The missing tree of Meadway

This post is about a conversation I had with Google Images and his AI assistant, a conversation which took place when I was not logged in. Which may well have affected how much effort Google put into the conversation.

It was triggered by a dug-over patch appearing on a verge adjacent to the roundabout where Meadway crosses West Hill Avenue, snapped above, where BH thought that there had been a mature oak tree, a cause for concern for the occupant of the house behind.

I had no recollection of the tree in question, despite the fact that I usually pass the spot several times a week. Twice a day when I was still working, but that was twenty years ago.

The conversation was very like one with a human. That is to say rather disorganised and quite a few wrong turnings and mistakes.

Also like a television detective drama – say Morse – in which the detective concocts a plausible story around the few facts at his disposal. And sometimes the facts are not facts at all and he has to concoct a new story.

Long summary of the conversation

The conversation with Google Images and his AI assistant (G). It started on the morning of Tuesday, 28th July. In what follows, my inputs are normal text, while Googles replies are summarised as indents.

Round one

[A winter snap of the tree, lifted from Street View, without leaves. Such images are much lower resolution that those which come straight from my telephone, but still look clear enough to the naked eye. A cropped version of the snap above].

A road side tree near Clay Hill Green in Epsom. Said to be an oak but it does not look much like an oak to me.

• G offers three reasons why the tree look more like an ash than an oak

• He says that there are a lot of oak trees in Epsom, but there are plenty of others too. And this one is an ash.

Since the camera-man went by, the tree has been felled. If it was an ash tree, might this have been one of the two ash diseases which I believe are on their way?

• G tells me all about ash dieback (now) and emerald ash borer (to come)

• Epsom & Ewell Council know all about ash dieback

The tree does not appear on the map of ash trees - which looks as if someone has tried to enumerate every ash tree in the borough - in the appendix to the action plan. But I imagine there are going to be gaps in such an enumeration.

• G gives me various good reasons why this might be. One being that Epsom Borough does not do road-side trees, which are mostly a Surrey matter

I have my own ash tree, maybe thirty five years old with a fair bit of dead wood in its lower parts. But last time I sent a picture to the Forestry Commission, they said no problem. I shall take another, more careful look. 

• A digression. G gives various tips on diagnosing ash dieback.

How do I save this conversation for future reference? Copy and paste?

• Cut and paste is the way to do it. While Gemini, at least when you are paying, keeps the history for you. At least most of the time

Round two, a bit later in the afternoon

As it happens, from a different viewpoint, Street View offers a different, much more recent image, with leaves, and with no dead wood visible. Can I upload that without you losing the thread?

• Yes

The new image, dated October 2022. The first one was dated March 2018. 

• G changes tack with the new leafy image, a cropped version of that above. The tree is now an oak after all, specifically Quercus robur. This despite the leaves not being resolvable in the image from Street View. Low resolution compared, for example, with my telephone

• He goes on to put the now-missing tree on the edge of Clay Hill Green and the proposed Allonby development there

This is the sort of thing that the Epsom Civic Society would have taken an interest in. I have had a quick look, without success. Are you able to 'read' their website? 

• G says that he can, and goes on to tell me about their activities. With this particular tree being covered as part of their response to Allonby

This tree is on the roundabout at the junction of Meadway and West Hill Avenue. I think the development you are talking about was a bit further to the south, adjacent to Clay Hill Green itself, complete with listed wall.

• G says that this makes it a Surrey matter and is probably all mixed up with damage to utilities. In which case, the tree can be cut down with much less bother

• He points the Civic Society being concerned about the loss of roadside trees in this area

Round three, a bit later still in the afternoon

Going back to Allonby, following the link you gave, I read that the council rejected the application for development in January 2022. And I have yet to see any sign of action at the site. Just a bit of wall which fell down and has not yet been reinstated.

• G acknowledges his error, without attempting to explain how he came to make it. He then picks up on heritage walls

I am not that keen on preserving old walls. The council should have more important things to do with its money - and with ours!

• G is a happy to go along with anti-wall too!

