Pedestrians were moseying diffused across most of the pavements so I steered my run down streets normally abandoned. One of those went past St James Church which purportedly had a Cut Benchmark on one face but has always been locked away at the street gate when I’ve passed before.
And, lo, the gates were swung wide for me this fine day.
The church has long since converted to a Nigerian congregation known as the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim, with the old school across the street now another African church, or possibly choich.
St James has plain glass windows typical of Anglican churches that have dodged adornment since the time of the Civil War when stained glass was considered heretical (or, at least a distraction).
I Googled the ESOCS but their websites tend to be ‘unsecure,’ so I got some info from Wiki. The photos available online show this church’s services to be costume oriented. I snapped my Cut Mark photo and left promptly for my pub stop, concerned I might be kidnapped and forced into labour but the congregation is probably more a danger to its members than to the general public.
I wasn’t angling for another run in with the Scientologists (for photographing their weird little compound) and, since they have obliterated the Cut Mark on the stone wall out by the pavement, no incidents occurred. I don’t know what the rationale was in them destroying the mark, but it is a bit eerie the way their cross is made up of two benchmarks stacked head-to-head.
Like the Dianetics folks, most of the people on this run have more house than any of us needs and nicer ones than most of us can aspire to. My first success of the day came at #6 Serpentine Road after a miss on a bridge (water mains maintenance made it inaccessible) and a wall which had been replaced in recent years.
#6 also had a new, low wall — and the walls at #2, 4, and 8 have been screeded over — but the buttress with the mark was pristine if a bit worn:
Continuing up Serpentine, #21 was unlikely due to it being ON the house itself but was impossible behind the hoarding out on the pavements.
At the top of this hill, Serpentine runs into Selly Park Road, Selly Wick Road, and at least one other in a confusing intersection. I stopped by the sign commemorating an early protective covenant to regroup.
The same wall as this plaque was supposed to have a Cut Mark on it:
Which I found here at the bench:
But, as I confirmed my next stop I spotted another.
I don’t think this one is real but it is an odd bit of graffiti, nonetheless (probably one of the Scientologists contacting the Mother Ship):
Plagued by replaced walls and occupied residences, I found a plaque as I headed down toward Pershore Road. I vaguely remember Councillor Stewart’s obit not long after we moved to West Brom:
The house was at #15 which I found, upon consultation of the map, had this mark on the gatepost:
A zig and a zag toward the park and I had to skip a car dealership with wares all over the most likely locations of its purported mark. At the far end of Second Avenue on the kerb in front of #52 I encountered a rivet (a rare find for me)
Rivets are not the most obvious and the benchmark accompanying it is worn almost completely away.
I exited that park, was screwed by Scientology, and found the lodge to the arboretum nearby occupied (residence rules, y’know?). A few other misses including a long gone gatepost at the Avenue Road side of an adjacent park led me to a railroad bridge with the last one I would try for on this journey.
There was this guy I worked with in Georgia named Kumar who really wanted to feel like ‘one of the guys’. To that end, he once went on some rambling story about a woman who ‘did ALL the things’ but I was never clear on what those things were although Spiritual Healer Pandit Valmiki seems to do quite a large number of things.
The address on the flyer is for a sari shop across from the 7 Stars pub (which I visited some time ago and which is on my TrigPointing list for a return trip).
Of the problems listed for removal on the back of the flyer like Bad Luck or Children Mistakes, Sexual Problems seems to be the closest to doing ‘all the things’ as far as I can tell. I’ll be sending Kumar the master’s contact details.
One of the joys of TrigPointing, so far, has been the historical aspect. The databases I use have been transcribed and largely not updated since the Triangulation Point, Flush Bracket, or Cut Mark were originally entered.
The church behind the clock tower is gone and another is obscured by the YMCA tower next to the old cinema site
The Tower Cinema was opened in 1935 (first film was The 39 Steps) at a location that is now a car park near the Carters’ Green Clock Tower. There was a pin — essentially a rivet that served as a reference point for the Ordnance Survey — that came down with the building in the mid-1990s after a name change to ABC Cinema (in 1961) and a function change to bingo hall in 1969 (last film was Hot Millions).
I’m certain the Black Cock pubs I’ve been in were so-called for different reasons
The humorously named Black Cock public house sat just around the corner on Guns Lane but closed for business in 2002 after nearly 150 years. Its first publican raised fighting fowl and had a breed of black cock that the pub was named for. It is now a semidetached house. Someone plastered/screeded over the cut mark in the meantime (should be about a foot above the pavement facing the street near the fence).
The former Hop and Barleycorn pub on Dartmouth Street is a very short walk away, but the cut mark on it was destroyed with the house. It had become a drug squat in the 90s and was finally razed in 2005 ostensibly to make a family home but almost immediately became the Masjid that is there today.
I don’t celebrate the Festival of the Living Dead but the University closes its doors from Good Friday until the Thursday after Easter. So, the plan for the day is, as per usual, to watch Life of Brian and cook something nice (piece of lamb outdoors, as Jackie can’t bear the scent, this year).
Other meals: Maundy Thursday was the traditional beef tacos and G00d Friday saw a casserole of penne, cheese stuff (ricotta, firmly beaten egg, and mozzarella with some spinach mixed in after sweating with some garlic), tomato, and more cheese (just cheese, this time). Holy Saturday was, of course, pizza topped with olives, mushrooms, zucchini, and salami.
We were doing a lot of cabinetry at this time. There’s a story, here, but not today. Sorry. Happy Easter.
We went to Walsall to hit up a large Wilco but it had even less stock than the small ones near the house.
