Charity

A day which started with a trip to Waitrose for some kippers.

Or, to be more precise with a failure to register. The new wall around the base of our local Wellingtonia, previously noticed, was near complete. Now completion did not involve coping stones along the time, but despite passing the wall several times a week since, I cannot say how it was finished off. Neat looking piece of work though.

Then another memory failure at the Ashley Centre. The sign at the entrance has been changed without my having noticed. Evidence that it has changed to be found at reference 1 - from the end of 2024. 

I have noticed before, when I was much younger, that I have great trouble saying what a shop was before, once it has gone. The shop might have been there for years, I might have passed it many times, but once it goes I rarely remember what it was. Or even that anything has changed at all. I think I decided that such things only sank in if one was in the habit of actually using the shop in question.

Another garden wall on the return leg. Not clear how this could have happened. All we could think of was some delivery lorry, perhaps for the near opposite building site, turning around and missing its turn.

The haul. The loaf from Waitrose, described as a boule (not sour dough) was pretty good the day it was bought, but it went off very fast once it was cut - although it did well enough with cheese and onion. What was left of the 'rustic' from Borough visible left. That stood much better, well cut though it was.

Later on we had occasion to drive past the site that used to be the Organ Inn, long demolished. A place I used to use occasionally, back in the day. Not to any great extent, as I would have cycled there.

The current story, as reported at reference 2 quoted below, is that it is going to be a care home. A development which is owned by a company which, by the looks of it, was set up for this very purpose, for this very development, and which is called '65 London Road', possibly the one-time address of the Organ Inn:

'A derelict site in Ewell is to become a 70-bed care home. The Organ Inn was known to any one of Epsom and Ewell driving to London. Situated prominently on the Ewell-By-Pass at the London Road junction. It last functioned as Jim Thompson's with Thai Cuisine and was also known as The Organ and Dragon. The building was demolished and the ground left derelict for years. Thursday 6th October Epsom and Ewell Borough Council’s Planning Committee granted full permission for the construction of a 70-room retirement care home of four storeys and a basement...'.

A shell company, No.12246587, owned by a shell charity No.286232, Sparquote, aka company No.01674021, a charity which exists to make grants to other outfits. For purposes seemingly unspecified. At least two chaps called Reichmann seem to have passed through the books, a name I associate with a big bankruptcy at Canary Wharf. A name which once appeared briefly on a hoarding around the corner site now being developed at the top of Kiln Lane.

Depressing that people see fit to make things so complicated and so opaque. Why can't they just say that they are in the business of developing middle sized care homes and get on with it? One can only suppose that they are up to something a touch tricky.

PS 1: it so happens that this very day I learn that the local slang name for the pub used to be 'the musical p####'. A sobriquet I had never come across before. And anyway 'the p#### musique' has a bit more class about it.

PS 2: whatever happened to Jim Thompson's? There used to be a few of them, as I recall. Named for a famous establishment in Bangkok or somewhere like that? Gemini will no doubt know.

PS 3: in the event, he had a good go and I dare say his story about the UK end of the brand is near enough.

He then went a bit haywire on the Epsom connection. 

But at least he was gracious enough about the location mistake when I pointed it out - although, even then, he managed to move a care home being built to one having been built. Perhaps he was having an off-day. Or perhaps he just gets a bit tired early evening - it being around 19:30 - when he has lots of customers from Europe asking silly questions?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/fake-185.html.

Reference 2: https://epsomandewelltimes.com/blot-on-the-landscape-ewell-care-home-inked-in.

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

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