THE END

Short summary of the conversation

During round one, G locks onto his identification of the tree as an ash tree. He is quite good on on ash dieback in general and on the Council’s response in particular.

At the start of round two, he switches to a specific species of oak.

I did not ask, but he does not comment on how you can sometimes get quite different views of the same thing in Street View. Although I can see that checking with Street View without a more precise location might have been difficult. 

But he does lock onto the Allonby development a little way down the road. When I point out his error, his changes tack without offering any explanation of how he came to make the error.

In the snap above, the tree can be seen to the right of the upper spot. The development was to be under the lower spot. 

 In this context, gmaps was much more useful than OS. Maybe they do satellite view too, but I have not found it.

In round three, I point out his error about the status of this development. He can put his hand on the relevant document and goes on to pick up on my throwaway about heritage walls. Again, without offering any explanation.

The parable of the countryman

I vaguely remember my father, who was brought up in the country between Huntingdon and St. Ives, telling me that a countryman could identify a tree, say an isolated hedgerow tree on the other side of the field, by its general shape and appearance. No need to inspect the leaves, let alone the buds, fruits or flowers, or for any of that fancy stuff that botanists go in for.

It occurs to me now that his countryman might not be so much cleverer than Google Images after all.

First, the countryman probably worked on a farm and probably knew all the trees on and around his farm. The general shape and appearance of the tree, winter or summer, was a help, an aide-memoire, but he could pull up the identification from a catalogue in his memory.

And yes, his brain had digested all this information and would have a stab at a strange tree, a very confident sounding stab. But how often would you actually check him? How often would this be convenient or possible? Maybe he actually got it wrong quite often.

So maybe, the botanists are right. You cannot be sure of a tree’s genus – never mind – species from its general appearance from a distance, any more than you can be sure of its age from its girth, let alone its height. These inputs just do not tell one enough about the tree’s unique life history. 

On a quick glance, for example, one is quite likely to call a pollard oak by a river a willow. Pollard willows being a conspicuous feature of the riverine landscape, certainly in Huntingdonshire.

Photographical aside: not much dead looking wood in the winter snap, which one might expect in a diseased ash. While in the summer snap, the tree looks rather bigger – and perfectly healthy. To be fair, it is also four years older.

Botanical aside, turned up by Bing: ‘Oaks are in the genus Quercus which is in the Beech family. There are more than 600 species worldwide. There are two native oaks in Britain, the English Oak and the Sessile Oak. Three more oaks are shown here but there are many more species in parks, urban settings or botanical gardens in Britain. These five species show many of the key characteristics of the oak genus. Oak tree identification – English, Sessile, Turkey have lobed leaves, Holm and Cork have evergreen leaves, all 5 have male catkins and acorns’.

Conclusions

G makes a positive error in his identification of the leafless tree. He is equally positive about the leafy tree. I have not done the necessary work to confirm his second attempt – although I dare it was an oak, if not necessarily the specific species suggested.

He jumps to conclusions about the location of the tree.

He gets the planning status of the Allonby development wrong, despite the right answer being readily available to him.

He was good on the working of the ash diseases, the Civic Society and the Councils. Matters which could be well dealt with in words, without needing to get into the tricky interactions between words and pictures.

Maybe he would have done better had I been logged in. But one of his lesser efforts, nonetheless.

PS: by way of contrast, he was able to put me right without fuss on working on two documents at once in Word today.

References

Reference 1: https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/land-planning-and-development/interactive-map. A clever map, but I did not find it helpful in this context.

Reference 2: https://www.treeguideuk.co.uk/oaks/. Helpful on distinguishing the various oaks commonly found in England.

Reference 3: https://www.epsom-ewell.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/residents/access-nature/trees-epsom-ewell/Ash%20Dieback%20Action%20Plan%202023%20%2B%20Map.pdf. Council on ash.

Group search key: aisk.

Thérèse

I have been reading the English version of Mauriac's four Thérèse stories, references 1 thru 4. The original prompt for this being coming across an adaptation of the first story on Prime Video (or was it BBC iPlayer?) last year, shortly before my excursion to west London. I may have another go at the French version in due course.

