Fulham town

After the visit to the palace noticed at reference 1, time for lunch in Fulham town. What about the once grand King's Head?

King's Head then

Note the bread wagon, right.

King's Head now

According to Wikipedia, a grade II listed building, built in 1906 in something called the Scottish baronial style, and having gone through various owners and incarnations since then. At one time it must have been quite a place - but since then it has had something of a predilection for the South African trade. But not altogether clear whether it still functioned, and it did not look as if it functioned for pensioners' lunches. Fortunately, at the other side of the road there was what looked like a successful Italian restaurant (reference 3), quiet for Monday lunch, but which looked as if it had the potential to be very busy evenings and weekends.

Front view hidden by bus

A very pleasant lunch, taken in the back room, right in the snap. With our main course being a very acceptable meat lasagne. Taken with a very acceptable half litre carafe of house white. Said to be from Sardinia.

Dessert

A tiramisu which was very creamy and very flat, served on the plate just visible bottom left above. And an ice cream served with coffee, in the natty containers top left. Probably grappa in the small glass bottom middle.

A restaurant which was graced with a male family portrait. The second time we have seen such a thing in a restaurant, the first, an older male rather than a younger male, having been noticed at reference 4. But both, as it happens, Italian flavoured restaurants.

Temperance Hall

Not to be outdone, a few years after the building of the King's Head, the temperance movement got its own company, the Temperance Billiard Halls Co. Ltd., to build a temperance billiard hall just down the road. With its final indignity being conversion into a public house, now in its fifth or sixth incarnation as same. It is perhaps some consolation that it also is a Grade II listed building.

King's Arms

They clearly had a taste for grand public buildings in Fulham, with the King's Arms sporting this very fancy entrance to what might have started life as its yard. Perhaps the fancy work was put in by someone else, perhaps a dairy or something of that sort? Note all the other fancy work out front, shifting to brown brick elsewhere. A Charrington's house at one point, judging by the letters top middle. Was it patronised by all the ICL folk who used to live in the tower blocks around the corner? Where I once used to visit from time to time, before they sold out to Fujitsu. And, seemingly, Wadworth's first foray into the London pub scene. Wadworth's being a beer I first came across in Devizes, at a time when they seemed to own all the houses in town. A bit like Arkell's in Swindon, which I came to know some twenty years later.

Unable to buy a Guardian from the convenience store opposite the station so settled for an LRB and an Irish Independent. The headline to which last was all about the continuing fall of house prices in the Dublin area, against rises in most other places. Is the market still settling down after the bubble followed by crash of more than ten years ago now? We were also told about a sprint hurdler by the name of Sarah Lavin, who appears to have put herself through it in order to recover form after something called a stress fracture in one of her naviculars. Like in many other competitive disciplines these days, it seems that you can't both excel and have a normal young life - or even fail to excel and have a normal young life. Nor, in the case of ladies, to judge by her picture, do you retain much maidenly modesty. But a pleasant change from the Guardian, reminding me of the leading papers in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. And, no doubt, the Channel Islands. All very old-fashioned and I don't suppose it is that long since they stopped doing farming and matrimonial advertisements.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/fulham.html.

Reference 2: https://pubshistory.com/LondonPubs/Fulham/KingsHead.shtml.

Reference 3: https://www.pappaciccia.com/.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/09/wigmore-one.html.

Piano 15

The Fulham Palace piano, a Steinway patent grand, with the patent presumably referring to one of the patents filed by one or another Steinway listed at reference 1.

A piano which does not seem to get used very often, at least not for public events: perhaps music students get to use both it and the organ in the chapel.

Reference 1: https://shackellpianos.co.uk/steinway-patents.php.

Fulham

Last a visit to Fulham Palace, a first for me, once the summer palace of the bishops of London, now run by the local authority, perhaps with a charitable trust or two in support.

Entrained at Epsom, as usual, to see a huge flying beetle outside our carriage at Ewell West. My recollection is that it was around two inches long, deep red or dark brown in colour, sporting horns in the way of a stag beetle.

Out at Putney Bridge and made our way along the river to All Saints', said to contain some fine monuments. Plenty of aeroplanes about, but for some reason I don't think I managed a two all day.

Family tree

With the first monument we noticed being for a chap who was very concerned that posterity should be clear about his antecedents. Thinking it about it now, probably been given a wash-and-brush-up at some point, to be so legible. Concern for antecedents is also hereditary, as can be seen at reference. Another companion of the conqueror, along with BH's remote ancestor, Eustace, Count of Boulogne. See reference 2.

Cycle heroes

Another monument which caught my eye, to the 25th cycle battalion of the London Regiment. Reference 3 has left me confused between regiments, battalions and companies, but the cyclists managed 25/1, 25/2 and 25/3. Later today I shall make time to work this puzzle out, also to work out why cyclists were useful on the North West Frontier (where 25/1 got sent).

Sanctuary lamp

Handsome Lady Chapel, handsomely separated off from the body of the church by plate glass. Some rather good stained glass. And a proper sanctuary lamp, lit.

