Searching For Mint Imperials
This trip didn’t start out as the title, but I do find those little tubes of Bassetts Mint Imperials difficult to find these days. Perhaps, they are a casualty of the takeover of Cadburys by Kraft.
I had gone to Stoke Newington to deliver some pictures for framing to A & B Frames and as it was raining with a certain ferocity, I decided that to go somewhere for lunch was not the best idea. So I decided to return home to cook some scrambled eggs to eat with some left over new potatoes and some smoked salmon. But the rain meant it would be better to go north to Seven Sisters as this avoided the walk to a stop for a 76.
In the end I decided to go to Blackhorse Road station, by taking a bus to South Tottenham station and then the Gospel Oak and Barking line of the Overground, as I wanted to see if you could see the Markfield Museum from the train. I made another change of mind at Blackhorse Road and instead of taking the Victoria Line home, I reversed direction and went to Harringay Green Lanes station to get a bus home.
Here are some of the pictures I took.
But I was able to buy some Mint Imperials in the kiosk at Blackhorse Road.
Note the two staircases at South Tottenham and Blackhorse Road. They’re not good, but at least they are better than those on the Lea Valley lines.
Payment Protection Insurance and Credit Cards
I got a letter yesterday from Aviva saying that the terms of my payment protection insurance were being changed. It indicated that the insurance was with HSBC. Now HSBC may be a reputable bank, but I’ve never dealt with them. It then turned out that the insurance related to a credit card that I have that is managed by the bank.
When C died, I had a problem with household expenses and needed a second card to keep them separate from my business expenses, so I got one quickly. It would appear that in the form, you needed to check the box to say you didn’t want the insurance, rather than say you wanted it. So I was fooled and have been paying for something I didn’t want for three years.
I wonder how many others have unnecessary insurance they don’t want.
I hadn’t spotted it, as every month I just paid off the value at the bottom of the account. Others may even do this by a direct debit to save money.
I wonder if C was paying this form of insurance on any of her cards! I shall be finding out, as her method of paying cards was to write a cheque for the full amount and then put the bill through the shredder.
You may think that I can’t claim as she died three years ago. Oh! Yes I can! Sometimes the bereaved get very angry. You may have a target out there, who will give you enough money for a small celebration.
It’s not difficult to claim. Just go to this page in Money Saving Expert. It might be a profitable way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon, and as Martin Lewis says it’ll only cost you some paper and a couple of stamps.
Oxfam And Cath Tate Cards
I had to deliver some of my throw outs to Oxfam yesterday and was surprised to see that my branch in Dalston stocks the Cath Tate Cards. As I needed a couple I bought two there for under four pounds.
Planning for the August Bank Holiday
As I’ve said before, I hate bank holidays.
For next Monday though I have a plan. Whilst I was travelling in Tottenham, I saw on the map a building named as Markfield Beam Engine and Museum.
I shall be going as it is in steam on the Monday.
I could even go to the football in the evening at Ipswich!
But the aim is to enjoy myself and judging by the way they are playing at the moment, a team made up of eleven fit men in the North Stand could do better.
I Don’t Listen to Music Anymore
I suppose a lot of this is to do, that I don’t drive anymore, as that was where I used to listen most.
Do I miss it?
No! In a word!
I don’t record programs either, as if I want to catch up, I use iPlayer. Sport I always watch live, either there, in the pub or on my television.
Will Young Talks Sense
Will Young writes an opinion in The Times today, that everyone should read. Here’s the second paragraph.
There are so many theories being bandied around as to why young people reacted as they did. Modern Britain is a blamocracy: people look to pass the buck. Governments, we are told, have created a society of idleness, in which a mood of entitlement has fermented. Add to this the onward march of capitalism, family breakdown and a fettered education sector and things look bleak.
I bet he doesn’t get called in by David Cameron.
He’s so right about how we all live in a blamocracy.
Getting On Our Bikes
According to this report on the BBC, cycling is booming, with several millions of extra cyclists.
This can only be good. It’s certainly taking off down here in london, but it taking off in the same way everywhere. It would be nice to see a breakdown of the statistics by county and city.
Let’s Get Gaddafi To The Hague
I suspect that the cruel and idiotic Gaddafi has a few tricks up his sleeves yet. But wouldn’t it be a victory for everybody, especially the Libyan people, if he felt the respected justice of the International Criminal Court.
If they’re short of cells, he could share with some of the other dictators and war criminals under arrest in The Hague. They all deserve each other.
The Man Who Could Have Changed History
I’m half watching a play about Hitler. But I’m finding it a bit difficult to follow, probably because of the hay fever’s effect on my hearing.
It is set in or about 1930 and I am reminded of another tale. It is in Lord Howard de Walden’s obituary in The Guardian.
He inherited 120 acres of London’s west end and bred and owned the 1985 Derby winner, Slip Anchor. But the story he loved to dine out on was when, as a young Cambridge student fresh out of Eton, he was driving a new car in Munich when a man walked out in front of him and was knocked down. “He was only shaken up,” recalled de Walden. “But had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.” The man was Adolf Hitler.
I never actually met him, but I knew a few people who worked for him, who never said any word about him that wasn’t complimentary. My last vision of him was shortly before he died, sitting in state in a wheel-chair at Newmarket races, immaculately turned out ciomplete with apricot coloured socks; his racing colours as suggested by Augustus John.
The Overground Connection to the Lea Valley Line at Seven Sisters
I tried to take a picture of the Gospel Oak to Barking Line of the Overground, as I passed over it, just before I got to Seven Sisters station whilst travelling to Bruce Grove today.
The Overground Passing Under the Lea Valley Line South of Seven Sisters
It was not good and neither was the one of the I took of Seven Sisters South junction that connects the two lines.
Seven Sisters South Junction
Some might argue that an interchange station here would be a good thing. Or perhaps that some trains from Enfield might use this junction to get to Barking and other places in East London.
I wouldn’t! But I would make the walk from Seven Sisters station to South Tottenham station as easy as possible. According to Wikipedia, there is a shorter route that is not well signposted.
So often improvements in many things can be brought about by decent signs, maps or a few litres of well-applied paint. Perhaps when we signpost an area, we should involve the teenagers. They know all the short-cuts and those places that are dangerous.
The Anonymous Widower 