Wilts in the heat

Oh, readers, the lengths I go to for this blog. There are two versions of this story. Choose which one you believe.

I had heard there was a new branch of Waitrose opening in Melksham. I had never heard of Melksham in my life. Despite because of having the kitchen fitter in, I decided it was worth the risk of trusting him it would be better to get out of his way and leaving him to get on with it. Melksham is in Wiltshire, the far end, near Trowbridge. I knew didn't know that. After I had booked into the King's Arms which is where I always stay when I go to Melksham I was when I got tired of driving, and which happened to have a room free at reasonable cost, I read in a copy of a free local newspaper that a new branch of Waitrose had opened, and what's more that there was a £5 coupon, I made sure I knew where the new Waitrose was before I had a meal of Bangladeshi specialities at the Refa Tandoori Balti House (which clearly has a culinary identity crisis) and a modest orange juice and lemonade load of beer in the bar.

Next morning there was a huge number of shopping lists to choose from; my journey was not wasted. The store being so new, there were no shopping lists (although someone had decorated the store opening hours sign with a cock'n'balls) and here's the best of them one I picked up in Beckenham tonight. 


It's plain, but I like it. Very down to earth, but that decorated line across the bottom of the list betrays an artistic yearning, dontcha think? Very much like Melksham itself.

One final uncoloured statement: Melksham has a railway station. Four trains a day (two in each direction) stop there. Southeastern are envious; they can only dream of these levels of service.

Blackheath Bookfair

I went to the Amnesty International bookfair in Blackheath today, here. Click on streetview if you dare. I know Blackheath's posh, but this is just ridiculous and beautiful. If only I'd been born into immense wealth!

The atmosphere was surprisingly unbookish, more like a jumble sale. I believe elbows were frequently employed. I got there at 9:30 but it was too late. Lucy Mangan had already decimated the shelves, and was walking around with two huge bags of books (it was thanks to a tweet from her that I remembered to go).

But I got some books that I might read some day.

José Saramago The Notebook
La Bruyere Les Caracteres
Roger Pearson Mallarmé
Marina Warner Indigo
Tony Tanner Prefaces to Shakespeare
Suzannah Dunn The Confession of Katherine Howard

All in good condition, and all for £21!

Not every day's a party

Two fairly dull shopping lists today. On the left, the latest from Andrew in Andover. On the right, the unusual discovery of a list in Beckenham. I think it's fair to say the Beckenham one is the work of a woman, and quite an attractive woman at that, with a filofax. The person on the left appears to be buying "meals". Some people are easily pleased.

Remember him?

While other ex-Charlton players have been lighting up our screens at the World Cup (Dennis Rommedahl, Jermaine - spit - Defoe) a vaguely familiar name turned up on the Come Dine With Me wags special. Simon Walton, of Crewe Alexandra. Remember him?

If the name was vaguely familiar, the face certainly wasn't. And here's why. In July 2006 Charlton bought him, an 18 year old, for £500,000 from Leeds, and instantly sent him out on loan to get him match experience and develop his talent. A year later he was sold to QPR for £200,000, never having played a competitive game for Charlton. Meanwhile, Charlton had changed manager twice, from Dowie via Les Reed to Alan Pardew. And had dropped out of the Premier League.

It may not have been the worst bit of business Charlton ever did, but it looks like a microcosm of those desperate times. The turnover of players was bewildering, with the only constant factor being a failure to live up to any expectations.

As for Simon Walton, his career's hardly lived up to the promise. He must have a decent agent, because Plymouth Argyle paid a club record £750,000 for him, but again he was sent out on loan to Blackpool, and then Crewe.

And you could see his career as a microcosm of what's wrong with English football. Despite being at best deeply average, he's being paid enough to keep a page 3 stunner (Nicola Tappenden) in the style to which she'd like to become accustomed. It's been suggested that the players in the England team have an inflated sense of their entitlement, and maybe his career shows how that happens.

Khao niao

Another list from Andover Waitrose, thanks to Andrew. A bit of a Thai aspect to this, I think. (Incidentally, in the recent wags Come Dine with Me, one of the wags talked about "thigh food". Footballers do generally have lovely legs, so maybe she wasn't being stoopid.)

Andrew asks what sticky rice is - suggesting, perhaps, the name's a tautology. Khao niao is a variety of rice that's intended to stick together in cooking, so you can form balls of it and dip them in the coconut milk-based sauce. Often served as khao niao braon cao.

So, to analyse this list: most of it is written by the mail-order bride; her otherwise unmarriageable lump of a husband has insisted on T.bags.

Andrew also points out that I haven't blogged about the world cup. I'll just repeat a tweet I read earlier today:

This might not be seen as patriotic in some quarters, but I enjoy football matches that involve completed passes.

I'm writing this during half-time of the Portugal/North Korea game. I think it's time we stopped using the phrase "axis of evil". It's wholly inadequate to describe how loathsome Cristiano Ronaldo is.

And to make sure no-one goes home unoffended, here's a guide for the ladies to the offside rule.

Situation vacant

José Saramago has died at the age of 87. In an earlier post I said he was possibly my favourite living novelist. Now he's dead I can't think of anyone to replace him, so I suppose he definitely was. I won't go into the reasons why I love his books all over again, but I am reminded of a comment I heard this morning. When atheists die, they don't get the chance to say "I told you so". But imagine there is a God. Saramago arrives in heaven and within twenty minutes he'll have convinced God of the impossibility of His existence, with catastrophic consequences for creation. Since that hasn't happened (and it's been a few hours now) I think the old commie has had the last laugh. Thanks, José, for the wisdom and humanity.

Miles and miles and miles of skin

As part of my "get out of the house more" programme, I'm trying to visit one museum or gallery a week, and so this morning I've been to the Wellcome Collection to see the temporary display on Skin. It's really interesting to see the crossover between medical science and art. For me this was best illustrated by this piece:

It's "Examination" by Heather Barnett, and, sadly, seeing it onscreen doesn't do justice to the warmth and tenderness of the images. But, what's perhaps disturbing is that these photographs were staged reconstructions of illustrations from medical textbooks. It's possibly fatuous to say that context determines meaning, but this demonstrates it so clearly by removing context. All that's left is the detail of the physical contact, opening up a range of interpretations. There are better versions of these on the artist's website: http://www.heatherbarnett.co.uk/examination.htm. 

There's also a couple of pinturas de castas. I'd never heard of these before. Literally meaning paintings of castes, they were produced under the Spanish empire to classify and name the children that might result from a mixed race relationship.

Here's one (not from the display) that shows that the child of a Spanish man and a mulatta woman would be a morisco. That urge to label seems to combine outright colonialism with a (pseudo-)scientific thirst for knowledge. There's more about this on wikipedia. I'd say it seems typical of imperial Spain's obsession with limpieza de sangre, but that would be tempting fate.

Anyway, the exhibition is well worth a visit, and it's free. http://www.wellcomecollection.org/