The donor of an island for the use of the poor

The island

With Bing suggesting that Makenshaw is also known as Brentford Ait, planted with trees so as to spare day trippers at Kew Gardens the sight of Brentford gas works. A few yards upstream of Kew Bridge. Not clear what the poor were supposed to use the island for, back in the 17th century. Bathing? Sunbathing? Discrete encounters? See reference 4.

Granville Sharp

We were taken in hand by a chap who was minding the church for the day, perhaps the sexton or church warden, who told us about the back entrance to Fulham Palace gardens and also about one Granville Sharp, an early advocate for the abolition of the slave trade, mixed up in the foundation of Granville Town, now a district in Freetown, in Sierra Leone. Then, inter alia, a destination for freed slaves from the US south who found it rather cold in Nova Scotia. Freed that is in the margins of the war of independence.

Black walnut

On into the gardens, passing a fine black walnut on the way to the coffee shop, probably much the same size as the one noticed in Wisley a couple of years ago. See reference 5. Managed some dancing water in a plastic cup by dragging it across the table, with the friction setting off vibration which set off the water. See reference 6. Tea and cake - some kind of almond & jam tart - fine, then off to do the gardens, this despite the hint of rain, which did not, in the event come to pass.

Cucumbers

Lots of good flowers and vegetables, including a hot house with a fine display of cucumbers, climbing up strings and sticks as is proper. In my own days of growing cucumbers they had to make do with spreading out over the ground.

Ornamental grass

A small field of grass, left uncut apart from a few paths, with bench, more or less facing the sun. Very handsome, although not something one usually has room for in a suburban garden.

High altar

Brown wood

The palace itself was very much a miniature version of Hampton Court Palace, with an old end and a new end. With this new end including lots of sort of brown wood to be found in that new end. Even some of the door furniture - that is to say hinges - looked very much the same. Plus great hall, plus chapel. A chapel with a rather high altar, the sort of thing one expects to see in a Catholic or Anglo-Catholic church (like All Saints' down the road), rather than in the chapel of a bishop of the church of England.

Cottage at the gates

Quaint cottage by the gates. Perhaps it serves as a guest house for the dean when he stays? Or perhaps for a dowager bishopess, that is to say the widow of a bishop. The wrong thing to say, given that the present Bishop of London is in fact a lady?

Allotments at the gates

And just outside the palace gates we had the allotment gates. Carefully locked so we were  unable to inspect the allotment gardens.

All in all, a good place. Interesting gardens and interesting buildings. And much easier to get to from Epsom than I had realised.

PS 1: in the course of all this, there was some talk of certain bishops' houses being upgraded to palaces at some point, reflecting some change of status. But I can't find out anything about this, with all our bishops' houses being called palaces, although most of them have been given over to other uses, it no longer being thought appropriate for princes of the church to live like princes. And the only real prince-bishop, on the continental model, is the Bishop of Durham. With the bishops of Ely and Peterborough being pretenders, in their fens.

PS 2: Wikipedia tells me that Eustace was 51 when he fought at the battle of Hastings. Which seems quite old to me to be fighting a long battle, in heavy chain armour. I doubt whether I would last five minutes.

Reference 1: http://stagbeetle.info/. Which suggests that the beetle may indeed have been a male stage beetle out on the pull.

Reference 2: http://mordaunt.me.uk/.

Reference 3: http://25thlondon.com/.

Reference 4: https://exploring-london.com/2018/04/25/10-islands-in-the-thames-3-brentford-ait/.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/09/juglans-nigra.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/09/dancing-water.html.

Fake 75

For some while now restaurants and shops have been enhancing their décor with wooden boxes, originally real wooden boxes, perhaps once used for packaging fruit or vegetables, usually with the name of the grower stencilled in large black letters. Several such boxes have been noticed in this series.

Over time, the motif has been gradually debased, and now the meerest suggestion of such a box suffices. No need to go the whole hog any more.

So, our fine local Costcutter has taken a leaf out of the book of Waitrose and installed wooden boxes to carry part of its selection of wine.

Snap not up to its usual standard as the phone crashed while I was trying to be discrete, leaving files called thumbs at half a megabyte each rather than a jpg at five or six. But hopefully good enough to give the idea. Middle top back.

PS: readers are invited to try to trace the same sort of decline in the decorative motifs used in neo-classical buildings, some of which date back to the days when Greek temples had beamed wooden roofs.

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/06/collecting.html. Not even scored as a fake.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=dawlish+fake. An early variation on the theme. See end of post.

Piano 14

The harpsicord of the last post at All Saints' Fulham is supplemented by a Blüthner grand. Perhaps not as expensive as a Steinway, but an expensive instrument just the same.

It looks to be in rather better condition than the last one we came across, back in November in Trumpington, south of Cambridge, in the margins of a visit to Ely. See reference 2 for piano 3.

Reference 1: https://www.bluthner.co.uk/. Hurry! Sale now on!

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/piano-3.html.

Piano 13

Well, not exactly a piano, rather a home made harpsicord, presumably by James Mogford. Gifted at some point to All Saints' Fulham, where it is taken out for concerts from time to time.

