Shopping

My winter windcheater having been declared to be old, last Sunday had been declared a shopping day.

By way of preparation I spent a little time with Cortana & Bing, to find that both the word and the concept of windcheater had more or less vanished from the world of men's clothes. That is to say the simple, sturdy, somewhat waterproof, cotton jacket which many men and boys wore outside when I was young. A world which now seems to be dominated by puffer jackets which one might have thought were designed for the Arctic wastes rather than suburban Surrey. The nearest I could get was one or two offerings from Ralph Lauren via John Lewis. Furthermore, I have a soft spot for Ralph Lauren, as the label on a fine, red dressing gown which I bought from TK Maxx for the knockdown price of £60. The only thing wrong with it being a logo in the form of polo player having been sewn onto the front of the thing in such a way that one can't get it off without making things even worse.

By way of getting myself in the mood, a spot of Bach followed by a spot of Rossopomodoro. The idea being that that would leave me on the spot and in a mood to buy clothes.

A dull misty start to the day, with the trains to Vauxhall being in a bit of a state: planned engineering works combines with a points failure somewhere. So after deep thought, we decided to drive to Sutton and to park n'ride from there. Not a route that I knew, but we did well enough apart from an older gentlemen who did not seem to understand the concept of filtering left at traffic lights. I was moved to use the horn for the first time in what must be years - with my being surprised at how hard you have to hit the horn (on our Ford C-Max) to get any action. Yet another bit of poor detailing at the bottom of the Ford range. But a car which, I might say, has been very reliable mechanically, not ever having given us any trouble.

A very small platform library at Sutton, which failed to provide in-train entertainment. On the other hand we had a handsome (and well spoken) black girl using her journey to put her makeup on and a gaggle of middle aged white ladies all geed up for an outing to the Ideal Home exhibition, something we have not been to for many years. Maybe as many as forty five. Plus an older white gent in a trilby sporting what looked like a much loved version of a service book saying 'Gregorian' in large letters on the front, so presumably off to a proper Latin mass at Westminster Cathedral. However, checking this morning, I find that Gregorian masses are indeed rather special, but not by virtue of being said or sung in Latin. Reference 2 may provide the answer.

Annoyance

Half way through the last paragraph, I must have hit a wrong key, and the black pop up snapped above appeared on the screen, on top of Edge and its windows. Keyboard locked. Black window not visible in Task Manager, the window for which was partly obscured by the black pop up. Closed everything down and was about to restart, when clicking on the start button made the thing go away. Something which has happened once or twice before, perhaps a feature/bug of the second-hand EliteBook from HP which serves as my laptop.

Out at Oxford Circus to find another Maserati SUV, hard on the heels of the SUV noticed at reference 3. Maybe Range Rover need to watch their backs. And to find that the All-Bar-One at the top of Regent Street have stopped serving Smarties with their teas and coffees. BH most put out, especially as she was slimming.

Pet shop

Bath shop

Into Wigmore Street, where we found that the unusual pet shop, of which we had first heard just a few days previously, was up and running. Is their main trade rich old ladies with cats and lap-dogs in their mansion flats? While the shop which sold dangerous stone baths - the ones with all the angles and corners - reference 5 - also did bathroom trivia at around £600 for three.

Programme

And so into the Wigmore Hall where there were people queuing for returns. Ms. Podger clearly a draw, although, according to the record, we had only heard her once before, at a concert at St. John's a couple of years ago, noticed at reference 1. The programme on this occasion was: Sonata No.1, BMW.1001 [Bach Werke Verzeichnis], four parts; and, Partita No.1, BMW.1002, four parts doubled, that is to say eight.

Six microphones above centre, one discrete streaming contraption far right, floral compositions in red and green. With the flower lady seemingly going through a phase of green flowers. Perhaps she was visited recently by the green dye salesman.

Podger very good, as expected. She came in three varieties: back to the audience for most of her tuning, facing the audience but passive & waiting, facing the audience and playing. There was quite a lot of tuning, presumably required for challenging solo work.

