Belcea

The trophy board

The last outing to town before the festivities was a trip to the Wigmore Hall to hear a couple of Beethoven quartets, Op.18 No.6 and Op.132 - the one with a Lydian movement celebrated by Huxley in 'Point Counter Point' - from the Belcea Quartet. Last heard about six months ago on the occasion noticed at reference 2.

It had been a flooded back patio day, noticed at reference 3, it was a wet evening and the land slip was work in progress - so I accepted a lift to Ewell West, where I arrived in time to admire the trophy board in the luxurious cycle shed there. The cycle racks themselves were well under half full, with perhaps twenty occupants.

My carriage was near empty - apart from one irritating phone user. A wait at Worcester Park, which turned out to be no more than that, and so onto a quiet Vauxhall. By the time I got to Victoria though, my tube was crowded, mostly with people wearing work clothes, but including one quite tall person wearing a low cut, full length, pleated, scarlet crepe dress, with a matching top, mid thigh length. Fully accessorised and fully warpainted. Not what I would call pretty. I speculated about gender and if forced to chose, I think I would have gone for transvestite. But I was not at all sure.

The cash machine in Cavendish Square was broken and was being minded by an indigent in blankets. While by the building materials and dustbins which occupy the southwestern corner of the square proper, we had a trolley, but clearly the property of another indigent, so not scorable.

Decided against the Cock & Lion on this occasion, and the queue at the bar at the Wigmore was very slow, so I settled for the help-yourself warf water.

The programme

Hall pretty full, and I could see just one free seat in front of me. I had been bumped from our usual aisle seats by a legal gentleman and his wife, while to my right I had a young lady dressed up in a smart, short sleeved dress, unusual in a young lady at the Wigmore. Put gently down by the wife left, when she turned the conversation to the concerts held in and around the Temple Church. Very convenient for us Waterloo people I announced. Even more convenient when you live there, she responded. Presumably a legal eagle rather than a legal pigeon. She was a bit vague about how you acquired an apartment at the Temple, beyond making it all sound a bit nods & winks. And she was not impressed by the idea that the Temple with its staircases and name boards had the feel of a Cambridge college, so perhaps they were Oxford people.

Another older gentleman behind me, sharing his musical knowledge - about on a par with mine - that is to say quite limited - with his lady friend. He told her that he found the programme notes, on this occasion from one Richard Wigmore of reference 5, more or less incomprehensible, and I could agree with him about that. Not, I hasten to add, that Wigmore is any worse in this regard than any of the other writers used for the purpose. He went on to muse about whether he would want to say goodbye to his friends if and when he knew he was going to die in a few days. The story seemed to be that perhaps there were half a dozen or so to whom he would like to say goodbye, the lady friend included. Although he also said that it was hard to know how one would react until it happened. Quite so. For myself, I think I might withdraw into myself, not to be very interested any more in other people at all, apart from my carers, but perhaps going through the motions for the sake of form. All a bit morbid for a concert.

The Belceas all played from computers, although I saw no sign of control and little sign of their looking at the music. Does the computer turn the pages for you these days? 18.6 good and 132 even better.

A quick Cock & Lion in the interval, where there was the odd party dress to be seen, this being the last Friday evening before the holiday kicked in.

Out into Oxford Street after the second half, to find more shoppers than party goers. Chucked off the tube at Victoria and, for what seemed like the first time for a long time, I managed to get from the tube platform to the train platform without going via Cardinal Place, which seems a long way at the end of the evening. At the end of my evening, anyway.

The holes in the shelf

A train turned up in a few minutes, and the second half of the journey was enlivened by an older gentleman  - perhaps some kind of salesman or businessman coming up to retirement - having a long conversation with what I think may have been the Kensington branch of Carluccio's about a substantial lunch booking for the following day, Saturday, which had been cancelled by Carluccio's. I supposed that the chap had made a late booking with a waitress on the spot, earlier in the day, who had failed to properly check the scene for the day following. But he had then set all the wheels in motion at his end. He was particularly cross given that he had spent a fair bit of money on their Christmas goodies in the course of making the booking. Given that the mistake had been made, seemingly by Carluccio's, I thought (to myself, naturally. Much better not to get involved!) that it was up to them to make some alternative arrangement. I dare say there was some substantially more expensive place nearby that would have taken the booking - with Carluccio's taking the excess. Unfortunately, at Ewell East the older gentleman said that he was too tired to talk about it any more, and further discussion was postponed until the morning, so I will never know. But let's hope there was a satisfactory resolution in the calm light of morning.

I also spent some time counting the number of holes to the row in the overhead shelf. More about that in due course.

Home to a spot of white. After which I found the section in my Arden Lear about how the text had come to be derived from the various conflicting sources quite incomprehensible. That said, one side effect of the media studies binge noticed at reference 6, is that I now know more about Lear than I think I ever knew before. Not least that, according to Grigg, it is a stage version of what we would now call a road movie. What difference all this will this make to my next visit to Lear on a stage remains to be seen.

PS 1: just for form, turned up 'Point Counter Point' again this afternoon.

PS 2: snap of the programme taken in electric light, with the programme propped up vertically under the light. The upside of this was that there was no selfie-shadow on the resultant snap, the downside was that there was not enough light getting into the telephone and definition was, in consequence, poor. Certainly by the time it had gone through the many layers of processing between my telephone and the Google cloud.

Reference 1: https://www.belceaquartet.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/art-fair.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/third-report.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/belcea-30.html. The last time we/I had heard the quartet.

Reference 5: http://wigmoresworld.co.uk/. A personal website which does not seem to be humming. Perhaps I was pressing the wrong buttons.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/media-studies.html.