Not a name of which I have heard before, but there is a Jeremy Mogford who founded the Browns chain of restaurant. Perhaps this Mogford is or was his son. And there are some more in the hotel business in Oxford.

Reference 1: https://www.allsaints-fulham.org.uk/home.htm. Once a pocket borough, as it were, of the Bishops of London, rather like St. Mary's at Lambeth, once in the pockets of the Archbishops of Canterbury, now a garden museum.  'All Saints is an inclusive parish church, worshipping in the catholic tradition, that welcomes anyone, regardless of age, gender, sexuality, physical ability or ethnic background'.

Ripieno

Saturday past, back to Weston Green to hear the Ripieno Choir, having missed their spring concert because of a clash with something in London. So the last occasion was that noticed at reference 1.

The programme

Still light when we arrived, it being one of the longest days of the year, with the golden cross on top of the church very bright with the low sun on it. I wondered first about whether it was indeed gold, which I suppose would hold its gold better out in the weather than, say, brass. Then about access.

Church, with cross aloft

Fifty years ago, I dare say you could find someone who would climb up there with a ladder. But what about now? Full-on scaffold more or less wrapped around the tower and the middle of the church?

Brownies

A little early, we wandered around the side to find the Brownie corner. And then into the church where, unusually, we sat on the right, from where I was able to admire the substantial copper pipework, looking like and probably from the same time as that in my childhood house, now serving rather more modern radiators. Also the small glass panes in the aisle windows, some kind of craft glass, which did rather well instead of stained glass.

Restoration glass

Possible something called restoration glass, illustrated above.

Central sanctuary light unlit.

The programme was an interleaved mixture of short pieces by Orlando Gibbons, a famous English composer, roughly contemporary with Shakespeare, and chunks from a mass in G minor by Vaughan Williams. It seems that Williams wrote lots of music for the church, despite being an agnostic. Good stuff, but I think I would have preferred to have first one composer, then the other, as as it was, I got a little confused. Furthermore there was no direction about clapping, so there was rather more of that than I thought appropriate. And sometimes the sopranos seemed a little loud.

All that said, the new conductor does seem to have breathed something of a new life into the choir, after their long spell under his predecessor. The new conductor was also rather keen on introducing everything, where perhaps one introduction before the first half and one before the second would have sufficed.

Dark on exit. And once again we failed to retire to the church hall behind for refreshments, preferring to get home.

PS: I had thought there a lot more ladies than gentlemen, but the count was 14 men and 17 women. Perhaps there seemed more of the latter as they occupied the centre, with the men consigned to the two flanks.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/handl.html.

Robots

More than four years ago now I came across Martine Rothblatt and her robot BINA48, noticed at references 1 and 2. Then in yesterday's Metro I came across Sophia, a robot who, it seems, has been granted citizenship of Saudi Arabia and made innovation champion for the United Nations. All of which, to my mind, brings all the participants into disrepute.

It also turns out that Sophia is one of a family of robots built by Hanson Robotics, with another member being this very BINA48. A company which has been around in one form or another for getting on for twenty years and which, I imagine, does rather well in the entertainment, event and publicity businesses. One wonders what the founder, one David Hanson, is like.

I also wondered this morning, once again, about the merits of having my own personal robot into which I uploaded my daily experiences, as recorded by body camera, my Google account and my various bank accounts. And perhaps, not so far in the future, my inner thoughts, in so far as they were expressed in words. Would I really want to be able to interrogate my robot about exactly what I was doing 1,000 days ago - rather as I interrogate my blog now, in a rather more hit and miss way. But such interrogation did turn up references 1 and 2 in fairly short order, so it does have its uses.

That apart, I remain uneasy about where these toys and worse are going to take us. Or at least our children.

PS: and I now remember about Fernyhough and SenseCam, research into memory, rather than robots. But see reference 5.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/01/virtually-human-1.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/01/virtually-human-2.html.

Reference 3: https://www.hansonrobotics.com/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(robot).

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/07/madeleine-moments.html.

More DIY

Following the story about drains at reference 1, there has been a new development.

Walking down East Street this morning, I noticed an old drain cover propped against the hedge at the front of a property which was having some drive & patio work done. Yours to take away I was told, and if you want the roll of turf as well, so much the better.

Some hours later we returned with car and tape measure, to find that while it was indeed a nominal 20×26 inches, it was a bit on the small side. And while it had been a heavy duty cover, good for lorries not just cars, it was well rusted, to the point of near disintegration of the rim. But it still felt solid enough for all that, so probably good for our foot traffic and looked well enough from the front.

The back, with reinforcing bar

The front, in its new home

The cover, despite its faults, slipped into its new home smoothly enough, feeling very solid underfoot. Not a match for the other two, but it will certainly do until something better turns up.

PS: the people at reference 2 must dig up lots of them in their ongoing campaign to renew the drives of the houses of west Epsom. Perhaps I should ask them for one.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/diy.html.

Reference 2: http://www.firmstonedrivesandpatios.co.uk/.