Previous notice having been given at references 7 and 8.

The stories are about the life and times of an unsuccessful lady poisoner, let off in the first instance, but who goes on to lead a messy life haunted by her crime. So the immediate prompt, arising from the second or the third of the four stories, was thinking about confessions, a subject which was clearly of interest to Mauriac, a devout Catholic. With the thought being that if one has had a sinful life and seek absolution through confession, what happens in the likely event of your forgetting some of your sins, not getting them onto the balance sheet, not getting them taken into account, in the jargon of our criminal justice  system?

Part of Copilot's unsolicited effort on the search term 'absolution for sins' is shown above.

Now suppose that I have committed seven crimes and I only confess to six of them. For one reason or another I cannot bring myself to confess the seventh.

I make a seemingly sincere and contrite confession of the six, and the priest grants absolution. Absolution, as it were, in the eyes of the world - Criminal Justice System aside. But God knows that I have, knowingly, not confessed all. This renders the sacrament null and void as far as he is concerned. I will still present at the Pearly Gates carrying the full burden of my seven sins.

Next suppose that I had just forgotten about the seventh; it was all a long time ago and it just got lost in the mists, possibly substance filled mists. Maybe God would make allowances.

Next suppose that I had failed to pay a parking fine during the same period that I committed my seven crimes. I had got off, but I had also confessed shortly afterwards. Does this break the rule that a confession covers all the sins since I last confessed. I can't bundle them up into packages to suit me and deal with them one at a time, perhaps going to a different priest on each occasion.

I suppose a psycho-analyst would take it all in his stride, the whole performance is part of the therapeutic process. And I suppose that most of them are atheists and so can, in large part, leave the Lord out of their ruminations. That said, I also believe it to be true that Freudian confessions were an easy step to make from Catholic ones. Harder for us Prots who are not brought up to that sort of thing.

The ramifications and complications seem to be without end. Maybe this is part of why to be a Catholic priest, you have to spend quality time at the seminary. Maybe attend lectures by learned Jesuits.

Something to ponder on on my morning rambles. At least so one might think, but I find, at least presently, that I do not ponder in a connected way when rambling. I might have the odd bright idea, the odd spark of inspiration, but most of the time I am not 'thinking' at all, certainly not in a way that could be put into words. Think Hurlburt, finding whom is left as an exercise for the reader.

PS 1: with thanks to eBay France for the illustration at the head of this post.

PS 2: given that I am an atheist for whom being forgiven by our Lord is a non-runner, I associated to the dancing angels which came up recently at reference 11. But I think that there is more to the matter than that. Confession to a priest is one thing, but confession in general is probably a good thing and if properly managed therapeutic for all concerned; for the criminal, his (in this case her) victims and their nearest and dearest.

References

Reference 1: Thérèse Desqueyroux - François Mauriac - 1927.

Reference 2: Thérèse chez le docteur- François Mauriac - 1933.

Reference 3: Thérèse à l'hȏtel- François Mauriac - 1933.

Reference 4: La fin de la nuit - François Mauriac - 1935.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Mauriac. François Mauriac.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Desqueyroux_(novel). Thérèse Desqueyroux.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/french-affairs.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/11/survival.html.

Reference 9: Oeuvres Romanesques – François Mauriac, Flammarion – 1965. Two fat volumes. Copy No.1920.

Reference 10: Thérèse – François Mauriac, Gerard Hopkins, Penguin – 1972. The four Thérèse stories.

Reference 11: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/more-davidson.html.

Dorking Road

My second circuit on return from the other island was a stroll up to Dorking Road and back, reasonably early in the morning and heat was not a big problem.

I could tell I was getting warm, as a few of the tabs they use when taking a cardiogram were to be found on the pavement, snapped above. Just the thing for small people to use to play at doctors, nurses and hospitals.

On the way back, I found that the bank fall, previously noticed at reference 3, was now home to some quite decent blackberries.