Audience included another older gent., complete with pale brown tweeds, waistcoat and another trilby. Probably a button-hole but I don't remember now. An element of Bach/Podger groupiness about the audience, although I did not see any actual duffel coats. While in front of me, I had an older lady out with her daughter who was a bit of a fidget. Probably her daughter's thing rather than hers. And sometimes her fidgeting set up an odd vibration in the top of her hair do, fast and not bearing any relation that I could discern to the music. From which readers can deduce that it was slightly distracting.

Took our sherry on the way out - about the only time we take sherry these days - with the sherry bars of my youth which sold cheap sherry by the half pint being long gone - and from there onto the branch of Rossopomodoro on the third floor of John Lewis, overlooking Cavendish Square, last visited getting on for six months ago, noticed at reference 4.

Dough stirrer

Menu

On this occasion a sort of potato croquette to start, with a bit of meat sauce and grated cheese on top. Called panzarotto and said, by the menu, to be the latest thing in Neapolitan street food, in some ways the equivalent of the poutine from Quebec, another place both poor Catholic. See reference 6 for our first, and possibly best, venture into the world of poutine. Main course turned out to be another filling dish, new to us, called 'Trofie Patate e Pesto' and mainly made up of pasta and potato. Not bad, but while I finished mine, BH was defeated by the last tablespoon or so.

Recto

Verso

The wine was satisfactory, even if my camera hand was a bit crooked by the time I got around to the verso. For a local view see reference 7.

Dessert

Tea for her and grappa for him, yellow on the second attempt. The waiter assured me that he had had far too much the night before to be interested in whopping down the white that the bar had issued by mistake. I thought the yellow was rather good.

Even in John Lewis

The body of the shop was in fine condition for the Christmas rush. But even in a Tier One shop like this, the decorations slipped a bit on the back stairs.

The bag

Pushed on down to the gents' fashion department and eventually found the Ralph Lauren stand. I almost went for something very like a windcheater (cotton), but BH persuaded me to try the very slightly puffy jacket (polyester) which I eventually bought. Probably both a bit warmer and a bit more waterproof. And not only had a good chunk been knocked off the original ticket price, we got another chunk off when we got to the till. BH explained that this sort of thing is normal in ladies' fashion, where you can watch the price of things drifting down as the season progresses. Essentially a Dutch auction. Pleasant young lady from Wicklow on the till, who told us of the beauties of the mountains there - of which I have heard before, but have never managed to get there, just the same. Pleasant manners only marred by them being switched off after the 30 seconds allowed - something I first noticed at the registration desks of big hotels in the US. And perhaps because we were paying in the gifts department rather than the clothes department, we only rated a very small carrier bag.

Counting

Regular readers will know that I sometimes play counting games. This one, in the train back to Sutton, was quite challenging - but I found it helped to set up a rhythm my moving the head very slightly from side to side as I went, getting to a reasonably stable count of around 46.

Cheating

Pleased - and surprised - to find this afternoon that, with the aid of rotate, zoom, mouse, snip and sketch, that I was spot on.

The pub

On the way home from Sutton, as BH was driving, I had time to notice the new-to-me public house snapped from Street View above. According to reference 8, built in the 1950's, with the original having been damaged by bombs during the second war. Was it just the middle 1950's, with the two wings later or what? Plenty of people living in the area but can they still fill the place with casual diners? Lots of places like this in and around Epsom have gone down over the last twenty years or so. Just a few more years before the owner convinces the council that flats are a better option? With perhaps just a small , continental-style bar on the ground floor, given that the reviews suggest that this is the only pub still in the area?

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/more-enlightenment.html.

Reference 2: https://lms.org.uk/. Pope Gregory does get a mention.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/auto-tweets.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/art-fair.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/06/big-bath.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/10/poutine.html.

Reference 7: https://vinumetcervisia.blogspot.com/2013/10/gavi-conte-di-alari.html.

Reference 8: https://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pubs/69465/.