Meursault

Abandoned Villa Maria again last night in favour of something grander. Something grand enough to get within sight of the end of dreary Vera. Failed at the penultimate break.

But the 2017 Meursault was good, and I did not tire of it in the way I had tired of the Saint Aubin noticed at reference 1.

From Sainsbury's, with the full description being 'Stéphane Brocard Closerie des Alisiers Meursault Vieilles Vignes, Cote de Beaune, France'. A chap who has not been at it that long, coming from a family chablisienne, but who now goes in for a much bigger range: '... propose une large gamme de vins qui s'étend entre le Mâconnais et la Côte d'Or notamment sur les appellations Mâcon-Villages, Pouilly-Fuissé, Morey-Saint-Denis, Gevrey-Chambertin, Volnay ou encore Meursault pour en citer quelques unes ...'. Is he spreading himself too thin?

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/saint-aubin.html.

Reference 2: http://www.stephane-brocard.com/. The wrong Brocard. Perhaps these wine people are more interested in wine than in websites and content themselves with a presence on Facebook, rather than going to the bother of building something that I can see.

Lacan

On several occasions in the past, I attempted to read the work of one Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst, big in France in the middle of the last century. I think I even pretended to read him in the original French.

So I was interested to read a review of reference 1 in this week's edition of the LRB, picked up on a whim from somewhere or other.

It turns out that Lacan was a rather unpleasant person in various ways. Rich, avaricious and mean. A womaniser. A bad father to the children of his first wife. Rather prone to capricious behaviour, both pleasant and unpleasant. One of these children was the author of reference 1, was unwell for much of her life and ended up committing suicide at the age of 72.

So I was quite pleased to find that, on inspection of my shrink shelf, that all trace of Lacan himself has vanished, perhaps retired to one of the compost heaps. All that remains is the short biography at reference 2, which I may now re-read.

Reference 1: Un Père: puzzle - Sibylle Lacan - 1994. Now published in translation by MIT.

Reference 2: Lacan - Malcolm Bowie - 1991.

New news

Back at reference 1 I noticed a new to me news magazine called Ozy. These sorts of online magazine must be getting fairly common as today I came across another one at reference 2, called the conversation. An originally Australian, not-for-profit operation run under the auspices of a worthy charter.

I arrived there on the back of a rather light weight article about whether, if given another go at it, humans would have evolved on the earth. Was it a fluke or was it just waiting to happen? An interesting question, but not one about which I now know very much more.

That aside, there looks to be plenty of content, vaguely along the lines of the old weekly magazines for people who took themselves seriously, of which the Economist is the healthiest survivor and with the New Statesman being the one I remember from my youth. With quite a lot of popular science: perhaps like the Guardian, they have found that popular science is both popular and cheap. Much cheaper than news you have to go out and get for yourself.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/old-news-from-microsoft.html.

Reference 2: https://theconversation.com/uk.

DIY

A few years ago - say less than five - we had the concrete strips of our front path and drive replaced, in the course of which there was some fiddling about with the three drain inspection holes and their covers. In a row from back door to road. Cast iron, some rust, particularly in the frames.

A few days ago, again say less than five - I noticed that the cover nearest the road had cracked, left in the snap left. This being the one that has to take load, the two nearer the house not usually taking more than foot traffic. The occasional wheel barrow.

Off to Bing to find that modern covers are a significantly different size - 600×450mm rather than 26×20 inches. Don't want to rebuild the holes just presently, so off to Ebay to find that I can indeed buy old style covers at around £50 a pop, buyer collects. From Derby, Romsey or wherever. The snag being that they seem to come in slightly different sizes and styles, with corners rounded or square being one confounding variation.

So up bright and early this morning to see what could be done. Lifted the cracked cover to find, to my surprise, that it came out in one piece. What I took to be cast iron had not simply cracked right across. So far so good.

Lifted the cover nearest the back door and put that one over the vacated hole. A touch too small for the frame, but it seemed to bed down OK. It was also a bit more substantial than the cracked one; maybe good for a few more years yet. Maybe see us out.

Tried the cracked one in the other hole and it was too big. Lifted the middle cover to find that the cracked cover did fit that hole. And that the middle cover fitted the remaining hole. Problem sorted out well enough to give us time to find a replacement for the cracked cover.

Catastrophic outcomes which had been flitting through my mind put to rest.

PS: with hindsight, should have had frames and covers replaced at the time the concrete was replaced. Not very heritage, but they would have still been in one piece - and easy enough to change should need arise.

Sir Simon goes to the airport

Simon Jenkins surfaced last week with another article (reference 1) in the Guardian lambasting the plans to extend Heathrow, a subject he clearly feels strongly about. An article from which the snap left is taken. An article which prompted me to see what else there was, which turned up an article (reference 2) in the Financial Times, or at least on their website.

Usually, I tend to take more interest in counting the aeroplanes on the flight path down across London than in the airport itself and the last time I expressed an opinion, it was to the effect that having spent £20m on an expensive report about the whole business, would it not be sensible to get on with whatever the report recommended, in this case extending Heathrow. See reference 3. But now I am not so sure. Despite not having attempted the report, or even the more accessible consultation document from the Raynes Park platform library noticed at reference 4.