More of them, outside Epsom Autos.

Picking up two more washers for my collection along the way. I have still not solved the stink problem in the washer pot. Maybe I need to give them a good wash. Maybe, even, some sort of household hygiene chemical.

The rest of the day was given over to the compost bin, previously noticed. As was the good condition of the Carex pendula, snapped above. It seems to manage better than the grass, lower right, despite my notion that it is a sort of sedge which is quite keen on water too.

At reference 4, Wikipedia confirms sedge and adds: 'it occurs in woodland, scrubland, hedges and beside streams, preferring damp, heavy clay soils'.  Clay we can do, and damp we can do in the spring: maybe that is enough. 

That evening the matter of Mayonnaise vs. Salad Cream came up again. I use salad cream in chopped eggs, tuna fish and things of that sort, never in dollops on lettuce. While I do not care for mayonnaise at all. My attitude (for which see reference 5) is clear enough, but the reason why is not. Perhaps attitudes are accessible, robust cerebral structures, while the facts and events which drove those attitudes in the first place are further down, perhaps lost. From where I associate to the convenience of teaching a child that X is bad and Y is good, without having to bother about the reason why. The good and bad attributes stick, and that is good enough.

Curiously, given that I do not care for vinegar in many of the contexts in which it is used, the answer seems to be that salad cream is mainly vinegar, while mayonnaise is mainly oil, with dollops of egg and sugar. A much more unhealthy food.

Littré has the origin of the word 'mayonnaise' uncertain. OED just says the word is French of uncertain origin, although he does add that it arrived in this country in the mid 19th century. But I want more and go on to dig deeper.

Reference 6. Mayonnaise appears at No.3 in the section on sauces. Very much the ingredients above, but with the warning that mixing the stuff by hand is quite tricky. A warning with BH confirms, although I have no idea when she might have made the stuff. Not on my watch!

I failed to find anything like salad cream. Perhaps because the book is not strong on green salads made with lettuce. At least, I failed to find them.

Aside, Gemini explains that 'Mariette' is the name given to a series of food columnists writing for a popular women's magazine, the 'parent publication, the famous women's magazine Le Petit Écho de la Mode'. All part of a successful branding operation. A story which fits well enough with a quick peek at reference 7.

Reference 9. A whole chapter on salad dressings, with French dressings and Mayonnaises both prominent. Lots of variations. The French dressings contain vinegar as well as oil, but not as much oil as our Salad Cream. While the Mayonnaises are variations on the Sainsbury's theme.

There are also some salad creams - but these involve milk or cream and rather less vinegar. Maybe the ancestor of the stuff invented by Heinz?

Gemini explains all. The Anglos first moved from mayonnaise to boiled dressings and from there to the bottled, factory product that I go for. I associate to all those people who prefer Bird's Custard to the real thing. And all those who have no idea what the real thing is... I suppose that bottled mayonnaise came later, when food science had moved on a bit.

And I have learned the Heinz arrived in this country, at Fortum & Mason, before the start of the First War. While I had thought that they were a more or less exclusively US operation until much more recently.

Reference 10. I found salad dressings near the end of the section on cold dishes and appetizers. Starting with mayonnaise and ending with vinegar and oil dressing - this last very much the sort of thing that a former correspondent used to put on his green salads. Too vinegary for me. Some cold sauces involving dairy. But nothing much like our salad cream, perhaps because that is a factory product, designed to mimic  something else.

Maybe it will stick now.

PS 1: earlier in the month, at reference 1, I noticed signs of the builder's yard on Station Approach being dismantled. At that time, I thought it might have been there twenty years. But then, yesterday afternoon, in the margins of something else, I came across reference 2, from which I learn that it has been there about five years. So there.

Checking this morning, I find that it has all gone. And the site has cleaned up pretty well after five years' wear and tear.

PS 2: I decided not to investigate what this advertisement, which turned up in my email, is all about.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/wigmore-last.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/art-from-more-than-one-country.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-end-of-month.html. A post that took some finding, not least because I was not quite sure in which volume of the archive to look. Eventually turned up on the key 'timber'.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carex_pendula.

