,_Dublin. The Pro.

Fake 195

We paid a first visit for a while to the big glasshouse at Wisley yesterday. Plenty of plants of interest, but there was also the matter of the ground level paths. At first glance some kind of rough cut red-brown stone, but then one puzzled about it being in sheets, that is to say neatly cut into chunks of around 3 metres square. Which was a bit big for slabs of natural stone.

But the game was actually given away by an accidental crack, snapped above.

Revealing what appeared to be a surprisingly thin concrete screed, which I don't think could have been laid on soil, as might appear here. There must be something a bit more substantial below or it would be cracking all over the place. 

On the other hand, from the way that it has chipped, I would say that this was a hard concrete with a high cement content and a high compressive strength. But in the absence of reinforcing bars, and this concrete looks too thin for that, it would still be quite brittle, apt to break up over voids or soft spots.

A clever bit of trowel work, plus some fancy paint to give the stone effect finish?

PS 1: STOP PRESS: 07:11 Thursday morning: Google Image Search seems to have gone offline, with the usual links being silent. Not even an error message. A very unusual event. Other Google services seem to be up and running. 

PS 2: Readers who are too young to know about stop press can always ask Gemini. I am sure that he would know all about it.

PS 3: Zana from Match is still at it this morning. See reference 2.

A person who does not really exist as 'Zana' does not appear in Withycombe. But I do learn that of the seven names listed under 'Z', six are from the Hebrew and one ('Zoë') from the Greek. The very last name in the book, as it happens, which may account for its popularity. The first is 'Aaron', said to be Egyptian rather than Hebrew.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/fake-194.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/dating.html.

Group search key: fakesk.

Fake 194

A fake picked up in one of the cafés in the gardens at Wisley - with the last fake, as it happens, coming from a visit to Kew, a place we only rarely visit.

Fake in the sense that the tin had never been used to sell olives or olive oil. It had been manufactured as a bit of table décor for the better class of café. Quite possibly made in Warrington, that is to say up north, or somewhere like that.

While before making this post, I was having some trouble with a curious bottle shaped contraptions for catching insects, growing on stalks growing out of the tips of the long, narrow leaves - in the orchid house added to the side of the big greenhouse, just across the way from the café in question. A plant which, for some reason, I did not photograph with my telephone. Perhaps I thought that I had enough snaps already. Perhaps I had been put off by all the other people taking pictures with their telephones!

I start off by asking Bing, but he is fixated on bottles.

Google is not much better.

I then try for images. Still no good.

Time to ask Gemini, who quickly gets to the bottom of the problem: the plant is not an orchid at all, rather a pitcher plant. And he had not been bothered by my forgetting to say that we were in the orchid house.

However, he did spawn a new problem. What sort of pitcher plant was it, from the near 200 available according to reference 2.

More faffing about with Bing, Google and Gemini, with the problem here turning out to be that in the most likely, Nepenthes flava (flava being the Latin for the distinctive yellow that I remembered), the upper pitchers are yellow and plain, while the lower pitchers - this being a climbing plant - were much more complicated in both shape and colouring, and so of more interest to the people who put pictures on the Internet.

He also explains that the pitcher is not a flower, despite its sometimes elaborate appearance. Which would get over the difficulty of a flower bud appearing at the end of a leaf - something which reference 4 suggests should not happen. Leaf buds and flower buds are quite different and do not get mixed up in this sort of way.

Will have to go back to take another look. And maybe not to be so shy about taking a picture.

And maybe we will have an expedition to Hampshire for one of the open days they have a reference 3. Even busier than the orchid house at Wisley?

And while one might fault Gemini's style, he can cope with my queries and on this occasion we more or less got to the bottom of the matter. 

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/11/fake-193.html.

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

Reference 3: https://www.hantsflytrap.com/.

Reference 4: Trees: Their natural history - Peter A. Thomas - 2014.

Group search key: fakesk.

Driving without drivers

[I think this snap, from an online newspaper in the US, is from Houston. Oddly, a lot of the images turned up by Bing on Waymo are copy protected in one way or another - so no caption in this case. No image in others]

In a postscript to reference 1, I mentioned the arrival of Waymo to-be-driverless cars in a postscript. After that, I turned my attention to the claims for substantial benefits of same which appeared in the BBC report about these cars.

‘… The government has estimated that the autonomous vehicle industry could add £42bn to the UK economy by 2035 and create nearly 40,000 new jobs…’.