The Financial Times article suggests that both finance and governance of this bit of critical national infrastructure are rather murky, with it not being at all clear that the owners of Heathrow can come up with the necessary. It not being at all clear what part of the bill will be picked up by taxpayers in their tax bill, rather than in the charges they incur when using the airport. A Heathrow which is already loaded with £15b worth of debt and with ownership structure of Heathrow looking to be very much the sort of thing lambasted by Shaxson, as noticed at reference 5. And with the owners alleged to be sucking more money out of the airport than it is actually making. Also very much the sort of thing lambasted by Shaxson.

I note in passing, that it is all another nail in the coffin of the Tory line that privatisation gets something off the government’s books and off the government’s agendas. Something like Heathrow Airport is far too important to be left to the vagaries of the likes of Messrs. Branson and Green; government has to continue to take an interest, an interest which includes substantially muddying the financial waters.

I also note that the extension looks to cost of the order of £30b – a sum which I compute would pay for 20,000 care workers for 30 years. Which ought to see all us baby boomers off society’s books. Which many of us might see as a better use of society’s limited resources.

While Jenkins makes different points.

Most of the traffic at this airport is holiday makers. Why should they not be diverted to Stansted or Gatwick, places where expansion could be had far more cheaply and with far less disruption?
Furthermore, can we be sure that all these massive traffic forecasts are realistic, given the mess of Brexit, the growth of the climate lobby and the increasing effectiveness of various kinds of electronic communication and interchange?

And talking of climate change, why should we be encouraging holiday makers to fly around the world at all, at a time when change is starting to bear down on us – even if it is those in places like Bangladesh who are really going to suffer. Who is going to house and pay for all those refugees?

He does not mention the awkward fact that holiday makers are probably one of the biggest plus items in our otherwise dire balance of payments.

Curious that BA – which must be the biggest single user of Heathrow - does not back the project.

The whole thing is just another reminder of how big projects manage to hijack the big money. With billions of pounds at stake, Heathrow Airport (paid by volume of passengers, for which the length of runway is a good proxy) and the construction industry (paid by volume of concrete) between them can lobby the various authorities to death – by over feeding and over drinking if nothing else. Or failing that, death by Powerpoint. More than a match for all the little projects, quite possibly far more worthy in aggregate. The only remedy that I see here being strong central government and a strong press.

All of which leaves me a floating voter, perhaps drifting towards the no’s, despite the yes given by the report noticed at reference 3.

References
Reference 1: Heathrow’s third runway plan beggars belief. So don’t expect Boris Johnson to block it - Simon Jenkins - 2019. Guardian, available on their website. One of a steady stream of articles by Jenkins on this subject.

Reference 2: Who will pay for Heathrow airport’s £14bn third runway? - Gill Plimmer and Jonathan Ford - 2018. Financial Times website.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/07/in-news.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/03/fortean-times.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/city-boys-episode-2.html.

Obits

According to my rose tinted glasses, when I was young, the purpose of obituaries in national newspapers was to celebrate the lives of celebrated people, the sort of people who were apt to figure in honours lists.

Whereas now, being worth celebrating is no longer the criterion; being notorious in any walk of life suffices. So today, the Guardian spends more than a page on an Oxbridge academic who sounds as if he was a thoroughly bad person; possibly charming and clever in small doses, if you were lucky enough to have caught him sober. What is the Guardian up to? Is the main purpose of the obituary to remind us that there are some unsavoury people in the senior common rooms of Oxbridge colleges? Something which must surely be true of almost any large institution. And even if it were not, an obituary is not, to my mind, the proper place to be making such a point.

PS: who else can we think of who is charming and clever in small doses, etc...

Back to El Patio

Friday past, back to El Patio in Ebbisham Square, an evening just about warm enough to sit outside. This establishment being chosen because one could take wine with a snack, rather than wine with a full-on meal which we did not want, having had a full-on meal in the middle of the day.

The wine, a bottle of 2016 Noradaneve Albariño, had moved on a year, but was just as good as we remembered. Taken with bread, some pork with beans and some croquettes. White bread very good for a restaurant, apparently made on the premises. Pork with beans good, the same sort of formula as the Garbanzada a lo Canario we used to like on Tenerife, getting on for twenty years ago now. Croquettes fine. All followed by expresso and Black Label, which seems to have displaced Red Label in bars. Entertaining cups, snapped above.

Further entertainment provided by the hookah man, who probably had an arrangement with the restaurant whereby he was allowed to sell smokes on the outside table, visible top right in the snap, not that there were any takers in the couple of hours that we were there. Presumably a bit early, the parties of young men were neither numerous enough nor warmed up enough. Which meant that the hookah had time to explain to us how it all worked. I had not realised that you needed to have a little brazier on hand in which to get the charcoal cubes going, before they were transferred to the top of the hookah. Perhaps not unlike the toasting gadget from Phillips in that you then drew the hot air from the charcoal through the tobacco. Not impressed that the hookah man saw fit to provide flavoured tobacco, in the way of the vape people. For Phillips, see references 2 and 3.

