wendy house

There are two customer entrances to Jacksons.   One entrance goes into the main foyer and is lined by accessories.   The other entrance goes directly into the Mens department.   A girls entrance and a boys entrance.   This weekend I went in through the girls entrance and got no further than the handbags.

Senior Scottish Shop Assistant (3SA): I must ask you to come out from behind the counter,   it’s against shop policy

Wendy: Oh,   yes,   of course.   Could you show me the black bag on the 2nd shelf down,   2nd bag in from the right, left a bit,   next one along, yes,   that’s the one.

3SA: this is Navy Blue not black

Wendy:   its certainly very dark,   I’m looking for something to carry my passport , money  and camera when I go on holiday.

The 3SA gets enthusiastic and starts pulling out all sorts of bags from the shelves,   talking knowledgeably about her stock and even suggests that  I try looking in  TJMaxx!   A car  at the traffic lights outside loudly rev’s its engine.

3SA:   Oh dear,   we see all sorts here you know

Wendy: Oh?

3SA: All the criminals pass by here,   with two police cars before the van and 2 police cars after the van,   the Crown Court is just around the corner,  recently  one of the prisoners escaped you know.

Wendy:   Oh!

3SA:   yes, they all come past here you must check your insurance.

Wendy:   Insurance?  

3SA if you are taking your camera on holiday   check that your insurance covers your camera,   my friend didn’t and regretted it.   Make sure you check your medical insurance,   my friend broke her arm on holiday and her insurance only covered her for one hundred pounds,   she had to pay for a hospital stay over night and to fly home early.

Wendy: I’m going to Greece,   they have a National Health Service and as members of the European Community…..

3SA:   Spain is in Europe and my friend still had to pay,   check your medical insurance.  

 Wendy:   I’m covered for repatriation and the same level of service as Greek citizens…

3SA:   Read the small print,   always check the small print (continues delivering advice based on her accident-prone  friends’ experiences)

About 20 minutes later I emerged from Jacksons.   Smiling.   Armed with lots of extremely useful holiday advice, and a ‘Navy Blue’ handbag that looks black to me, feeling as if 3SA is already my honourary Aunite.   She is certainly more than a familiar stranger.    I should pop in after the holiday to show her some pictures and confirm that I got through it without needing an insurance claim.  

Jacksons really is quite the friendliest of stores as long as you stay the right side of the counters and  know your bag-colours.

The Euro may not have been adopted by the UK as national currency but the UK has adopted providing easy access to the Euro.   I can pick-up my Euros,  for my rapidly impending Greek holiday,  at this bank cash machine in downtown Reading!   Hoorah!    

My debit account card will actually work in Greece charged in GBP  at the conversion rate on the day of purchase  and a per transaction fee of 75 pence.

Not ‘Our father’ in a christian sense,   in a continuously circulating open entry elevator sense  like a vertical escalator!   I coudn’t find any explanation of why this name was applied to this type of elevator,   maybe because it felt so scary that you were advised to say some Paternosters before attempting to jump onto it.   Of its origins  the elevator museum say:

Englishman Hart developed idea of a continuous human bucket elevator called “The Paternoster.” 1884 — J & E Hall installed the first Cyclic lift (Paternoster) in England.

Things are developed and possibly patented at different times in different countries,   with different names and different design details,   the US patent for a Paternoster style elevator  was granted in 1934.

In the early 1980′s Aston University’s main science building had a working Paternoster inside  to the left of where  where the external ‘sky lift’  was added in the late 1980′s.   I vaguely remember that it ran between the 2nd and 7th (top) floors.

It was good fun jumping on and off the ever-moving Paternoster,  especially during the then annual Charter (May )Ball in the early hours of the morning wearing a ball gown and under the influence of cheerful freinds and alcohol.   Many people would not use it because it just didn’t look safe.

climbs trees with a nylon sleeping bag for a sleep-out party with his friend

puts his bum against the open window of the car so that his silent but deadly fart doesn’t disturb the other car occupants then giggles incessantly for 20 miles

chops off his fingertip with an axe then runs around shaking his hand to increase the polkadot patterning on mums walls

makes a multi-level gerbil cage out of an old sideboard

sings into a microphone strapped to a standard lamp,   without removing the lampshade

writes the name of the girl that he loves on the inside flap of his school canvas haversack in different pens,   fonts and colours

ramps up the volume on the house stereo and arranges an echo, closes the window blinds,   peeks through  then whispers in high volume ‘this is the voice of god’ when he sees a schoolchild in uniform walking by outside

earnestly says ‘you’ve failed?   how did that happen,   you’re the clever one’

