Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Second outing

A second outing, late afternoon, after the bread came out of the oven around 16:00, having taken around six and a half hours elapsed time. Batch No.769.

In Manor Green Road, a first sighting of celandine flowers this year, although I have been spotting the leaves pushing through for a few days now.

In town, I captured a TMS Cricklade trolley, an A181 from B&M. Seventy quid or so from the people themselves at reference 1 - where the A181 is very like, if not quite identical, to the one above. Presumably the engine underneath their website can make some use of the gibberish at reference 2, supplied by Google search.

Next thought was that 180kg - from the A181 above - around the weight of two adult men - was a lot of weight to put through the bearing just to the right of the label in the snap above. But then I thought of ladders, where the bearings of the treads were of quite modest dimensions. Never mind a cheap pair of aluminum steps where the weight might be taken by a couple of screws at each end of the treads.

Onto the library, to take out a couple of Lemaitre thrillers, suggested by a correspondent as a change from our diet of Maigret, for BH to try: they had half a dozen or more to choose from. We shall see how she gets on - or not. 

While I have a boxed set of three, in French, coming from a German outfit called medimops, connected to me by Abebooks. Oddly, Abebooks, even their French site, was much stronger on English language editions than French language editions. So either the French don't do second hand much - which was the impression I get when we visited Paris back in 2007 - or they don't do Lemaitre. But that was near twenty years ago. See references 3, 4 and 5.

I also picked up a copy of the paperback at reference 6. written by a former general whom I have come across before, in the first instance remaindered in a bookshop in Taunton, as noticed in 2008 at reference 7. I have never got such a good bargain from the Works since, despite having a branch here at Epsom. While this book was 20p, for which they trusted me, as I had no coin. Paid back, with interest this morning.

So far, my impression is that Spunner has been a bit 'free translation' on the early history of Berlin. But I have learned that it was originally another twin city, like Budapest, with one town on each side of a river. Except that in this case the second town Cöln, has only survived as the name of a district, Neukölln, not as part of the name of the place as a whole.

[Berlin Dance of Death, unfinished 3D reconstruction]

There is also the Totentanz, aka the dance of death, a theme which Germans seem to have been fond of. Snapped above and to be found at references 8 and 9. Complete with improving text below. Very contrasting images are to be found at reference 8.

For an English take on the theme, I dare say from around the same time, see reference 10.

Home to a large, pale moon rising to the north east. No sign of the recently advertised line of planets, seven of them as I recall, although I think you needed a telescope to get Mercury. Much brighter and higher half an hour later.

However, the snap above suggests that I was looking in the wrong direction and that I needed to have a good horizon. So failed on two counts.

While I was not sure how to read this one at all. The sun is the yellow splodge above where it says Mercury?

PS 1: Microsoft brings me news of the partial collapse of Brewdog at reference 11. Will their flashy new bar at Waterloo Sidings survive?

PS 2: Zara from Match is still going strong.

PS 3: it took the power of Gemini to track Chaldon down. Google and Bing failed me.

PS 4: Spunner gets twelve mentions in the archive, which presently runs until January.

References

Reference 1: https://trolleysupermarket.co.uk/product/181-litre-shopper-new/.

Reference 2: https://trolleysupermarket.co.uk/product/181-litre-shopper-new/?attribute_handle=Blue&attribute_ears=Green&attribute_seat=Red&utm_source=Google%20Shopping&utm_campaign=Trolley%20Supermarket%20Products&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=adtribes&srsltid=AfmBOorIBffryhymsL4IJor4o5TJeoRBPXCRbQtcez--WsuSUuZ-QNys5Zc.

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

Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2007/10/paris-15e-concluded.html.

Reference 5: https://www.medimops.de/.

Reference 6: Berlin - Barney White-Spunner - 2020.

Reference 7: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=spunner.

Reference 8: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienkirche_(Berlin-Mitte).

Reference 9: https://marienkirche-berlin.de/totentanz-in-der-st-marienkirche-berlin-am-alexanderplatz/.

Reference 10: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/05/chaldon.html.

Reference 11: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/brewdog-sold-to-us-firm-for-33m-with-38-bars-to-close-484-jobs-lost/ar-AA1XnfAX.

Group search key: 20260302.

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