Reference 5: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/more-davidson.html.

Reference 6: La cuisine familiale - Mariette, Montsouris - 1923, 1969.

Reference 7: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Petit_%C3%89cho_de_la_mode.

Reference 8: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2016/01/truffes.html. Previous notice, with picture, from way back.

Reference 9: The Boston Cooking School cook book - Fannie Merritt Farmer - 1896, 1931.

Reference 10: Book of tasty and healthy food - Ministry of the Food Industry, USSR - 1939, 2012.

Group search key: 20260720.

Adgestone

As trailed at reference 1, we paid the vineyard to be found at reference 2 a visit in the course of our second week on the Isle of Wight. One of our very few visits to a visitor attraction of the holiday.

OS shows that the vineyard is near the bottom of Brading Down, on a south facing slope. While gmaps suggests that it was once just one large field, with the modest winery buildings bottom centre. Very artisanal, much more so than our own Denbies, of reference 3 - which last gets just the occasional visit - it being more use to us as a pit-stop than as a wine-shop. But they share a desire to attract paying guests.

The view from the car park, with cows. I suppose cows can make something of dried out stubble, but I don't suppose that it is much.

One of their contributions to a local carnival. Someone must have put a fair amount of work into them, one supposes a someone with ready access to the necessary materials and tools. Would get a bit expensive otherwise.

At the check-in we were greeted by a very personable young lady, perhaps a daughter of the house, who seemed to be something of a jack-of-all-trades front of house. All very friendly and relaxed.

A type of bar stool which I first came across in Great Windmill Street, at which I used, a long time ago, to take an occasional Jamaican cigar of a lunch-time.

And so onto the grapes. BH was fortified with a little audio guide which played into ear plugs. Which, as I recall, worked well on top of the ear pieces of her hearing aids. About the size of a telephone, only rather fatter.

The echium enclosure. Not in the same league as the ones at Ventnor, but probably on the way. See, for example, reference 4. For the plant, which only lives for two or three years, despite its woody trunk and size - these specimens being much smaller than the ones at Ventnor - see reference 8.

The arrangements for getting tension in the line wires. I wondered how deep the peg lower left, underneath the bit of blue pipe, was driven. Did it have a corkscrew thread? No-one about to ask.

A spider's nest with blackberries, yet to ripen. I think the spider was at home, but I can't find him in the snap this afternoon. 

Google Images suggests that there may have been two spiders at this point, with the male expiring or being expelled before eggs start to appear late summer. Ought to be easy enough to check.

No doubt about there being chalk here. I failed, once again, to find any pyramid orchids. Previous failures yet to be noticed.

Looking south east from the top of the field. A thoughtfully placed bench in the shade.

A grape pickers' box stash. Hidden away, a bit out of the plastic-rotting sun?

A bit of expensive looking boundary fencing. We were told protection against rabbits and foxes, rather than deer.

Google Images says common chicory (aka Cichorium intybus). Which pretty much agrees with what I find in Wikipedia at reference 5, particularly in the helpful botanical drawing. I think I see the hairy stems and Google Images is not bothered by the absence of the larger toothed leaves, which he says are buried, withered or died away.

I think he is right, but it is a pity that I did not manage a better snap for identification purposes.

The visit closed with an unsupervised visit to the vats and bottles in the cellar: I can't imagine such a thing happening in Denbies, or, for that matter, in the Neal's Yard Dairy cheese room underneath the arches at Bermondsey.

The wire cages must be stronger than they look, carrying, as they do, considerable weight.

A detail.

The brain.

Gemini's take fits what I saw. No reason to doubt him on this occasion.

And so onto the Roman Villa for a light lunch. We had thought it too early and too hot for the wine tasting offered - although we did visit the shop. But a pleasant and relaxed visit: just the thing for a hot morning.