Takes me into a record shop and says,   you can have any record you want,   its on me.   I pick the first Album he ever bought ‘Ride a White Swan’ by T.Rex

Persuades a friend to drive him to the warehouse 2hrs away where I’m holding my 21st birthday shindig,   Gives me 6 marbles and waits for me to be disappointed,   then gives me  a hipflask full of Napoleon Brandy saying ‘I was going to have it engraved with to my wonderful sister,   but I didn’t’,   stays at the warehouse when his friend decides to drive back before midnight

Says of his visits to me at university  ‘I wish my time at University had been as good as this’

Calls his first cat ‘f*ck-off’ because the cat followed him back from a superstore and he didn’t want it to,   then takes the cat everywhere in his Trenchcoat pocket and renames her Hoagie after Hoagie Carmichael

Drives a soft-top MG Midget despite his head creating a big upward dent in the roof because he’s 6ft4

 corrects my pronunciation

Why I love England #1.    First in an infinite series

Healthy ladies in slightly ridiculous hats &  waistecoats made of flapping strands of material oddments  jumping around with large sticks and bells tied to their staunchly sensible shoes within the ruins of a 12th  century Abby adjacent to a Victorian prison on a rather damp June day.   How could you possibly not love this?   and it happened in Reading!

also known as:   Remembering what to remember

I first encountered the currently popular (in Psychology of memory circles) ‘prospective memory’ as a term to describe  remembering what to remember through Baddeley & Wilkin’s 1984 article ‘Taking memory out of the laboratory’ .   The Laboratory,  Lab, was typically where British psychologists studied  human memory  using rigourous exprimental methodologies.   The lab was normally a windowless, beige, unadroned room lest participants, then ‘subjects’,  be distracted or inadvertantly influenced by non-experimental phenomena that might undermine the effect of the experimental manipulation.    

I liked Baddeleys work because he’d systematically estabished the positive  impact of re-instating memorising context on  recall levels through various studies including  the influence of alcohol (Vodka) or physically being under water (diving)  when memorising,   and recalling.   Both these experimental studies sounded fun,   were themselves memorable,  and were even repeatable* in less rigorous forms with colleagues at University during normal studenty nocturnal activities.  

‘Taking memory out of the laboratory’ was published in a book called ‘Everyday memory, actions and absentmindedness’  .    This was ground breaking news to me in 1984.    There I  was in the middle of a degree course, approved as official content and jargon by the British Psychological Society,  where I had focussed my study  on memory research.    I had just about got the hang of the technically specific language of psychological memory research such as retro-interference, auditory-loop, digit-span, recognition vs recall  and much more.    Then,   THEN!   Those gosh-darn leading memory researchers sprang some non-technical terms that made sense and weren’t  part of the current disciplin jargon.   How cheeky is that?

Absentmindedness?  

Cognitive psychologists study the absense of mind.   It was too much,  I had a couple of vodkas and fell in  a local canal with my miss spelt revision notes to celebrate.  

PS:   If I remember I’ll tell you why I’m telling you about prospective memory in a later post…

* Actually conducting the experiements makes them  more memorable and easier to understand an evaluate than just reading or thinking about them over a cup of tea.

According to get Reading:

“She then fled downstairs and tried to call 999, but he grabbed the phone off her and punched her twice in the face.   She began screaming so he put his arms around her neck so she couldn’t breath”   she was “in fear of her life” and “honestly believed she might die”,

This behaviour is reported as ‘out of his normal character’ and he says

“He is dreadfully upset about what has happened,”

Whether ‘in’ or ‘out’ of character he chose to stop her seeking social support (calling the police),   punch her in the face  two times  and throttle her when she tries to get support locally by screaming.   He could have chosen  to ignore her or do a silly dance.    It was his choice and he did choose extreme violence.    Evidently he ‘lost it’ (self-control?).   Lost it  appears to be part of  a socially acceptable storyline to excuse violence.   Psychologists label loss of control as a psychological  disorder  and use it to explain the curiously termed  domestic violence.    