With the help of Gemini, I quickly ran down two official looking reports about this, some years old now, both of which had been produced by consultants with an interest in the matter, references 2 and 3. Both including a good dollop of images and graphics. The source of the two numbers quoted above.

The story in these two reports seems to be that this is a huge opportunity for the UK, with driverless cars very much playing to our strengths in software engineering. The notes that follow are the result of turning a few pages; I have not made a serious attempt to read them properly – and one sometimes suspects that that is not the objective of reports of this sort. They are intended to look good, not to be read. And you can’t even be sure these days that the people who wrote them have read them!

But one can see why technology companies like Google, who have already made a big investment in mapping and in AI generally, might see autonomous taxis such as Waymo, as an attractive business opportunity. Technology companies with deep pockets.

While the likes of Volkswagen are pushing hard into the assisted driving business, making a start there, before moving into full autonomy.

But it is far from clear to me that all this is going to have a positive effect on employment in the UK as a whole. It is far from clear to me that the UK is going to grab such a big share of the market – either for the cars themselves or for the IT-heavy supporting technology and infrastructure. Just think of all the engineers that they turn out in India – never mind China.

And I dare say this is part of why the industry is making a pitch for government support. Public money to back private initiative – private initiative which may be misplaced.

The first report

This being reference 2.

‘This document sets out government’s response to the Law Commissions’ recommendations and commits to a new legislative framework for safe self-driving road vehicles, based on these recommendations. This new framework will enable innovation whilst also ensuring safety…’. A legal springboard for a glossy – not to say glowing – report.

Where do these people come from: ‘… reinforcing the UK’s place as a global science superpower…’? Mind, they are Conservatives, from the previous government.

The second page of the introduction offers ‘Nine key principles from the Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy’. All worthy stuff and including a plug for cycling, but I don’t suppose these lawyers will bother themselves with reining in the cycle hire companies and their customers. We also get a plug for Brexit, which means that the lawyers get commission on two lots of regulations, rather than just the one. Ours will best, naturally.

The nine principles are followed in short order by three pillars, incorporated into the emerging theory as columns of text.

The box second from the left, top,  prompted the thought that an old lady wanting a taxi to take her home from doing her shopping in town might not be too keen on a taxi without a driver. Perhaps for a suitable supplement she could have one with a talking robot?

What you might think are footnotes are actually endnotes, a lot of which appear to be pointers to more glossy reports. The first two I checked no longer appear to exist, while the third, from the private sector offers an extra ten years: ‘Welcome to the UK Connected and Automated Mobility Roadmap to 2035’. All very whizzy, seemingly designed to be consumed online rather than read. I associate to the rather irritating articles that you get in the FT in the form of whizzy graphics with a bit of text here and there.

The second report

This being reference 3.

Lots of projections dressed up in fancy clothes – but do they amount to much more than a pitch for more government money?

That said, there are a lot more cars about than van, lorries and other large vehicles and the projections suggest that penetration of this technology will be higher in that sector. No doubt the much larger numbers generate a bigger return on investment. And absence of driver is a big saving in the case of a taxi – and also the loss of a job – a loss which it seems unlikely to me will be made up for by a job in the supporting IT industry.

CAV (Connected and Autonomous Vehicle) technology adds a lot of costs, both to the vehicles themselves and the supporting infrastructure. These costs will come down with time and volumes, but they still have to be recouped, and taking out the drivers of taxis is clearly a good place to start. Drivers of delivery vans are not so easy: someone has to actually complete the delivery. Will suppliers really want entry-level staff of buyers poking around in the back of their vans? Residents of sink estates ditto?

And, swerving a bit, do we really want all these extra cars? I thought we were supposed to be going green, spending less of our time and energy rushing about in motor cars, even electrical ones.

The standard

Reference 10 is a standards document, presumably mainly written by automobile engineers, from which I learn of a more or less continuous spectrum running from no driver assistance to full autonomy, neatly broken down into five levels. But one can also learn quite a lot about the relevant driving problems and assistive technology.

From which I associate to the problem of falling asleep at the wheel, the risk of which might be supposed to increase the less there is for the driver to do. With ‘doing’ not including sensing: it might be appropriate for the driver to be very aware, for his senses to be active, but that does not seem to be the same from this point of view; of having something to do, engaging the hands and feet in activity. To my mind there is an awkward area where there is so much assistance that the driver does not have enough to do to stay awake – without the assistance having reached the point of full autonomy. It still needs the driver to be there and to be awake – and having to wake the driver up is not the same.