PS 1: I don't recognise much of Great Windmill Street in Street View today, and a bit of digging suggests that the Red Lion that I knew, some time after the snap above was taken, has been rather clumsily rebranded as a Be-At-One. From my time, I remember a steady trickle of girls, possibly Thai girls, making their way upstairs. The landlord might have been from what was then Yugoslavia. And before that there was the once famous Nosh Bar, a little way down the street: famous for its salt beef, the like of which I have never had since. The salt beef at the fake caff at Selfridges comes nowhere near. The real caff, as I recall, was decorated with arty, signed, black-and-white shots of boxers and other entertainers.

PS 2: today is, hopefully, the crest of the current wave. 93°F in the roof of our garage, or 34°C in new-speak. Comfortably beating the 87°F I recorded in the second half of June. I have not ventured out of doors since I got back from s Screwfix circuit at around 08:00. Quite hot enough then.

It seemed much cooler by 21:00, and I did not believe BH's telephone which said that it was still 27°C, which I think of as pretty hot. I then visited the garage again, where it said 86°F, that is to say 30°C. My telephone by then said 26°C, that is to say 79°F. To be fair, my reading was just under the flat roof of a shut garage. Hot air rising and all that.

Maybe it is not just temperature control that goes AWOL as one gets older, but also temperature sensing.

PS 3: 19:30: for the first time in maybe a year, I have just taken my Trek road bike up and down the road. The tyres had held their pressure, so all I had to do was tighten up the back brake, add a spot of oil to the the chain & cassette and off. All seemed well, except that something was wrong with the front wheel. It did not look buckled, but something was not right. 

• Option 1: put the bike in for a full service somewhere? What might I have to pay for that? 
• Option 2: buy a new front wheel and hope for the best. 
• Option 3: having regard to reference 6, buy two new tyres and tubes.

I have failed to work out when I stopped using the Trek in a regular way. There was confirmed usage in 2020, as noticed at reference 6. Then there was heavy use during the plague, with the more or less daily Jubilee Way run. Confirmed usage in 2022. I look to have been on the trolleys, that is to say walking rather than riding, by 2024. But there seems to be a gap in the record for 2023.

Notwithstanding, I don't think trekking ever really recovered after my exit at reference 7, at the end of 2023, although I remained connected to the Bullingdons.

So I think that the best that I can do is that regular trekking more or less stopped sometime during 2023, some three years ago. 

Certainly, the ancient Karrimor saddle bags are looking a bit tired and the zips are very stiff, possibly to the point of breaking points. The elastic ties which attach the bottoms of the bags to their frame are perished -  something of a weak point in otherwise well made articles. I took the bags off for the purposes of the test drive. 

I already had them when we were living in Norwich, and while I can't remember what bike I was riding at that point, possibly a Dawes, I must have kept the bags and carried them forward.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/scone-report.html. The present excursion being the trigger for the deer story to be found here.

Reference 2: https://www.adgestonevineyard.co.uk/.

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

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/ventnor.html. A hot day in 2023.

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

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/08/maintenance-time.html. Back wheel problems.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/exit-portal.html.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echium_pininana.

Reference 9: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/blue-maid.html. I got back on the Bullingdons a month ago, but have been put off since both by the heat and by the idea of travelling in hot trains.

Puffer fish

Following the crabs of June (reference 1) and the ticks of yesterday (reference 2), I now offer a special variety of puffer fish which has migrated into the Mediterranean from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal and is causing trouble in the eastern fisheries there, already under plenty of stress for the more usual reason of overfishing. This from the Financial Times (the one with the irritating advertisements) at reference 3.

A fish which is well known for containing lots of a serious toxin, TTX, a neurotoxin, to be found at references 6 and 7. And which works by blocking the sodium channels important in the generation of action potentials in certain neurons. Including those responsible for working the muscles which drive the lungs.

A toxin which, on the one hand, causes a lot of stomach upsets and worse, especially in the fish eating parts of the Far East, but which is also used for pain relief. There is a suggestion that there is a certain amount of bravado around eating puffer fish - and their livers - among certain Japanese males.