“perpetrators of domestic violence  rarely receive adequate psychological treatment, because they are viewed as criminals, rather than individuals with psychological problems.“

In the above case the offender got a suspended sentence and fined the cost of a good night out,   60 quid.   No requirement for a psychological assessment or treatment with the fine hardly touching the actual expense of the social services his behaviour  drew upon (e.g. Police, NHS).  

How safe do I feel in a society where the legal system thinks I can be justifiably (for 60 quid) be repeatedly punched in the face and throttled when I try to call for assistance if the agressor claims its not habitual and they regret it?      

Since moving to Reading I’ve found lots of familiar strangers,   I see them on the bus everyday during my commute,   in the local cooperative store when I’m picking up milk for my tea,   behind the counters in Jacksons,   in the local internet cafe.

During my 1986 final year degree course Environmental Psychology classes I  learned that people are more likely to exhibit altruistic behaviours to familiar strangers (than complete strangers)  when meeting those familiar strangers outside of the normal context.   Each will recognise the other easily but have difficulty placing the source of this familiarity.  

This means that when I meet someone who normally rides on the  same  bus as me everyday,   in Jacksons,   I will think I know them and be nicer than I would be to someone totally unrecognisable.    

Excellent.  

More familiar strangers means more oportunities to be squishy.   Given  my natural  curmudgeonist tendencies this can only be a good thang.  

Despite my deep affection for the Berkshire county town of Reading,  formerly known for its ‘Beer, Biscuits and Bulbs’,  living in Reading does come with some inherent risks under the guise of a 4th ‘B’  

Bricks      

The production of high quality bricks involves mining for materials,   including chalk which produces a yellow coloured brick.   The chalk mines of Reading are not all  well documented.    People who built homes in Reading didnt know and didn’t ask the wise elderly locals  for the location of the mines.    Homes were built above the mines.   Tourist and residents alike should take extra care lest they fall into an undocumented mine when exploring the extremely interesting streets of Reading.

Unfortunately, the normally plucky Reading Borough Council has not-yet maximised on the tourist potential of this interesting and valuable historical feature of the town.    There are no guided tours of the mines,   you cannot visit the Reading underground shop because it doesn’t exist.   In not-existing the Reading underground shop never fails to sell kitsch miniature bricks in red, yellow, and grey as paperwieghts.   The not-existing visitor centre doesn’t  provide hands-on experiences for school children to make their own bricks during educational tours.  The not-existing shop goes on to fail to  provide an unwritten  Two Rivers press book covering the  history of brick making in the Thames Valley featuring Reading and Tilehurst.   The not-exisitng visitor centre tourguide  doesn’t point out that  the town  Aldbrickham (Old brick town)  in Thomas Hardy’s  ‘Jude the obscure’ was inspired by Reading.   Without the visitor centre tour guide to tell them,   even former brickies no longer know that yellow bricks are produced by using chalk  in the clay.   There are no ladders to climb down,   no safety helmets to wear,   and no dank holes to crawl through during the not-existant live and dangerous underground  tour.

As you can imagine I was really rather upset at not being able to wander through the caverns of undeground Reading accompanied by an informative and enthusiastic pot-holing-expert,   probably from South Africa,  tour guide.    

Hankys were poised.

There are times when Reading quite simply isn’t up to par.

Boarding the outstanding,   yet not bio-ethanolically-fueled, free Thames Valley Park commuter bus I was forced by proximity to listen to a Scottish man wearing a back suit,   pink tie and highly polished shoes have a conversation with one of his work colleagues,   it started:

‘have those pissheads on the platform fwcked it up yet?’

and went down hill rapidly.   He alighted at the British Gas company bus stop.  

Recently,   while much of the UK  was panic stocking on petrol,   in  Reading pedestrians were riding Bio-ethanol fuelled buses on route 17.    In Sept 2006 Stagecoach single-decker buses were  trialled in Merseyside, Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, and Greater Manchester.    Stagecoach introduced 8 singledecker buses in Kilmarnock running on cooking oil.   Apparanly nearby residents got discounted travel rights in return for donating cooking oil.  

