Emerged in the recently refurbished London Bridge station, somewhere underneath the Shard, to be somewhat disorientated. Conscious that I had allowed myself to be amused by a Japanese lady not many yards away not many days previously, I did not like to ask the way, relying rather on the signage and, as luck would have it, emerged somewhere near No.1 London Bridge which I did recognise and was able to head off across the river, against the tide of people hurrying home, without much regard to traffic in the other direction. I associated to my earliest memory of London Bridge, early one morning in the early 1970's, when it was a strong tide of black coated, bowler hatted and umbrella'd men heading the other way. Quite put me off joining the world of work, which I deferred for a further year.
Not for the first time, struck by how small the 'Belfast' looked against the backdrop of modern office buildings. One would hardly think that she was once a treaty-busting 'light' cruiser, of the 'Town' class, participant in the Korean war (when she took a serious hit amidships, not that that can be seen now) and once able to reach Epsom with her main armament. And memory failed to the extent of my thinking her a member of the 'Tiger' class. Both classes had a rather tricky history and were both more or less obsolete by the end of the war in Korea. See reference 4.
No public houses for the first stretch, but soon into their zone. Rather crowded and noisy with young people. Including one young lady smoker who sported a red blanket or some such over her knees to keep her legs warm. As it happened, she was still there when I came back, two or three hours later, only having moved to a slightly better seat, nearer the door to the bar.
Quiet area for pensioner picnics downstairs was roped off, but they had not thought to block the lift, so that was alright. Then up to the bar to sample their cheap booze - a lot cheaper, that is, than the Wigmore Hall. Quite a grand audience, with quite a lot of grand conversation to be heard. Rather younger than the Wigmore Hall. One gold watch chain, although nothing like as grand as that once sported by BH's naval grandfather, imperialist enough to have served on an imperial gunboat on the Yangtze. We still have his tobacco jar, bought somewhere in the area.
Hall very good, with very good acoustics. And they did not feel the need to flash up Powerpoints to tell you to stop coughing etc - which I am sorry to say the Wigmore Hall has now sunk to.
Quartet very good too. Britten (Op.94) good, in a rather fussy sort of way. Shostakovich (Op.110) rather better, although I was rather confused by it being played in one go, which I might have worked out from the hyphens in the programme (not the page illustrated) on a better day. Which might, in this case, have been what the composer intended, but this customer likes breaks - and very short ones will do - between the movements. I also completely missed out on the slightly forced, musical cryptogram worked into the music, until I got around to reading the notes in the train. Beethoven (Op.59, No.1) better still.
The violins changed places after the Britten, one of the few quartets to do this. Three small instruments on piano stools, cello on common-or-garden small tubular steel affair.
Jubilee Line to Waterloo, where I just caught the 2154. To be seriously irritated by the young lady next to me noisily eating her crisps out of what seemed like a very noisy packet most of the way to Epsom. She would have done much better not to have been furtive about it - and perhaps I would have done better to have told her so. As it was, I just sat there, rather cross.
Blenheim shut by 2245 when I went past. The days when public houses stuck to the regular hours seem to be over.
Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/06/suites-suite.html. The last visit to Milton Court, six months ago.
Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/emerson.html. The last concert by the Emerson Quartet, twelve months ago.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/11/barrow-boy.html. The smartly dressed Japanese lady who had lost the river.
Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town-class_cruiser_(1936).
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