The source of all this TTX was something of a puzzle, but it seems to have now been run down to various bacteria involved with the TTX carrying animals involved. It seems likely that these animals exploit the TTX as a defense against predation - while somehow neutralising the toxic action on themselves. All a fine field of enquiry for neuro-pharmacologists - amongst others.

A fish which is a bottom feeder equipped with very powerful jaws, presumably to enable it to deal with the shells of many gastropods. I learn that some of the shell fish which I see stuck to the rocks of, for example the beach at St. Helen's on the Isle of Wight, are related to the slugs and snails that I might find in the garden of our rented cottage. Gastropods all, for which see reference 5.

Gastropods inhabit an extraordinary range of environments, including marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems. They occur in gardens, woodlands, deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes, estuaries, mudflats, intertidal zones, the deep sea, hydrothermal vents, and even in parasitic niches.

Not to be confused with Bivalves, their next door neighbour among the Molluscs.

The fish can also bite holes in fishing nets, a nuisance for fishermen, and bite through empty drink tins, less of a nuisance, but more spectacular.

PS 1: once again, we have a taxonomic confusion with Pleuranacanthus sceleratus, which name crops up in reference 7. This from reference 8.

Google explains that the 'pleura' bit here is nothing to do with lungs, despite the action of TTX on lung function, rather it is to do with the row of spines running along the sides of these fish. And he goes on to confirm the link to the popular garden plant.

PS 2: on TTX, it might have been interesting to take a look at reference 9, but Taylor & Francis want £50 if you want to see any more than the abstract. On the other hand, Google have enough access to be able to offer an AI summary - and to turn up alternative sources.

Logged in Google is quite interesting on all this.

Further down the conversation.

And even if the present scene is a bit of a mess, it does looks as if the model for fair payment for the results of academic - that is to say mostly publicly funded - research is shifting. 

And as a retired leftie, it is only proper to point to the contradictions inherent in a small number of tech giants and academic publishers on the one side and a large number of academics (and other researchers) on the other.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/modigliani.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/tick-time.html.

Reference 3: Greece’s toxic puffer fish invasion: A fish that can bite soda cans in half is tearing through nets and livelihoods, Eleni Varvitsioti, Financial Times - 2026. 

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagocephalus_sceleratus. The source of the image at the top of this post.

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

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin.

Reference 7: Tetrodotoxin – Distribution and Accumulation in Aquatic Organisms, and Cases of Human Intoxication - Tamao Noguchi, Osamu Arakawa - 2008.

Reference 8: https://www.marinespecies.org/. World register of marine species: An authoritative classification and catalogue of marine names.

Reference 9: Pharmacology of tetrodotoxin - Narahashi, T. - 2001. 

Tick time

The piece at reference 1 caught my eye this morning. All about ticks in the US, but also a puff for one Amanda Fairbanks of reference 2 and her upcoming book at reference 3.

It seems that global warming is bringing an up-tick in the tick population in places where, hitherto, they have only been a minor nuisance. Some of them carry unpleasant diseases, affecting both humans and other animals, for which see references 4 and 5.

According to her website 'Amanda M. Fairbanks is an award-winning journalist and author' who has now moved onto ticks. I enjoyed the bit about 'memoiristic lenses' in the snap above.

But I failed to compute the relationship between Zando and Penguin - although I dare say it is mixed up with layers of middle-men, all taking a cut. I was intrigued by the fact that one had a page count and a cover, while being many months away from publication. But I did not trouble Gemini with the matter.

In part, because I was more intrigued by the rather dodgy looking Tate brothers, presently in custody in the US, pending extradition to the UK. So I did ask Gemini where they got their money from and it seems that they started in porn, then moved into a social media fuelled pyramid scheme, then crypto, then gambling. They also boast about not paying tax. The wheels of justice are grinding both here in the UK and in Romania - from where, inter alia, they got a lot of their porn girls. Until recently at least, very chummy with the Maga crowd.