According to the BBC,   who are terribly credible,   Reading is the first area in Britain to supply  a BIG fleet of 14  bio-fuelled buses.   The first doubledecker bus trialled in Reading in October 2007,   was called ‘Ethel’,   as were 2 of my mumzies aunties.   Get Reading reports:

Reading Transport Ltd chief executive James Freeman watched the company’s newest and greenest bus roll in.   He said: “People in Reading are very environmentally-conscious, so now they can be sure when they choose to travel by bus they are making a green choice.

 Hurrah for conscientious, progressive,   Reading public transport services.   Route 17 is one of my absolutely favourite bus routes,   it carries over 6 million passengers per year.   That is LOTS.

Britain and Denmark negotiated exemptions from even commiting to  shifting to using the Euro as its main currency.    Wiki answers adds that there is ‘hostility’ in Britain towards the European Union.   The cunning Swedes strategically  avoided  meeting the European Union requirements for shifting to using the Euro.    According  to the BBC,  in 2003 12 countries use the Euro as legal currency.  

I suspect the British like their currency with the picture of  the English monarch and British famous people and fabulous architecture.    Britain uses money issued by the Royal Bank of England.   That’s English money,   English Royalty.  

So what is this?   It’s Scottish money,   without a picture of the Queen on it.   Scottish money is also legal currency in all Britain,   though some Southern stores may have cashiers that refuse to accept it.          

I’m considering taking-up mannequin design as a part-time profession to supplement my pension income when I retire.   As preparation I’ll be investigating current mannequin designs and looking for job openings.  Mannequin sales are booming as they are used outside of the clothes retail business for crash testing cars and in films as doubles for actors,  Fashion Windows explains that it is because they are:    

the silent sales people. They do their job all day and night, never tiring, never complaining, always quiet and never call in sick.

Even Dave Scarrott the traps, lures and scarers man had a mannequin on sale with his collection.   He was only offered 10 pounds for it and decided not to let it go for this paltry sum,   mannequins are valuable.

Sarah recently noticed that Portugal provides both attack and big-denture’d mannequins in the same window displays commenting that they are way more scarey than Jackson’s child mannequins.   Dave,   Sarah and Jacksons have tuned their psyche’s in to appreciate the value of a scary mannequin and sizable dentures.   Excellent.

During a conversation about films  that are substantially at variance with the books that provided their original  title and approximate plot and characters:  

Wendy:   W’thering Heights

Bros:   WUH,   Wuh-thering Heights

Wendy: yes,   that’s what I said W’thering Heights

Bros:   Wendy,   Wuh-thering has a U in it

niece & her friend: (snigger,   sniggger,   snigger,   hiding mouths behind hands and flashing smiles at each other and checking to see if we ‘adults’ notice)

Bros:   (shakes his head and tuts)

 Wendy:   (decides not to mention that Bros appears to  have  failed to count the double-u)

burring-bring….

buurrrrrrring-bring……..

Buuuuurrrrrrrrinnnng-bring………………

Wendy:   HellooooOOHH,   Wendy speaking,   how can I help you?

Automated message (AM):   This is Lloyds Bank calling to leave a message for [name of last occupant of the Wendy house, nolootwh],   if you are [nolootwh] press any key

Wendy: (not being nolootwh I pressed no keys and waited in the silence pondering what to do next,     after what seemed like days I decided to press any key out of sheer noseyness)

AM:   please call (number I didn’t write down and can’t remember,    then silence,   I waited a few minutes then I hung up and searched the internet to discover why Lloyds were using such an odd method of contacting their customers.   They aren’t,    this was a phishing call)

The Foriegn and Commonwealth Office (FCO) provides helpful advice for British travellers.   In a weekend moment of pragmetism I checked-out the FCO advise for travellers to Greece.   They report that of the 3 million British people that visit Greece in a year.  

main types of incident for which British nationals required consular assistance in Greece in 2007 were: replacing lost or stolen passports (nearly 500 cases); hospitalisations (over 400 cases); dealing with arrests and detentions (over 270 cases); and deaths, mostly from natural causes (over 140 cases).

You should maintain high standards of public behaviour in Greece.   The Greek police will not accept rowdy or indecent behaviour, especially where excessive alcohol consumption is involved.   Greek courts impose heavy fines or prison sentences on people who behave indecently.

Hoorah!  

Can we borrow some of these Greek Police?