And then there was the chief barmaid, who affected a Spanish accent, but who slipped into south London when under stress. Something I have noticed in Latin flavoured restaurants in the past. Perhaps there is a school where native English speakers can learn to put on accents appropriate to their workplace.

Starting to get busy by the time we left. Also getting a bit cool to be sitting outside.

Sadly, the green walls planted on trellises around the margins of the square were not being looked after, so not very green at all. A pity, as a splash of green would have improved the rather awkwardly shaped square. I think two of the three street food sheds provided by the council were open, if not busy.

A couple of rather dodgy young men in Court Rec. on our way home. Probably unemployed, quite possibly high on drink or drugs. Certainly making a fair amount of noise. They might have been intimidating had it been darker and quieter than it was.

For us, a good formula, better than the rival Café Rouge - despite the good location of this last - and we shall be back.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/epsom-at-play.html.

Reference 2: https://uk.iqos.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-new-smoke.html.

Reference 4: http://elpatiotapasbar.co.uk/.

Saint Aubin

While topping up with Villa Maria sauvignon blanc at our local Majestic, I thought I would try something a bit pricier for once in a while and landed on a two year old bottle of Saint-Aubin. The product of Domaine Thomas Gérard et Filles, a domaine which is well known to Bing but which does not appear to have a website of its own, with reference 1 being a different outfit altogether.

A wine which I thought really good when we started the bottle, but with which, curiously, I became a little bored by the time we had got to the end of it. Perhaps a wine to be taken by the glass, rather than by the bottle.

Readers may care to know that Albinus, also known as Aubin, entered the monastery of Tincillac when a youth, was elected Abbot when he was thirty-five, and was named Bishop of Angers in 529. He was known for his generosity to the sick and the indigent, widows, and orphans, for his work in ransoming slaves, and for his holiness and the many miracles he is reputed to have performed both during his lifetime and after his death. Various places involving his name in his native France, including one in Calvados and another one on Jersey. And, needless to say, the one in Burgundy.

Not clear where Tincillac is or was, and Bing confuses the place with chincillas.

Reference 1: https://www.domainethomas.fr/.

Schubert quintet

Off last Monday to hear Cuarteto Casals plus Alan Gerhardt give us a Shostakovich quartet plus the Schubert quintet at the Wigmore Hall.

Hougoumont?

Smooth journey to Oxford Circus, only learning on the way about a very large gamed version of the Battle of Waterloo which had taken place in the Kelvin Gallery at the Glasgow University over the weekend just then past. The Battle of Waterloo being something I have taken in some interest in the past - see, for example, reference 4 - I thought to check it out. To find that while both Bing and Google know all about the event advertised at reference 3, neither of them offer any images, never mind videos, of the event itself. All very frustrating.

Cumberland without

Cumberland with

Took our usual picnic in Cavendish Square, wondering about the fate of the equestrian statue missing from the plinth in front of us, seemingly commemorating the Duke of Cumberland of Culloden fame. Inquiring of Bing this evening, I find that the statue was removed in the middle of the 19th century, presumably by way of apology for his behaviour after the battle - so this apologising for ancient history is itself fairly ancient, which I had not known before - but replaced by a soap replica in 2012, with the soap lasting for rather longer than might have been expected. Of which I have no memory at all.

There was also the question that the stones making up the plinth that was there did not seem to have been cut very carefully, with the top left facing slab not being properly lined up with the bottom slab corresponding; perhaps it was carelessly reassembled after spring cleaning at some point. While the plinth not being vertical I believe to be the fault of the photographer.

Cod rustic

Onto the Wigmore Hall to find that the concert had been cancelled due to illness. Which was all very irritating, so we went to console ourselves at the Devonshire Arms around the corner, the pub noticed for being closed at reference 5. Open on this occasion: not serving food, not serving coffee and not taking cash; an unusual combination - but not topped out by allowing smoking. Something of a heritage place, mainly done out in brown wood in the style of the 1950's, in any event of the middle of the last century - but supplemented with some more recent wood, style cod rustic. Staffed by Bulgarians. Wine serviceable and cheap. Not empty - but not busy either; this a pub which was probably full of hearty toffs & toffesses in the glory days of the late 1960's, in the way of the Antelope and the Duke of Wellington, both of Eaton terrace in Belgravia, which I used to patronise occasionally at that time. We thought that perhaps it was on some kind of a short term lease, perhaps a pop-up pub, while the owners sorted out turning it into flats with the council.

Home via the Jubilee line which involved rather a lot of walking. It might have been quicker, certainly more healthy, to walk to Oxford Circus or Green Park.

Once home, I checked my email to find that the Wigmore Hall had sent out the cancellation during the morning and refunded the money during the afternoon. But as it happened, on this day I did not check my email again after breakfast. Perhaps I would have noticed a text, so perhaps I had better check that they know about my telephone number.

