Masquerade Ball: What I learnt

My mask

Went to the Ceroc Xmas Masquerade Ball last night. The party shop in town had a wide selection of masks, I could go as the Queen or other "Celebrity". Not having a TV, I didn't recognise 90% of the many faces on offer. In the end settled for a "burglar" mask.

I must say, I doubt if any real burglar uses this design - it narrows your field of view considerably. For the professional burglar, this could mean missing nice nickable things. For me, it meant lack of peripheral vision which is pretty vital on a crowded dance floor. The other thing I learnt was that it's a pretty poor disguise. Lots of people recognised me easily including Diana and I recognised her too.

Diana

Interestingly, There were a few friends I had considerable difficulty recognising. Afterwards I started wondering if this was something particular about them or just effective mask design? Maybe it's the masks - there was one lady who clearly knew me but I never identified. The mask she wore had lots of dangly tassells - burglars take note!

Evil or Ill?

Read an article about psychopaths and work scanning their brains.

It seems to show that unfortunately for them and their victims, they are (physically) "wrong in the head" and suggests they need treatment rather than punishment. Not that it's clear what the treatment should be.

I fell to thinking how lucky I am. I don't endure great moral struggles to avoid being a psychopath - I just wasn't born to it. Similarly, I don't "battle" with alcoholism, tobacco, gambling, weight or any of the many other "unacceptable" things. The last time I got legless-drunk was about 6 years ago at a festival where there wasn't a dance to go to and we sat around savouring one nice bottle after another. Keeping sober (etc.) isn't difficult for me, I simply have "lucky" biology.

I'm not arguing that mass-murderers should be allowed to wander around as if nothing had happened but executing them (as happens in the US) is going way too far. If, as may be the case, it's genetic, future generations may dust off the "genocide" label.

Rain Engineering

As promised, I've put up the first (of perhaps several) articles about "leveraging" the rain that falls on my garden. Click

Geeky Gardening

I've been writing up my experiences getting lots of nice fruit off my apple tree. See Care of Ashmead's Kernel Apple Trees

I've also been engineering some novel rainwater systems for my always-too-dry garden. It started during the planning stage of a new raspberry bed and sort of grew...

Check back soon!

Dancing, Dunes & Daddy-long-legs

The word "surreal" is perhaps overused but stay with me. I went dancing for a weekend at Pontins, Brean Sands. Yes, Pontins, a "holiday camp" with "bluecoats" and chalets. Pontins still exist (although they went bust) and my picture was taken on a balmy evening in October 2011 although the chalets (sorry, "apartments") are from a bygone era.

The "Brean Sands" bit sounds old-fashioned and it is. The single road is lined with amusement arcades, caravan sites and more caravan sites. But, break out and head across the dunes and there's an enormous, desolate sandy beach. When the tide is out, you can't see the sea and if you can see the sea, you're not running away fast enough. There's even a Heath and Safety guy in a big truck with a tannoy yelling at people to get out of the water. 

Back to Pontins where the reception area is crammed with "amusement" machines that flash, beep and even wolf-whistle as you walk through to the dance floor. It's modern jiving put on by the Ceroc organisation and runs through to the small hours on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. About a thousand people are kept cool by huge roaring fans. If that's still too hot, there's a terrace outside. Daytime is taken up with classes on how to (almost) drop your partner on the floor, "double trouble" (1 man, 2 ladies), Tango and even Pole Dancing.

And the "Daddy-long-legs"? They were in season and took up residence in most of the bathrooms. Interesting creatures, they are the adult form of the leatherjacket that spend the summer eating the roots of the grass on your lawn.

Early Apples

First good apple of the season. "The book" says 'Ashmead's Kernal' is ready for harvest in mid-October. My experience has been late-September but this year, here we are not quite in the last week of August! They're not quite as sweet and sharp as I remember and they're about half the size. This may be due to the lack of rain although others note that this variety produces large fruit only when young. I may leave some of them for a couple of weeks although pest attacks are starting.