Our new Polo

Some of this assistive technology is already deployed in our entry-level Volkswagen Polo and automatic gear boxes have been around for a long time, although they have only become common, almost the norm, much more recently.

Radar assisted reversing has also been around for a while and has now trickled down to entry-level. Assistance which can be more irritating than helpful when we are reversing out of our drive. What would be more helpful would be detection of oncoming vehicles in the road as one reversed out, their presently being obscured by the side pillars – but maybe you need vehicle-to-vehicle communication to do that, what the present engineers call connection, as opposed to autonomy.

This technology can control the lights, the effect of which seems to be that lots of cars drive around in bright sunlight with their lights on, which can be irritating for drivers going the other way. It is reasonably good at reading the roadside speed signs. It can sense lane marking, and I suspect it of tampering with the steering on that account. It knows about tyre pressures – and no doubt Gemini could tell me how it does this, in the same way as he could tell me how railway carriage knew how many passengers there were. Some cars, perhaps not this one, attempt to detect the driver falling asleep, even nodding a bit.

Some unemployment background

On 18th February, the Guardian ran two pieces on unemployment in the UK, references 4 and 5. Headline figures being around 5% unemployment for the working population as a whole and around 15% for young people in the 15-24 band – and getting on for half of those at the top of this band have never had a job. Which some think means that they likely never will – which seems a bit hopeless.

I remember that when I was young, if you knew what you were about, you could always get a job of some sort in a day or so. And after that, as a graduate, I think I applied for three jobs, got interviewed for two and took one. While reference 2 reports a young lady who has made hundreds of applications, to which end she has no fewer than four model applications on her computer. Times have changed.

But then, if the number of graduates a year climbed from 50,000 in 1970 (roughly when I graduated) to 350,000 in 2011, perhaps it is unrealistic to expect the number of cushy white collar jobs – or at least suit jobs – to have risen in proportion. I believe they know all about this in places like China and India, both of which are churning out huge numbers of graduates, a lot of them from very good universities.

Perhaps the report detailed in the snap above, lifted from reference 8, will tell us all about it.

Hopefully it will work in the impact of an aging population with its increased demand for health and welfare services – which last have been very dependent on staff from overseas for a long time, starting with the Irish and the Portuguese.

Oddments

I tried to get an update on the number of graduates, but reference 7 was rather heavy going and the telephone number given was into call centre mode. I gave up.

I had to resort to Gemini to find out that ‘JISC’ used to stand for Joint Information Systems Committee, but they dropped that as part of a rebranding exercise. Their best known product is JANET, which stands for Joint Academic NETwork. Which is ‘keeping 20 million users in education and research reliably and securely connected’.

I am reminded that lots of people enjoy driving, they enjoy all that is involved in doing it well – in much the same way as a civil servant might enjoy honing his report or a gardener might enjoy doing a good job of planting and growing his row of cabbages - where good means rather more than getting a decent crop. Or a golfer pulling off a tricky shot. And one part of enjoying driving was enjoying getting the best out of the manual gearbox – and such people were very slow to take to automatics: the same people might be very slow to take to autonomies. 

Getting further into bubbles, the sort of thing that psychiatrists, anthropologists, sociologists and New Age types might go in for, certain types of busy brain might well use such activity, such skilled manual tasks, to assert their autonomy, to assert the control of their brain over other matter. And certain types of busy brain might well such need such activity, not least to keep boredom and bad thoughts at bay. Bubbles maybe, but also important. 

And some might argue that our societies are already paying the psychological price of the loss of so much skilled manual work. Perhaps involving the sort of carpentry plane noticed at reference 11. Concerning which, I now remember than planning a door down to the right size was called ‘shooting a door’. I don’t know where this phrase comes from – but maybe Gemini does.

A pretty good effort! And I remember watching an apprentice carpenter use an old penny for this very purpose, in a tower block in Abbey Road in north London. The one subsequently made famous by the Beatles.

Conclusions

An interesting business which is coming on at pace. But it remains far from clear to me that it all amounts to a good thing. 

So can we trust our government to carry out appropriate due diligence before letting these things out on the streets – rather as they did with the infestation of hire cycles and power assisted cycles? Or are they in thrall to big business, dazzled by the froth (and the goodies) of the marketing men.

The same trap as some think they fell into with HS2? Or with our second aircraft carrier, the one without any aircraft?