The next day, tried the quintet on the gramophone, a version offered by the Weller Quartet on the Decca label. Pressed in France and distributed by Soprason. With Walter Weller running this quartet during the 1960's before going on to be a conductor. Not to be confused with the jazz musician born a little later in Thornton Heath, in south London, near the Pond, near which I used to drink as a third year undergraduate. A Courage house, as I recall. A version which seemed a bit thin, so I thought I might try it with a score.

Bourne Hall acanthus

Not something we have ourselves, but I remembered about the performing arts library, temporarily housed in the library at Bourne Hall and noticed at reference. And yes, they did have scores of the quintet, two in parts for performance and one for armchair consumption, mainly a complete Schubert string quartets, published by Dover back in 1974, bought and then taken out reasonably regularly since, with library stamps to prove it. Paper now rather faded.

On the way out, noticed a large bed of acanthus in the library car park, doing rather well. Odd that I had not noticed it before.

The score

Tried the score later that day, having taken a little wine, and the quintet did seem better, much fuller, that way. Heard the first two movements, taking the score with me for the first half of the first: perhaps the score helps by making one pay attention, by stopping one's attention wandering, which seems so easy at home. A wandering which meant that, in my days in the world of work, when I had work to do at the weekend, which happened from time to time, I preferred to go in to town, to do it there, rather than attempt it at home.

I wonder now how much business the performing arts library is doing. I rather suspect, not very much: nice for the people who have a use for it and who live near enough for it to be worthwhile, but otherwise? An embarrassment of riches for the good people at Surrey Libraries?

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/05/cello.html. The first and only time I seem to have heard Gerhardt.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/09/cuarteto-casals.html. The first of a number of times we have heard Cuarteto Casals.

Reference 3: http://waterlooreplayed.com/about.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/03/still-more-waterloo.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/schwizgebel.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/austerity.html.

Old news from Microsoft

From time to time, I comment on the rubbishy news service provided by Microsoft as part of its Edge browser, a news service which I might say is slowly getting better. I do usually skip through it of a morning and this morning it turned up an interesting story from the fifteenth century about one of the companions in arms of Joan of Arc. A story which, with a bit of fiddling about, I was able to capture and reproduce below.

But the first question is what was this story doing on my laptop? Who or what was Addison Nugent? What about Ozy Media Inc who seem to have provided the pictures?

So from reference 5 we learn that: 'Addison Nugent is a professional freelance journalist based out of Paris, France. Like so many Americans before her, she fell in love with the French capital at a young age and never left. She graduated from the Sorbonne's Master of the Arts literary research program with honors in 2016, and has since pursued a career in journalism. She has accumulated a diverse portfolio of published work that includes investigative pieces, in-depth profiles, historical deep dives, and tech news. Her work has been featured in such publications as OZY, Vice Motherboard, Atlas Obscura, Dazed Digital and Messy Nessy Chic'.

While from reference 6 we learn that: 'OZY is a media company tailor-made for the Change Generation – people from every corner of the globe who are challenging the status quo and bucking convention. It's a platform to help you see more, be more and do more. Or, as one fan put it, "OZY is what cool people read to be smart and smart people read to be cool." ... Founded by Samir Rao and Carlos Watson, who hail from Michigan and Florida (with a nod to India and Jamaica), OZY's back story is in fact a love story. Carlos' political scientist dad had a love of news so profound that he raised his young son on a rich diet of current events and history-shaping newsmakers. When Carlos and Samir, former colleagues at Goldman Sachs, ran into each other in a Chipotle parking lot, their conversation circled in on a big idea: How could they reimagine the news for a globally minded, discerning and diverse group that they named the Change Generation? People who are edgy and educated, hungry and observant – and tired of being handed the same menu rehashing yesterday's top stories. From a coffee shop in downtown Mountain View, California, Carlos and Samir refined their idea and in 2013 – with the support of investors Laurene Powell Jobs, Mike Moe, Louise Rogers, Dan Rosensweig, Larry Sonsini, David Drummond, Ron Conway and others – OZY became a reality'.

So there. I resist turning up who all these investors are.

PS: I should admit an interest in that I already own at least two full length books about this gentleman and have visited one of his castles, at Talmont St. Hilaire.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/11/joan-of-arc.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/03/singing-sands.html. A passing notice, not adding much.

Reference 3: Gilles de Raiz ou la Confession imaginaire - Martine Le Coz - 1989.

Reference 4: https://leapsmag.com/author/addison-nugent/.

Reference 5: https://www.ozy.com/. The face of news to come?

The Serial Killer Who Fought Alongside Saint Joan of Arc 

As she watched her son ride away on the back of Gilles de Rais’ horse, Peronne Leossart realized she had made a mistake. When Gilles de Montmorency-Laval — the famed Baron de Rais who fought alongside Joan of Arc at the Siege of Orléans — passed through La Roche-Bernard, France, in September 1438, the young lord was welcomed as a hero.

Naturally, Leossart felt honored when a servant asked whether her 10-year-old son would like to go live with de Rais and become his page. But when her son mounted de Rais’ horse to leave, Leossart was overcome with dread and begged the great lord to give her son back — a request he met with resolute silence.

