Lupin.

Mrs TD used to be an avid fan of the radio programme, “Gardeners' Question Time.” She didn’t often listen to it as she worked at week-ends, so I recorded it onto the then fashionable audio cassettes and even bought storage boxes for them. We ended up throwing away the several years supply before they were ever played. A common question on the programme concerns the difficulties of propagating lupins; we, on the other hand, would like to know how to prevent their procreation. They are prolific and develop large root systems such that, if you secured a winch to a mature oak in an attempt to pull one out, the tree would succumb first. While I am prepared to admit that they can be quite attractive, and that the bumblebees like them, I would just prefer it if they grew in next door’s garden.
 
On a different topic, we showed the new and highly rated Michael Fassbender version of Macbeth at the cinema this evening. The exit poll indicated that  opinions on its merits were divided. I found that the special effects, particularly the dim lighting and the red haze made it very difficult to follow the action or even recognize the characters, something that always causes me problems. Mrs TD liked it but, on questioning, she was very unclear about which, and how many, characters died in the final scenes. At school, I was taught the arts according to a principle based on aversion therapy; having an innate scientific aptitude, I did not find that to be a useful approach; these days, the teaching of science appears to be similarly flawed.