Once I’ve applied for a free ‘European Health Insurance Card’ (EHIC) I will be entitled to medical treatment and services in Greece equivalent to those provided to Greek Nationals.   Splendid.   Though the FCO aren’t to impressed with the service standards compared to the NHS,   they caution ‘The standards of nursing and after care, particularly in the public health sector lag behind what is normally acceptable in the UK. The Public Ambulance Service, which will normally respond to any accident, is rudimentary.  There are severe shortages of ambulances on some islands.’

The Scottish  NHS,   thats not English or Welsh,   publishes vaccination and travel health advice.   I’m assuming that the Scottish advice would align with the English so I’m covered.  

Excitedness levels are still Amber.

Watch people on CCTV cameras,   LIVE,   on the number 17 bus!

Distributed social responsibility by having lots of witnesses to any naughtiness on the buses.   Everyone knows they are being watched.

Distributed snooping,   snooping in public, taking people watching to the next level.   The bus company will have witnesses to incidents,  

Reading bus services are cutting edge,   except perhaps for the requirement to pay to ride.   Using cash and having the exact change.   How archaic is that?   Why can’t I just have my retina scanned by one of these many inplace cameras and have the money directly deducted from the bank account of my choice?

I’m sorry sir,  

we have just run out of subtlety,  

will a double dose of concise frankness do?

It’s 70% off.

 As you approach the Reading Cattle Market on Great Knollys Street you pass this wonderful mural of British Friesians.   The  covered cattle market is built of large red-bricks.   Approximately 4 times the size of normal bricks.   I’ve never seen such large bricks.   The  walls of the market are covered with advertisements for farming related artefacts,   breeds of cattle  and British cattle farmer values.        Next to Great Knollys Street is  Abattoirs Road.   Adam Sowan’s history of Reading street names is named after Abbatoirs Road and calls out that Road as designation became popular in Victorian times,   implying that Great Knollys Street predates Abbatoirs Road. Abbatoirs Road runs along the main Railway line that links London with Cardiff.   The space under the arches of the grey-brick rail bridge are used by retailers.   At the begining of Abbatoirs Road is a Jazz club in a railway arch.

After the Abbatoir the cattle move on to the Butchers shop then  on to someone’s kitchen.   All within less than a square mile.  

Thimbleby and Shoreland, founded in 1901, maintain an auction house on the impressively named Great Knollys Street in downtown Reading.   Thimbleby and Shoreland  declare themselves:

the leading international specialist in the sale and valuation of horse-drawn carriages and related items, hosting the world famous Reading Carriage Sales

Recently they auctioned ‘THE DAVE SCARROTT COLLECTION OF TRAPS, LURES and SCARERS’    As you’ve wisely deduced,   I couldn’t resist taking a peak at such a curious collection.   The Auction brochure reports:

THE TRAP MAN

A motor mechanic by profession, Dave Scarrott started this unique collection quite by chance some twenty years ago when he was offered a couple of traps by a friend. From those small beginnings his passion grew to the extent of the present collection with interesting and rare traps and other artefacts having been sourced from all over the world.

The family have lived in the South Oxfordshire area from time immemorial and Dave will be the first to admit that his unusual hobby ‘is in the blood’ and he makes no secret of the fact that his great uncle, Jack Scarrott, was a notorious local poacher. It was a way of life in those early days with a large family to support and no social security! So notorious was he that the Kirtlington Estate saw fit to appoint him as their head game keeper and use his skills to their advantage, thereby killing two birds with one stone!

Dave and his collection have been a familiar sight at most local shows and it is undoubtedly one of the finest single collections in the country. The decision to sell has not been an easy one but has been forced on him due to illness. Unfortunately therefore, his days of travelling around the local shows are over, but rather than just ‘shut up shop’ Dave has reluctantly decided it is time to call it a day and move on

Ever since the stranger in Reading pointed out that the locals are prone to using double negatives to indicate a single negative,   rather than a positive,   I’ve been noticing this phenomenon.   Examples

I don’t know nothing about it (Guv)

I didn’t eat none of it

There wasn’t nothing there

He didn’t have nothing to say

I probably didn’t notice this local language because I may not be prone to never using it myself.