PS: from where I associate to the Channel Tunnel which ran into trouble with its funding. Who ended up paying for it? Are they still paying, or can the tunnel now be said to be showing a profit? For some interested party or for UK and France, the countries with the most interest in the tunnel?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/to-cheese.html. 

Reference 2: Connected & Automated Mobility 2025: Realising the benefits of self-driving vehicles in the UK - presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy by Command of Her Majesty August 2022 – 2022. CP719. 142 pages.

Reference 3: Connected Places Catapult: Market Summary for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles – Element Energy, Cambridge Econometrics and Connected Places Catapult on behalf of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles – undated but probably 2020. 82 pages.

Reference 4: Unemployment rate hits five-year high of 5.2% as wage growth cools – Tom Knowles, Guardian – 2026.

Reference 5: ‘It gets a litte bit soul crushing’: Young people face bleak outlook as youth unemployment rises – Tom Knowles, Nicola Slawson, Guardian – 2026. 

Reference 6: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04252/SN04252.pdf. Education: Historical statistics – Paul Bolton, House of Commons Library – 2012.

Reference 7: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/. The Higher Education Statistics Agency, part of JISC below.

Reference 8: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/. 

Reference 9: https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/young-people-and-work-report-call-for-evidence/young-people-and-work-report-call-for-evidence. 

Reference 10: https://www.sae.org/standards/j3016_202104-taxonomy-definitions-terms-related-driving-automation-systems-road-motor-vehicles.

Reference 11: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-challenge.html. 

Dating

I have suddenly started receiving emails from something called 'match', which so far I have archived unseen.

But this afternoon, curious, I asked Wikipedia who they might be and it seems quite likely that they come from one of the dating apps operated by the people at reference 2. A big business, taking an income of 0.5 billion USD from revenue of 3.5 billion. Why so little? Does it really cost that much to build a few apps and run a server farm? Maybe I have misread the figures offered by Wikipedia.

The income figure at reference 3 is rather different, so maybe I shall have a talk with an accounting correspondent, who should understand this kind of thing. Is the average user really stumping up $200? In the same league as online betting sites?

Also a business that make a lot of noise about how much effort they put into the safety of the users of their apps - so one can only suppose that one needs to be careful if one is using them.

No idea what I might have done to attract their attention, but if the volume picks up, maybe I am going to have to put my geek hat on for a bit and find out how to stop them appearing in my inbox.

PS: the image at the top of the post is one of the love stories featured at reference 2. Josephine and Sidney. Aka Jo and Sid. 

According to reference 4, Josephine is a feminised version of Joseph, made popular by the first wife of Napoleon I. While Sidney, originally a French family name derived by contraction from St. Denis, was made popular as a given name in 18th century England by the Whig idolisation of one Algernon Sidney, a distant relative of the Sir Philip Sidney whom we learned about at school for giving his water bottle to a fellow soldier on the field of battle. See reference 5.

References

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

Reference 2: https://mtch.com/.

Reference 3: https://s203.q4cdn.com/993464185/files/doc_presentations/2024/12/MG_Investor_Day_2024.pdf.

Reference 4: Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names – Withycombe, E.G – 1963.

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

Clay Oven

A week ago, back to Denham Grove to inspect the aftermath of their St. Valentine's Day bash. Which we were told was very busy, probably including pod action outside. With food by Clay Oven of reference 2. Amongst other things, they also do rather grand weddings, with one of their wedding rooms, in some grand hotel, being snapped above.

It was my first serious drive for a while, so I thought it prudent to take the country route, spending a fair bit of the journey on the A312. Lots of big interchanges, but easy enough to get straight over, and without the stress of thundering along a busy four or five lane carriageway.

Something of a blockage at Sunbury for Thames Water works. It was probably a coincidence that the Thames, just to the side of our road for a bit, was looking very full. Presumably the houses along the banks, despite being very big and expensive, can also be a bit cold and damp in the winter.

Some unnecessary honking, one very aggressive. Perhaps a young man with a hangover. 

Three low flying aeroplanes coming in as we passed to the east of Heathrow, one startlingly so. A new version of the aeroplane game: how many aeroplanes does one spot coming in as one passes the airport. Does it make  difference whether one passes it to the east or the west? Haven't clocked up a decent score on the regular aeroplane game for a while now.

