We have quite a few lamps dotted about the place and they each require their individual type of light bulb. As anyone knows who has anything to do with light bulbs, you can forget the nominal lifetime suggested on the packing because they are likely to blow at any time and for no apparently good reason.

Being the provident type, I have a plastic box containing at least two spares of every kind of light bulb that we use, plus batteries for torches and other devices. I like to boast that it’ll be a cold winter’s day before you catch me without a replacement for a blown bulb.

Well, suddenly, it’s a cold winter’s day. The bulb in Tigger’s desk lamp failed the other day. I pulled out my plastic box, selected a replacement and screwed it into the socket. (Yes, “screwed”, because surprisingly many of our lamps have screw fittings for their bulbs.) When we switched on the lamp, nothing. No light. The new bulb was apparently a dud. I tried the second spare and, happily, it worked.

As an aside, do you remember those long-gone days when you bought a light bulb which came in a packet with open ends and the shopkeeper inserted it into an electric socket to make sure – and prove to you – that it worked? I do, but these days bulbs come in closed boxes and nobody bothers to check them. Well, it seems that they should.

I placed the two dud bulbs on my desk intending to purchase new ones by some means or other. There was no hurry, I thought, because… well, how often does a bulb blow? Quite often, apparently, because yesterday evening, the bulb in Tigger’s lamp failed. Yes, again. I was caught with my electrical pants down, so to speak.

Near to us is a branch of Ryness, the electrical suppliers. In fact, it is on the corner with Baron Street and White Lion Street (see yesterday’s blog post) and in “normal times” I buy all my bulbs there. In passing yesterday, we had looked to see whether by any chance they were open for business. A notice on the door gave a phone number to call and stated “TRADE ONLY”. Not being “trade”, I had to think again.

This morning, I had my “light bulb moment” and searched for “Ryness” online. Yes, they do have a website and, yes, they do sell online, promising a delivery time of one to two working days. Fortunately, I always keep the spare bulbs in their boxes so I had the complete details of the bulbs I needed, including the product number.

I ordered three bulbs – one for immediate use and two spares. The annoying thing is that I have to pay £5.99 for delivery when their shop is just a few minutes’ walk away… But that no longer counts in these Days of the Pandemic. I suppose I should count myself lucky that it is even possible to order online and have goods delivered.

It was another sunny day today which felt much warmer than the forecaster’s 17° C (63° F). This encouraged us to take a more roundabout path.

Baron Street

This is Baron Street which gives its name to the nearby bus stop. It runs at the far end into Chapel Market, originally called Chapel Street, which became a market officially in 1879.

Mount Zion Chapel Sunday School

White Lion Street crosses Baron Street and we turned into it on the left where I photographed this building bearing a plaque that identifies it as the Mount Zion Chapel Sunday School. It was built in 1896-7 as a dependency of the Baptist chapel of that name which was in Chadwell Street. The chapel is still there, and is still a place of worship, but has changed its name several times since the 1890s. I don’t know what purpose the Sunday School performs today or whether it still belongs to the chapel.

Dated 1923

Further along White Lion is this attractive façade. All I know about it so far is that it prominently displays the date 1923. It has two pedestrian entrances, suggesting that it might have been a school (with entrances for boys and girls), though the large central gate for vehicles suggests otherwise. Perhaps it was a warehouse or factory.

Turning down Penton Street, we crossed Pentonville Road into Claremont Square and more usual territory.

Inside the reservoir enclosure

I took this photo through the railings of the reservoir to show how nicely wild it is and how attractive it is to birds and other wildlife.

Triumph Herald

Shortly beyond where Claremont Square becomes Amwell Street, we spotted this old-timer, a Triumph Herald convertible. This model was made between 1959 and 1971, and so this one is in good condition.

I am not particularly a car enthusiast but I do remember when these were launched. I was a university student in Sheffield and remember that in advance of the launch date, they put a Herald in the local car showrooms but covered it up, presumably hoping this would arouse people’s curiosity. It certainly aroused mine! Though I never owned one of these.

As an aside, I could mention that at that time, I lusted after the Triumph TR2. Sadly, I never owned one of them, either!

And so to Myddelton’s, as Samuel Pepys might have expressed it.

Myddelton’s

This is an interior view of the famous Myddelton’s (famous to us, anyway!), taken as our coffee was being prepared. And yes, I did ask permission to display the photo on the blog as this is the courteous way to proceed.

It was now time to take our coffee home, our outing concluded for today. Such are our little adventures in this time of pandemic.