Camping and Child Protection

I camp at festivals several times a year. The sites are large and I'm often quite close to people I don't know. So you hear stuff, in particular, parents shouting at the kids. After a few days, a pattern starts to emerge - Little Billy is always being shouted at. He's obviously a persistently naughty boy, or is he? Sometimes it sounds more like the parents are dumping their frustrations with life on the kid and there's nothing the child can do to stop it.

As I don't have children, I find it difficult to judge what's going on - not that it's any of my business, or is it? Should I quietly take the registration number of the car and pass it to the NSPCC?

Sometimes it is my business. I was once camped next to a mother who seemed to berate her daughter loudly from morn till night. It was a bloody nuisance so eventually I waited for mum to pause for breath and let out a loud "Ewwwwwwwww!"

Worked a treat! Didn't hear a peep out of her for the rest of the festival.

Great British Eccentrics #57

I first got to know Erik a few years ago when he was going out with one of my dancing friends. An engineer by profession, a bargee by residence and a boat-builder in a very small way. I was not greatly surprised when on a trip to Sidmouth when he said he was going to launch another boat and furtively opened a carrier bag. Inside was a small yacht.

He explained that the sails were cut out from an IKEA umbrella and a network of string linking the two sail booms allowed it to tack without a rudder. A lead keel would ensure it stayed upright. Erik's email address was permanently marked on the deck with a note asking finders to let him know their location before re-launching. A previous effort had got as far as Calais in France!

So we trotted down to the sea front and held up wet fingers to gauge the wind. Initially, Erik was worried that the boat wouldn't get past the headland but then Russ turned up fresh from the ceilidh in the ford on the river Sid. (…which is another story!) As he was already soaking wet, he readily agreed to wade out into the sea and launch "Stryder" from deeper water.

It's surprising how visible a tiny bright orange sail is. Erik reckons it had got about 400m in 20 minutes before it became difficult to see.

It was headed roughly southwest towards the Atlantic but it may well flip around and head up the channel.

Later, Erik told us it was his ninth boat….
(Edit: 14Aug11, pictures from Erik)
Russ holding the yacht concealed in a carrier bag just before launchPaddy sent this "Stryder" sighting 5 miles south of Exmouth the next day

London Riots: Shameless steal from The Guardian

I rather liked this comment by "AllyF"

There's a widespread myth that law and order is preserved by police, politicians and other forces of authority. Not true. Never has been. If we all decide to go out and chuck a dustbin through Argos's window and help ourselves, it would take about 15 million coppers to contain it. We actually have about 150,000.

Law and order is kept by a collective acceptance of mutual goals. If, as a society, we look after each other, offer everyone a share and a stake in the common weal, maintain some semblance of a Rousseauian Social Contract, then the vast majority of people will mostly stick to the rules without ever needing to see a police officer.

When people lose that sense of being looked after, no longer feel part of society, no longer feel like they have any kind of share in any kind of collective, the ties that bind begin to be broken.

Rioting, especially the type of vandalism & looting we've seen in London, is a sure sign that the social contract is unravelling around the edges. In the days and weeks and months to come, we shall see how far it has frayed.

There are few things more dangerous to a society than a populace with nothing left to lose.

Original article and comment

Awayday

I'd been planning to try out the Ceroc dances at Hammersmith Town Hall for some time and while planning routes and transport I noticed a station called "Kew Gardens". Ding! Why not explore these during the day and then dance the night away?

Kew is a quaint London suburb with lots of small shops gathered round the station and decaying genteelly. A short walk and you're at the gardens. In some ways, they are like an enormous municipal park, the like of which you'd find in any English city. There are lawns, flower beds, lakes, cafés and screaming kids. When you look a bit closer, you spot the differences. For a start, there's no swings or "amusements" which may explain why the kids are screaming. The plants, shall we say have class. Almost immediately I noticed some 6' stalks with large seedpods. A small sign announced Cardiocrinum Giganteum. Hooray! I've read about these giant lilies and considered growing some at home. They were not quite as impressive as I'd expected so I probably won't bother.

