Today, I’m turning away from the ongoing debate about the cost of sunbeds, Greek salads and holidays. I’m not paying any heed to the debate about whether the island is pricing itself too far to the rich right and losing the loyalty of its regulars who, one might say, are from the economic left (of an imaginary scale). I am not getting involved in the worrying thought that there will soon be no properties for locals to rent, and the rising cost of those that are available. Trying not to think that our 21-year-old godson has to pay more for a bedsit in Harani than we’ve ever paid for a house with extra rooms in the village. I am not taking any notice of all of that, except I just have, so now I’m moving on to something else, and I have another question for you.
Does anyone have a map of the London sewer system circa 1892. I know it’s a bit odd, isn’t it? But I’d be fascinated because I am working on a story which involves just that system, and I’d like to know more. I’ve been wading through old newspapers and a collection of writings, but haven’t yet found a map.
Completely unrelated to that, I have some random photos of cats for you. I was going to take a walk yesterday morning and take some more, I was up in time. Well, I woke up at two, three, six minutes past four and finally, five to five, but when the dawn started, it was already over 30 degrees and 60% humidity, and I was a bit dopey. That, I can put down to the antihistamine I had to take before bed because I’d become a mosquito’s pin cushion, and I have almost run out of haemorrhoid cream. (See earlier posts; it’s a cure for itchy red swellings, i.e. mosquito bites.)
Before bed, we’d watched Titanic again as it had just come on Netflix. There are a few blunders in there which you can look out for on your next time around. There’s a classic continuity oops when Rose breaks the glass for the fire axe. Clearly, the smashing of the sugar glass and her taking the axe were shot at different times, because the formation of the broken glass is different in each shot. I expect there are others, but I’m not decrying the film. It’s still moving (not him dying, that was inevitable, but the general loss of life), and it’s still big, dramatic, sumptuous and a good way to kill three and a quarter hours. If only it could also kill mosquitoes.
Right! I must get back to 1893 and the London sewers, the works of Maskelyne and Cooke’s home of mystery, and vanishing acts generally.