Words of wisdom from my outrageously expensive  and  handsome young product-dispensing hairdresser:

If someone has been shouting at you for playing football near their house and generally been grumpy and verbally abusive whenever they see you,   don’t get into their car when they follow you along the street and start insisting that you accept a lift from them while smiling and being uncharacteristically smarmy

As usual,   I’ll be taking Alan’s tip very seriously and following up on this gem of wisdom

The opening and closing phrases used in emails that I receive* from English people  are noticably different from those I receive from US people.    Opener-closer pairings  tend to be  more thematic than systematic:

Most common 2 UK Openers:

• Dear Wendy  
• Hi Wendy
• Other openers: ‘Thank you‘    ’Heya‘ ‘Hello   (Wendy, Love, Angel, Darling etc)‘   ‘Indeed’   ‘Oh my!’   ‘take this quiz its great!’**   ‘Oh cripes yes!’  

Most common 2 UK Closers:

• Kind Regards (name on new line)
• Best Wishes,   (name on new line)
• Other closers:  ’Love’     ‘Cheers’‘   ‘Sincerely‘ ‘ Thank you’    

Most common 2 US Openers

• Hi Wendy
• Hey
• Other US openers: ‘Hello’   ‘Thank you’    ’your question has been received’  ’that time again’   ‘thematic and diverting’

Most common 2 US Closers

• Thanks
• [authors name]
• Other US closers: ‘Sincerely’     ‘                   [name]‘   ‘Must go!”   ‘Thank you’   ‘Thanks’   ‘thematic and diverting’

* The data leading to this  conclusion was drawn by unsystematically reviewing the contents on my work and personal email inboxes for  May 2008 living in the UK and  October 2006 when I lived in the US.    The senders assumed-location or citizenship was used  to assign  UK or US practice.     By far the most common emails I receive come from friends and family with no standard opener or closer, they are written as-if with-in an ongoing conversation and are  excluded from the analysis.   In no way can my inbox contents be considered representative of National or International trends.  

** My nieces do like eveyone to join in  a good Quiz

The Stranger in Reading is a 2005 Two Rivers Press edition of an  original 1810 book.   It contains  7 letters written, supposedly  anonymously, by Reading long-time resident John Man.   The book documents Man writing  as if a stranger in Reading to a friend in London and includes  a modern preface and editorial provided by  Adam Sowan.   Despite painting a not-quite desirable-place-to-live view of Reading Borough two centruies hence, the book  is a thoroughly enjoyable read that has lead to the Wendy House strapline being updated.

The orginal book is prefaced by  Sowans description of John Man and then by light, within-letter,  explanatory annotations.   The main text maintains the original creative punctuation and spelling.    Sowan cites one example sentence as containing:

 three colons, five semi colons and no fewer than thirty-two commas; yet it is surprisingly readable.

A theme throughout the book is the poor state of the contemporary paving,   depite the Reading paving act providing the following penalities:

ten shillings, by every person leaving any carriage in the street,   except whilst loading or unloading;   driving a wheelbarrow on the footways; throwing dust, dirt, or rubbish in the streets.   Five shillings, by all persons neglecting to sweep the foot-paths before their houses every morning (Sundays excepted) before 10 O’clock. pxxx

An enjoyable glimpse into history that has value beyond people who may be interested in Reading’s history alone.   I discovered  how MP’s were renumerated and elected to parliaiment  and how ‘the corporation’ helped run Reading Borough.

Amber excitedness characteristics:

• unpredictable outbreaks of persistent smiling.
• mugs of undrunk tea appearing around the house because I’ve forgotten that I have already made myself a cup of tea.
• frequent brief outbursts of hyper-inactivity.   Sitting-still to enjoy thinking about whatever I’m getting excited about.
• increased incidences of burbling.

Why now?

This year I’ll be  sailing to half a dozen or so Islands in Greece with 7 strangers and a friend for 10 days on a 50ft yaught.   The trip bochure tells me that   Hemingway ‘Would have’ turned up at the Island of Sifnos,   that we can visit the Kitron Brewery on Naxos.   All over the Islands we can admire ancient architecture,   visit Churches, Temples and many many Tavernas.   Snorkling, dolphins  and beaches are also mentioned.      

OooOoOOooOoOoOOoOoHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh

the Ray Bans are out!

This is what the nice gentleman in the menswear department shared with me.  