I soon find you can't rely on the signs. There's a curiously shaped tree claiming to be "Lillium Regale" but I know better! In one area the Verbena Bonariensis has got everywhere (as it does) but it gets a variety of labels. Nice plant though. Here's one I grew earlier
I am much taken with a bed full of "Impatiens glandulifera" which seems wrong as it's 6' tall. Impatiens=busy lizzie and they're usually quite small. Looked it up at home and it's Himalayan Balsam and an "invasive species weed"! I suppose like lions and tigers in the Zoo, it's safe enough in skilled hands but possibly unsuitable for the home garden.

Another discovery was lemon poppy seed cake (in the café), several huge greenhouses, a treetop walk and a viewing platform for their giant compost heaps.

So, on to the dance. Whenever I go to a dance place out of my normal orbit I tend to arrive early and find the place so quiet that I initially wonder if I've got the date wrong. Next, I discover that it is the right place/time but there are only 10 punters in a huge ballroom. After an hour, it's filled up and looks sensible, two hours and it's heaving. I found some great dancers by my usual method of watching their feet and I'm grateful for the management's bulk purchase of huge electric fans keeping things cool. They even set up one to blow cold air direct from the outside.

Just before midnight, I bail out and catch the underground to Victoria for the "Oxford Tube" that delivers me back to my car. An hour's drive and I'm straight to bed.

Murdoch and News International

As this scandal rumbles on, I'm a little surprised at just how much fuss there is. Sure, it looks like some people have been very naughty. And Murdoch has been unpopular with the Left for a very long time. Still a lot of heat though.

Perhaps I'm over cynical but I wonder if it's being used to bury any bad news? Not that anyone triggered it for that purpose but now it's here I wonder if anyone is making "use" of it?

One way I try and keep a wider view on what's going on in the world is to use Wikipedia's "Current Events" link as this certainly has stories that don't reach the mainstream UK media.

Haven't spotted what "they" are burying yet though!

Cleeve Hill

Went for an evening walk over Cleeve Hill. It's got sheep and golfers - and I suspect that's a relationship that has to be worked at. The sheep get an occasional high-speed golf ball in the ribs. So to protect the greens, the golfers have put up "electric" fences with the insulating poles, etc. but no source of volts. One sheep had sussed this out and was on a green getting her revenge by eating the grass.

Saw a couple of rabbits. Clapped my hands and verified that their ears worked. You know that old Monty Python line about "What did the Romans ever do for us?". One answer is that they brought rabbits to Britain.

Other wildlife included a moth buzzing around at about 25Hz and a murder of crows in the trees near Postlip. Moon came up - see picture.
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Gardening Blog

Regular readers will know I'm into gardening. I've started a Garden Blog full of tedious detail about what's happening in my garden. See here. 

Important gardening stuff will still be posted here from time to time.

The Sheep House

I've been on the train through Bristol Temple Meads recently and finally managed to snap this
just outside the station on the way to Bedminster. Lovely row of painted houses and the one
nearest the track has a rural scene complete with sheep.

Lovely idea!

No flowers

The trouble with flowering plants is that they spend a lot of time not flowering so for the decorative bit of my garden, I decided to go for some specimens that show off in different ways. This first one is Chenopodium giganteum 'Magentaspreen' that achieves bright purple patches on the stem-end of each leaf. This one is only young but they grow to 1.5m by the end of the summer. The common name of this plant is "Tree Spinach" and you can eat the leaves. It's very easy to grow from seed as it does have flowers but these are "insignificant"

Next, we have red veined Sorrel. I've grow ordinary Sorrel from seed but this pretty version came from a garden centre. It's edible stuff too. You make up a bland potato soup, let it go slightly off the boil and then blend in a handful of these leaves and it's stunning.

Finally, something that looks rather like a weed. I first read about it on the Plants for a Future site where they say "The leaves have a pleasant agreeable flavour with a slight sweetness, they make a very acceptable lettuce substitute." and  importantly "This plant has proved to be almost totally slug-proof, even in a very heavily slug-infested garden."

Reichardia picroides is a native of southern Europe and I had to get seed from Slovakia but I'm giving it a go. Actually, it's supposed to have flowers a bit like dandelions. Somehow, not a surprise.

Physalis and Real Irrigation

Some plants really love some heavy rain. Within 24 hours of our surprise deluge, the Tomatillo (Physalis ixocarpa) has grown about 50%. (Same applies to the weeds: Those that had already germinated have doubled in size overnight.) My watering during the last couple of very dry months was much less effective.