So while they do indeed look dodgy, they look to have made a lot of money at it. I associate to Epstein. Gemini explains that, unlike Musk who actually makes stuff, Epstein made most of his money out of advising very rich people on how to avoid paying tax. Clearly an operator; a clever man who took the wrong path. No doubt a psycho-analyst could explain how he came to be so obsessed with sex, money and networking with the rich and powerful.

References

Reference 1: The great tick explosion: a tiny threat tests America’s love of nature: Changes in climate and land use mean unfamiliar ticks turning up in unexpected places, bringing exotic new illnesses - Patti Waldmeir, Financial Times - 2026.

Reference 2: https://www.amandamfairbanks.com/about.

Reference 3: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/839022/tick-boom-by-amanda-m-fairbanks/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_disease.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Wexner. The Wexner connection.

Gas works

At reference 1, I deferred noticing the gas board holes of Manor Green Road. Which I now do, moving from east to west, from Lower Court Road to Kendor Avenue, starting at Costcutter.

Most of the holes seemed to be between three and four feet deep at their lowest points. Some concrete and tarmac above, but no chalk that I could see below.

My money is on gas being one of the two pipes above and to the right of the orange spot, neither of which look very mains. Who knows what all the other stuff above it is. Maybe someone has the big picture.

Maybe the Ordnance Survey, whom I believe have taken on at least some of the mapping functions of the Land Registry, coordinate the construction of a digital map of all the underground pipes and cables of all the utilities of all of our country? For sale to interested parties? Would it be worth the considerable expense? See reference 4 for a sidelight on this.

While a bit further down we have what looks like an old, cast iron gas main. So what is going on above the orange spot in the previous snap?

Hopefully, what I take to be data cables inside rather knocked-about earthenware casings will survive the operation. The vacuum excavator noticed at reference 2 had not been that gentle. Or maybe it was the people before wot dun the damage.

Complete with data cables and little tower for the water meter.

Zooming in, my guess is that the elbowed pipe left of the right hand orange spot is copper water intake for the house behind.

But what is the two inch pipe running along the road above the left hand orange spot? I think the yellow pipe below is the gas intake for the house behind, but where does it connect to the mains supply? It does not seem to be lined up with the yellow pipe to be seen to the left of the right hand orange spot.

A four inch iron pipe, running along the road, with a shiny new connection point. Gas main awaiting further developments?

Plus, down the hole, lots of set, yellow foam. Looks very much like the stuff window fitters use to bed new window units into old window holes in walls. But what is it doing here?

PS 1: this morning, Monday, JDT were back on the job with one of their vacuum excavators.

It looks as if the boss of JDT is another registration plate nut, with this vehicle being No.25. But is he in the same league as the chap from the (now dissolved) First Line Recovery, who seemed to have managed to number his vehicles from 1? See, for example, reference 3.

PS 2: the new-to-me Dell laptop is being a bit tiresome this morning. It keeps doing stuff - clicking and moving the pointer - when I don't want it to. Working on why it is doing this. Maybe I will get Gemini to remind me how to turn down the sensitivity of the touch pad.

I have also found a little rubber peg down between the G, H and B keys, an alternative to using the touch pad for moving the pointer about. Rather hard to get at and I remember these pegs being rather taller, not that I ever got into the habit of making much use of them.

PS 3: maybe now that our new leader has dished out a few lollipops and played with the machinery of government, he will get back down to the business of government - which presently involves making and then selling difficult decisions - rudely interrupted by his arrival from up north.

For machinery of government, see reference 5. We shall see whether rebranding the Cabinet Office the Office of the Prime Minister is worth all the time and energy that it will soak up. But, I suppose, a near mandatory rite of passage for new arrivals.

PS 4: 20260729: excavator No.4 on the job first thing this morning.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/circuit-one.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/fake-205.html. Slowed down slightly by this post not containing the search term 'jdt'.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/no30.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-732.html.

Reference 5: The good, the bad and the mixed of Andy Burnham’s government overhaul: PM should have gone further in scrapping Cabinet Office, while handing Lisa Nandy an expanded brief is a gamble - Stephen Bush, Financial Times - 2026.

Group search key: 20260719.