We managed to get to our hotel without taking a wrong turning and without it coming on to rain, which was nice. As was our room, even if the bar area had not quite recovered from Valentine's, the menu for which is snapped above. Not the sort of thing one would expect in the Marquis at all. We wondered what they did at Cappadocia, being the sort of place that would be doing something - Saturday night too.

The middle portion enlarged, just in case the first snap is not legible, even when clicked.

The restaurant was quite busy, including, for the first time when we have been there, several parties going for pod life outside - pods which we supposed were installed during the plague but which have proved popular enough to stay on. Not sure that it is worth to us what I imagine to be the considerable premium. Snapped above from reference 3.

One of the couples going for a pod included a stunning black girl, stunning both in herself and in her turnout. Perhaps a model, or even a starlet from the nearby Pinewood Studios of reference 5. I thought that the chap with her looked a bit scruffy, but BH explained that it was actually high-end smart-casual.

Back in our part of the restaurant, I kicked off with a couple of ground meat patties. Presentation excellent as ever, including a green-speckled white dip which I forget to include in the snap above. Well made, but not quite to my taste. The meat had been ground rather fine, was a little dry and was very hot - by my standards at least.

I did much better with my main sauce: a ragan josh with bread - which last they do very well here. A dish which I have made a few times myself, once using goat procured from somewhere in Balham or Tooting. Here with a substantial lamb shank. A fine meal; a variation on hot meat sandwiches. BH settled for the more European escalope - which she was very pleased with too.

After all of which we settled for an early night, having remembered on this occasion to turn off the heating in the room.

In the morning, I took time to admire the simple pattern in the carpet, made visually interesting by its ambiguity. Very successfully to my mind.

Better class of fruit salad that one often gets in hotel breakfast bars.

And despite the large meal of the night before, I was still good for a couple of sausage sandwiches - but I avoided the white sour dough, opting for factory brown instead. Soft bread best for sausage sandwiches - never mind the sour business.

Winding up with a couple of quite good oranges, remarkable for the number of pips. While the oranges we get at Epsom seem to have very few, if any, pips. Ditto grapes.

As it happens, I read only yesterday at reference 6 that seedless grapes, pink grapefruit and navel oranges all arise from something called branch or bud sports - as opposed to seed sports. in which connection, I have yet to work out why navel oranges are so popular, considering that a significant fraction of the edible fruit is displaced by the navel. I think that they are more or less seedless, so maybe the point is that the punters don't like seeds, having to spit them out somewhere.

This was followed by quite a long piece on leylandii, a hybrid rather than a sport, dating from 1888 in a garden in Wales. A cross you don't get in the wild as the natural ranges of the two species involved are too far apart (on the western seaboard of North America).

On return, I decided that I was good for the motorway, but I was not impressed by the signage at junction 1, right in the snap above. Managed to take the wrong exit - but as luck would have it I was able to do a U-turn at the empty start of the A412 and get back onto the right road. Traffic violation, I dare say.

Two tweets: first a kite, seemingly common in these parts, and second a small murmuration of starlings over a field.

Three aeroplanes as we crossed the line of the take-off runway. It finally dawning on me that aeroplanes land on a flat trajectory but take off on a steep one. With the result that large sightings are much more common to the east than to the west.

Lots of hopping from lane to lane, but it made a change from having to take care at all the junctions on the country route. And we avoided the water works at Sunbury, mentioned above.

PS 1: rather to my surprise, reference 4 is the best I can do today on the goat front. I had thought there would be more, including the handy band saw behind the counter used for cutting it up.

PS 2: when we passed Pinewood Studios a few visits ago, I got the impression that chunks of what had been studio had been sold off or let out for other purposes. The footprint was not what it had been in its glory days.

PS 3: the return to plain, home cooking included mince with rice. Tarted up with a little stewed celery, most recently taken just about a month ago at reference 7. A good way of dealing with celery which might be getting a little tired - it not lasting all that well in our kitchen, a good deal warmer than the garage, if a good deal colder than the rest of the house, new back door notwithstanding.

Butter, onions, celery, an odd tomato for colour and, right at the end, a sliced carrot for a bit more colour and a change of texture. Under an hour start to finish. Little, if any, water.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/denham-grove.html. Our last visit, just about a month previously.

Reference 2: https://theclayoven.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://denhamgrove.com/.

Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=goat+ragan.

Reference 5: https://pinewoodgroup.com/pinewood-studios/.

Reference 6: Trees: Their natural history - Peter A. Thomas - 2014.

Reference 7: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/test-02.html.