The Physalis genus deserves to be better known by gardeners. They're part of the Solanaceae family, like tomatoes and if you can grow tomatoes outdoors you can probably grow Physalis outdoors too. (I'm told you can grow them in a greenhouse but they enjoy it too much and take up space you might have wanted for other things)

I've grown Tomatillo before (see pic) but this year I'm trying a purple-fruited variety instead of the greeny-yellow. Like all the Physalis, the fruit comes wrapped in a paper lantern formed from the flower calyx. You'll want to know what it tastes like and it's bit like a Granny Smith apple but in the kitchen, you're best off using it where you might otherwise use a sweet pepper. Slice it and chuck it on pizza. It's nice, not wonderful, but when you consider it fruits well without fertiliser and looks better than a tomato plant, it's easy pickings.

You probably already know Physalis peruviana as the "Cape Gooseberry" or in the supermarkets where they sell punnets of " Physalis" imported from Guatemala around Christmas. The fruit is orange, sweet, acid and perfumed. It's surprising it's not better known to gardeners as it's also about as difficult/easy as tomatoes. I'm growing it again this year.

I haven't grown Physalis alkekengi but it's moderately well known as the Chinese lantern. It's better looking than the edible species as it has a bright orange fruit covering. It's frost hardy and invasive.

Note: All parts of these plants are poisonous except the ripe fruit.

Counting my apples...

...before they are hatched. The "Ashmead's Kernal" is plastered with blossom and a small team of hard-working bees are in attendance. If all the flowers were to turn into fruit, there would be over 1000 apples and I think something would break! Of course, some won't get pollinated and quite a few will be lost naturally in the "June Drop" There will still be far too many so I'll have to thin out the crop ruthlessly. 

The tree suffers from "biennial bearing" and this is its "on" year. Thinning out the crop this year should help production next year.

It's also a bit prone to "bitter pit" a physiological disorder that results in small dead areas mainly near the surface of the fruit. The cause of this is not fully understood although it's believed to be due to the distribution of calcium in the tree. Preventative measures include:

• An even supply of water - so with our current drought, I'm irrigating already
• A good mulch to help reduce water loss
• Not too much fertiliser
• Not too much Winter pruning as this encourages too much shoot and leaf growth
• Spraying later on with Calcium Nitrate. Not very organic and would be a shame since the tree came to to me organic certified.

This may seem slightly geeky and over the top but did I ever mention that this is the World's finest apple? Oh! It seems I did.

Docks Monster

Spotted this in Gloucester Docks while waiting for my MOT to be done. It wasn't attached to a ship but perhaps they were waiting for one that deserved it?

Adventures with a Fortic Tank

Warning: This is a minority-interest geeky post! A Fortic Tank is not military item with tracks and a few bangy accessories. It's a sort of hot water tank and fits in an ordinary airing cupboard. Indeed, that's where I first met one. I'm sorry to disappoint those hoping for a story of romance in a plumber's merchant.

It's still an interesting story though and as in the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, someone ends up with a bruised arm. In keeping with the tradition and to maintain the suspense, the leftness or rightness of the arm will not be disclosed until later.

Anyway, every now and again, the immersion heater fails. The first time this happened was a learning experience. I turned off the cold water and opened the hot taps to drain the thing. Next I applied a huge spanner to the heater element and after a lot of banging and cursing got it to rotate. As I did this a few drops of water oozed out. I turned it some more and as there seemed to be a growing trickle of stray water, I put a bucket underneath.

Suddenly, the element fell out followed by a torrent of water. Whoosh! I had a frantic five minutes emptying buckets before the water stopped. A bit like Pinocchio in Sorcerer's Apprentice but with an exponentially decreasing quantity of water.

Learning point 1: Draining a Fortic Tank isn't as simple as it looks.

I replaced the element and 18 months later that one failed :-(
So I repeated the banging, cursing and whooshing procedure but with bigger buckets. The old element was horribly corroded so I looked around on the Internet and discovered….

Learning point 2: The cheap copper elements are no good in hard water areas. I needed to buy an "Incoly" element.