Fortunately the charity shops RULED except for some disappointing items we’ve already turned back around to other charity shops in West Brom (the donation being the wager we took on the — as it turned out — shit piece of merchandise, Short Record Review to follow). We had to skip one as a large area of town including one supporting an immigrants’ charity was cordoned off due to a murder investigation:
The best bit of the trip, though, besides the day out (of course) was the great deco and earlier architecture obscured and yet right out there in public.
Lions seemed to be a major theme (some detail snips below) and preservation of functional forms were another pleasant surprise:
The second best was the very much in public freak show that is put on, for free, by the Walsall community in its day to day, in public business. Absolutely golden entertainment . . . keep it up, weirdos.
Oh, and it seems to be a focus of missionaries. As we walked past the above mentioned crime scene we were serenaded by a middle-aged Korean couple with “How Great Thou Art” which was the only song they knew in (I’m guessing it was some broken version of) “English.” Later, we were preached at by some Geordie’s on the same spot that fire and brimstone was later spurted from a West African evangelist then, down the road, some street rappers harangued us and others about Jesus’ imminent return. We felt cleansed in the blood of the and rushed home to enjoy some of our purchases and talk about our adventures.
Later, we started watching a series called “Everyone Else Burns.” You should be able to predict the Short Review for it (if you are some sort of witch).
There’s a big refurbishment push next week. It makes me wish I were still a god.
Pråmod Aryal was a god. This was not my opinion.
One day in the mid-90s when I was still working on a PhD in Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech, I made spare cash running the line at an Italian restaurant. Pråmod was my sous (there were only two of us) and every now and then he would get a visitor bearing a mattress or another toting some lamps or other furniture. They would leave these gifts in the dining area near the kitchen then back out of the restaurant, bowing and gesturing with clasped hands, and we’d store these gifts in the walk-in fridge until after work when I’d load them on my pick up truck and drive them to his fantastically furnished apartment. This went on for months before I asked what the fuck was it all about.
He seemed sheepish and embarassed as he, matter of factly, told me that in his bit of Nepal he was the incarnation of some god or another. “How do I get a piece of this action?” I asked.
“There are more gods than people in Nepal. I got this because I built a skip antenna to pick up tv signal reflections off the ionosphere. The guy was so happy with the Indian cricket broadcasts he made me a god and sent me to study at university. You should be a god, too. It’s good.”
“Downsides?” I asked, not believing any of this.
“No one will ever believe you if you tell them you are a god,” he said, anticipating my doubts. See, I told you he was a god.
I don’t remember if we ever agreed to anything about this matter — drugs may have been involved — but the next Friday (and every week or ten days or so until I moved back to Athens) some South Asian weirdo or another would show up at at the gaff with a box for a deck of cards with only the jokers remaining and a generous amount of psychoactive materials packed into the space where the deck used to be. I have no idea why it was cards, although I suspect the Jokers were down to Pråmod and the space was about right for a quarter ounce of weed or an eighth ounce of mushrooms. They’d generally order an appetiser and ask for me by name; after the first one came through, I’d make something special for the worshippers to eat and drink before they left but I never got the sort of genuflection that Pråmod did (and why should I?).
I could really use a deck of cards for next week’s construction push.
Fines and fees: £66. One commute and 30 total miles, but few new paths to report (updated map next week).
August was cooler than Summer’s end should be and the COVID-19 measures persist. This post ignores that and will try to set a template for the resumption of the monthly synopsis and excess photo dump.
Ganesh, above, was seen floating down the Walsall Canal during a run. Speaking of runs, the mileage for August totalled 187 with 66 of those on 8 commutes. No major or even interesting injuries to report.
Work has shifted to supporting the other lab denizens and the proteomics work is finally picking back up. I’ve been able to go in more frequently with the reopening of Sport/Exercise/Rehabilitation’s lab and the ability to lone work at Chemistry.
The household achievements were the new cloakroom and laundry, wiring the house for the internet and additional numbers of power sockets, and getting the wood flooring prepped for the next step in their refurbishment (sanding, then stain and varnish).
The “Ce n’est pas une pipe” award goes to this bench which is not a bench:
Short run today trying to beat the rainfall that is still yet to come. My GVRAT mileage is now 535.2 leaving me 99.8 to go (I think about 2 weeks worth, if I coast).
If you look at the map, above, you’ll count 4 churches. Harvest is a ‘family’ restaurant (which in that part of the country means large helpings of lard and Jesus). I can assure you that Habitat For Humanity, founded by my dad’s 2nd cousin (a former politician of some note), is faith-based. All this God-bothering reminds me of a thing that happened a few days ago and a few decades ago.
When I correct Brits that I’m not American — only USED to be — they always ask, “why,” so plaintively that I feel I’ve shaken their core beliefs. Tuesday, a custodian just returned from furlough asked it and I answered, “refugee,” as I usually do. Most Brits laugh even if they don’t associate the response with the news of the day. He, instead, furrowed his brow and followed up with, “how do you mean?”
“Religious persecution.”
“Surely, not. I thought all religions were accepted in America.”
“They are. Lack of one, however…”.
I then told him about my dog tags in the Army which declared me “Catholic.” When I was processing in, the corporal printing the tags asked name, serial number, and religion. “Atheist,” I stated honestly. The sergeant behind him blew a gasket. “THERE’S NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS AN ATHEIST, SOLDIER! NOW, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO PUT DOWN FOR RELIGION?!?”
“None.”
“NUN? NUN?” His voice cracked. Scowling, he asked the corporal, “Nuns are Catholic, right?”
After the rain stopped, I left the Fighting Cocks and walked on water to Flakes for a bit of fish before the return run. Tasty enough that I will avoid the obvious “fishers of men” joke, here.
Endless British Pub Crawl (Part 3) 