Not that I’m a fan of Lou Reed but the weather today suggested this pun on the refrain of his well known song. The base temperature of 11° C (52° F) was lifted by the sunshine.

In my last post, I showed some cars parked in defiance of the red route regulations and here’s another example of unusual parking behaviour.

Vertical parking

This car has been parked vertically to the pavement rather than the more usual sideways alignment. I suppose one advantage of this would be that it avoids the car being boxed in by others parking too close on either side, though there is little likelihood of such unbecoming behaviour here in genteel Claremont Square.

As it was such a pleasant day, we prolonged our walk by way of Arlington Way, a quiet street that debouches in Rosebery Avenue, next to the historic Sadler’s Wells Theatre made famous by, among others, Joseph Grimaldi.

Shakespeare’s Head

In Arlington Way stands this pub, called Shakespeare’s Head, closed like all its kind and looking rather sad as a result.

New River Head Gardens

On the corner of Arlington Way with Rosebery Avenue are these rather fine gardens. I don’t know what their official name is and I have called them the New River Head Gardens because they occupy land that was once used by the company of that name and the residential apartments, just out if sight on the right in what used to be the waterworks laboratories, also bear that name. Around here, history lies near the surface, so to speak.

Walking along in front of the theatre we found this bus standing at the stop. You might notice something peculiar about it.

No entry at the front

You may spot the no-entry notice on the front door. The front doors of all buses in London have been closed to passengers to help protect drivers from infection. This has caused a problem. Whereas the three-door buses have payment card readers at all three doors, two-door buses have one only at the front next to the driver. So how do you pay on one of those buses? You don’t. You don’t pay fares on any buses in London during the crisis. I don’t know whether similar measures have been adopted in other towns.

From Rosebery Avenue we progressed to St John Street and thence to the Angel crossroads where we called on our friends at Jusaka. They have suspended their loyalty card scheme for now but kindly gave us free coffee today.

A nice cup of coffee

We hurried home to enjoy our coffee. I always transfer mine from the takeaway cup to a proper cup. Well, you have to keep up standards, don’t you? 🙂

During our walk yesterday, we saw these cars parked at the kerb in Pentonville Road.

Parked on the red route

So what? you might be tempted to ask.

The answer is that this is a red route and it is illegal to stop, let alone park, on a red route during business hours on weekdays. The owners of these vehicles obviously believe that there are minimal chances of police or traffic wardens coming by or bothering to issue a ticket.

For all I know, they may be right.

This is just one more indication of the changes in habits and behaviour brought about by the lockdown.

Continuing our survey of the etymology of the names of the days of the week, the first day of the week to take its name from a god and his associated planet is Tuesday, or mardi in French.

As a reminder, here are the names of this day of the week in the five languages previously discussed:

The Babylonian god Nergal was worshipped widely throughout ancient Mesopotamia and his symbol was the lion. He was held to be the god of death, war and destruction but, perhaps counterintuitively, his aid could be sought for protection and assistance. He shows an obvious resemblance to the Roman god Mars and the Germanic Tiw. For more information, see the Wikipedia article on Nergal.

To the Romans, the red planet represented Mars, the god of war and consequently, the patron god of the army. For more on this, see the Wikipedia article on Mars.

In Latin, the name of this god was the same as in modern English, Mars, and the genitive (possessive case) was Martis. The corresponding day of the week was therefore named dies martis or martis dies.

In the Vulgar Latin spoken in what was to become France, martis dies evolved various forms such as martedi, martes (c.f. Spanish martes) and the modern French mardi, in which the Latin origin is still easy to see.

The Germanic equivalent of the Roman Mars was Tiw, known to the Norse as Tyr. The name Tiw was probably pronounced much as we today pronounce the Tue of Tuesday.

To the Angles and Saxons, Tiw was the god of war and treaties. He also stood for justice and honour. As befits a warrior, Tiw was considered a master of swordplay. The Germanic name Tiw is related to the Greek Zeus and Tiw, like Zeus was also a sky god.

Unusually among gods, Tiw had only one hand. According to the myths, the gods banded together to bind the monstrous and evil wolf called Fenrir. They tried to do this by deception and the wolf agreed to be bound only if one of the gods placed his hand in the wolf’s mouth as a token of good faith. Tiw, the honourable, proffered his own hand but the wolf bit it off.

For more about Tiw, see the Wikipedia article on Tyr.

In Anglo-Saxon, the genitive of Tiw was Tiwes and his day was called Tiwesdæg which eventually became the modern Tuesday.