So, I replaced the element and 6 years later that one failed :-(

By now, I was fed up with the banging, cursing and especially the whooshing and only partially effective buckets. Also, since this was about the 5th element I was concerned not to break something and have to replace the whole shebang. I really wanted an element that would last too…

Learning point 3: They make elements out of Titanium. Hard to find and costing about £80 but supposedly the best.

Learning point 4: You're supposed to do the banging and cursing with the cylinder full. It's more rigid and less likely to break. You drain it after the element starts to move.

Learning point 5: Used my non-whoosh draining technique. This is how it works:

You need:

• Siphon tube (I used B&Q "Water Supply Pipe for use with B&Q easy watering system")
• Blob of blue-tack

Method:

• Start with the tank full
• Stop cold water coming in. Careful application of elastic cord on the ball cock can avoid the need to turn off the rest of the system
• Fill a siphon tube with water. Block one end with a lump of blue tack and the other end with a finger. (Filling tip: Put tube in a bath, stuff one end up the cold tap, turn on and wait for a steady stream at the far end)
• Plunge your finger, tube and hand into the water in the top tank.
• Take your finger off the tube end but ensure the tube end is kept below the water.
• Feed the tube into the pipe joining the two tanks. On my tank, it's angled favourably. Keep feeding, you will probably be able to tell when it hits the exit and enters the bottom tank. It's awkward and it's at this point that I acquired some nicely coloured bruises on my right arm.
• Feed in another 6" of tube for luck
• Unblock the far end of the tube and check for a steady flow. Have a cup of tea and come back to make sure it's still flowing.
• Turn on hot taps etc to assist draining
• Do something else for about 9 hours - which is how long mine took to drain.
• Suggest you leave the tube in place (bunged!) until you are sure you won't need it again.

So is titanium any good? Don't know yet. Come back in 6 years!

Gaddafi and his regime will survive

I don't like what I hear of the man but I think he's going to win. Unlike some of the recently departed leaders of nearby states, he's kept his nerve and doesn't worry too much about his image.

The rhetoric from the EU and NATO is all mouth and he knows it. The chances of any effective intervention is remote:

• Effective intervention is pretty difficult
• A strong and nasty leader of Libya provides stability and certainty that our governments prefer to the uncertain alternatives.

Telling him to stand down is simply playing to the gallery. He's got very good reasons to fight to the last man. There is no safe bolt-hole for him and his sizable family. To stand down is suicidal - or at the very least a route to a jail cell for the rest of his life.

It may take some time but he's going to mop up this rebellion and kill a lot of people. He has no reason to do otherwise and it's unlikely anyone will give him one.

The Tarragon Experiment

I like tarragon but the stuff in the garden is skulking underground. Last year it waited until July to show itself. So when I noticed Tesco had packets of fresh tarragon - flown in from Israel - I bought some, wrapped it round some chicken and cooked it. Great! Really strong tarragon flavour.

Then I had an idea. I bought another packet and put some stems in a pot of compost. So I may end up with a supply of fresh super-strong tarragon both for the garden and the window ledge.

I was going to try the same with some lemon thyme but the flavour, although strong wasn't quite lemony enough.

Card security sucks

Got a replacement credit card recently. Using the contents of the single postal package and two very easily obtainable pieces of information about me, I managed to activate it, view my PIN and change my statement delivery to paperless. Fortunately, I am me. Had that post gone astray, it would have been too easy for someone to have run up a large bill!

A Digression

I was thinking today about the Thursday Market in town and how it has changed over the years. It used to be by the gasworks and a blind man could find that for the same reason as he could find the brewery - though neither establishment thought to offer a factory outlet and make a profit from their commitment to diversity. Of course, the market used to be much larger and largely taken up with men selling complete dinner-services on the "I'm not asking you to pay £10, I'm not asking £5, ladies and gentlemen, who will offer me £2 10s?" system. There was a "Temperance" café - where "temperance" actually meant "abstinence" - see we had "spin" even before decimal coinage! The posters on the wall explained how animals only drank water - which I knew to be lie because our dog enjoyed Guinness when he could get it. But then, I digress….