Jacksons store was purpose built in 1897 for the family business.    Jackson’s gentlemans outfitters started earlier,   on this site in 1875.    Over 100 years later  it is still owned by the Jackson family  and operating in the orginal premisis.   It has many different departments spread throughout the building on different levels.   None of the departments have a till.   The stores takings are not stored in each department.

When a customer purchases an item the money and purchase details are put into a tubular container and sent up a pipe to the office on the top floor where they calculate the change and return it down the pipe in a tubular container.   Awesome.   It made me want to purchase something just to see the system working.   I’m now contemplating making full use of the reputedly quirky shoe department  during my next weekly visit.    

In the office on the top floor you can see where all the pipes arrive from each department.   The office person, behind these safe bars, can safely recieve the cash and return the change.   It reminded me of the banking system with video-tellers in a US bank that I used to use.

 The Jackson’s store website calls this a ‘Lamson pneumatic tube system’ and dates it in the 1960s.

I am a little bit short-sighted,    

I can read my computer screen with normal font sizes despite their ridiculously small size.  

Then one day,  

unexpectedly,

IE7 decided to give me

buttons bigger than bars of soap

and black-out the page content.  

It’s a cheeky little browser.

That IE7

Great Knollys street is cited on several websites as being named after a family, with no information on the family beyond the name.   Snooping the net leads me to suspect it is the family that included Sir Robert Knollys,   born 1547 in Reading,   progeny of the Lord Mayor of London in 1409-1410.   Sir Robert  Knollys was variously an MP for Reading,   and keeper of Twickenham based  Syon House  for an  order fo Brigittine nuns (and monks – mixed orders).   Wikipedia ingenouosly describes him as ‘one of Henry VIII henchmen.   There is a quaint story stemming from Sir Robert Knollys’ time as lord Mayor of London that I stumbled across here:

The Knollys Rose Ceremony commemorates an ancient City custom dating from 1381. Sir Robert Knollys owned a house on the West Side of Seething Lane. During one of his absences abroad his wife is reputed to have purchased a property on the east side of Seething Lane and built a footbridge over the lane to the other side, without the equivalent of planning permission and resulted in the City Corporation of the day imposing a rent of one red rose, payable each year on the Feast of St John the Baptist.

There are some red roses blooming in the Wendy House garden. In Reading.

Robert Knollys’  son Francis Knollys is also a likely source for the street name.   Francis  was  a puritan protestant who was ‘granted the manor of Caversham’  .   The Wikipedia description is slightly less partisan than its description of his father.   Francis was a friend  of Henry VIII.   Francis was also a  close confident of Elizabeth I throughout her life.   He is cited on web site as being given the title  ”Treasurer of the Royal Bedchamber“ .   He was also  long-time warden of Mary Queen of Scotts during her detention.      Francis frequently resided in the disolved Reading Abbey where he would entertain Queen Elizabeth I.  

My emerging picture of Reading’s character is growing to be pro-Royalty,   pro-protestantism with lashings of pre-christianity,   and welcoming of  female roles extending beyond those stereotyped  as wives and potential wives.

 I like Reading.

Edited after Mrs. P.s comment to systematically add an s to the end of evey use of the word Knolly,   and move around a few apostrophes just for fun.

Lampost, traffic bollard and paltry gewgar thing topped by a stone carving of a pineapple and decorated with the fasces symbol (ax and bound birch sticks) of strength through authority.

a local landmark

Originally commissioned in 1804 by Edward Simeon, director of the Bank of England,  to provide light for the Reading Market and act as an oversized traffic bollard for wayward wagons.   Also described as a pawltry gewgaw  thing contrived to  gain votes for Edward Simeon’s brother in  Reading MP elections.  

Locally it is more commonly referred to as the ‘Soane Monument’ after the locally residing, now dead, architect, Sir John Soane,  who designed both it and the Bank of England.     The monument is currently all clean and pretty because it was  restored in 2007.

A Reading friend of London extraction recently took  a vacation in the wild west of  the English Riveria.   She was pleased to discover that all modern conveniences are available in Paignton.    No longer do people on the English Riviera  have to share their teeth with ancesters, neighbours, or complete strangers.    

No more waiting for a person to finnish using their teeth before you can enjoy a crunchy-nut peanut butter sandwich.  You can hear my friends excitement:

New Dentures??!!  - as oppose to??!! Used dentures, one careful lady owner??!!   Priceless!