Leossart would never see her son again. Two years after his departure, the heartbroken mother told a judge that she had heard Gilles de Rais whisper to his servant that her son was “well chosen” and “as beautiful as an angel.” The testimony came as part of de Rais’ trial for the ritualistic murder and torture of scores of children.

 Leossart’s ordeal is one of dozens described by 20th-century French critic Georges Bataille in The Trial of Gilles de Rais. The testimonies, transcribed between Sept. 19 and Oct. 22, 1440, detail a horrifying story of corruption, satanism, theatrical opulence and sick delusion.

Before his crimes were uncovered, Gilles de Rais was known as one of the richest and most powerful feudal lords of 15th-century France, commanding an immense fortune rivaled only by monarchies. For his bravery in Orléans, he was awarded the prestigious title of Marshal of France. His prestige, combined with the almost subhuman status of the lower classes in the Middle Ages, made it terrifyingly easy for de Rais to kidnap impoverished children without raising suspicion.

The murders allegedly began in the spring of 1432, first in the fortress at Champtocé and then at the castle in Machecoul, just outside of Nantes. Each night, the marshal sent trusted servants to find and abduct unaccompanied peasant children walking along the roads. Hidden away in secret rooms, de Rais and his depraved court would spend the rest of the night taking part in acts of sexual violence reminiscent of the Marquis de Sade’s. De Rais told the judge that he and his accomplices committed “various types and manners of torment; sometimes they severed the head from the body, sometimes they struck them violently on the head with a cudgel or other blunt instruments.”

The marshal boasted to his valet that he took great pleasure in watching the life leave his victims and always stared them deeply in the eyes as they died. According to original trial documents, Étienne Corrillaut, one of de Rais’ followers, said that the marshal kept a macabre collection of heads on display in his secret rooms and would proudly ask members of his court which heads were the most beautiful, often kissing the head that pleased him most.

The penchant for destruction the marshal displayed carried over to his fortune, which he recklessly squandered on a decadent lifestyle. In 1435, under the instruction of charlatans and purported sorcerers, the desperate de Rais attempted to re-establish his wealth through alchemy and devil worship. From that point, the murders morphed into occultist rituals or Black Masses of human sacrifice; instead of displaying body parts as trophies, the young lord placed them atop an altar.

On May 15, 1440, de Rais and his men kidnapped a cleric from the Church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte after a dispute. During the subsequent investigation prompted by the bishop of Nantes, the marshal’s horrific crimes were discovered. While de Rais was primarily tried, according to Albrecht Classen, co-editor of Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, “because of his dabbling in magic and hiring [of] an alchemist,” he was found guilty of crime and unnatural vice with children, and executed by hanging and burning on Oct. 26, 1440.

Since then, Gilles de Rais has become a mythic figure. His reputation as a serial murderer led folklorists to intertwine the stories of his crimes with those of the French fairy-tale villain Bluebeard. When satanism became popular in late-19th-century Paris, author Joris-Karl Huysmans revived the figure of de Rais as the progenitor of French occultism in his 1891 novel Là-Bas (The Damned).

In the 20th century, some medieval scholars questioned the veracity of the charges against de Rais, with French historian Gilbert Prouteau spearheading a campaign in 1992 to rehabilitate the lord’s image. De Rais, Prouteau claimed, was a war hero who, like Joan of Arc, had fallen victim to character assassination.

The majority of scholars, however, dismiss such claims, pointing to the numerous testimonies and the baron’s own words. “There is no reason to assume that [Gilles de Rais’] trial was trumped up,” Classen maintains. Records, after all, suggest a fair trial, “with clear witness depositions that supported each other,” he says, noting how the accused confessed while “displaying the typically theatrical demeanor of a mass murderer.”

A new cheese

Not being able to get into town for a week or so, I was reduced to stocking up on cheese in Epsom, from where Lincolnshire Poacher is no longer available.

Quite by chance, I lighted on something called Rutland Red, from Clawson, at the Sainsbury's cheese counter. A variety of Red Leicester. About half of one, weighing around two pounds, for £12 or so, a good deal less than I pay for Lincolnshire Poacher from Neal's Yard Dairy. And it turned out rather well. I would not want it all the time, but for the few days until I get back into town, it will do fine.

PS: BH now tells me that Red Leicester was the cheap cheese used to fill children up when she was a child. While I remember about it being coloured with some foreign dye, a fact confirmed by Bing and now tracked down to reference 3, with the dye mentioned there being derived from the seeds of the annatto, native to the tropical parts of the Americas.

Reference 1: https://www.clawson.co.uk/. Bottom right on the home page gives a better idea than the page devoted to the stuff, where the texture does not look right at all. So the snap above, complete with fake table, comes from a rival outfit, Thomas Hoe.

Reference 2: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/. Doesn't recognise it at all, from which we deduce that one does not have access to everything online. Can't imagine that the Kiln Lane store, Tier 1 store though it may be, has local purchase authority; that sort of thing went out with the ark.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/04/beamer.html.

A dream for the third millennium

Mainly Titania

A week ago we paid our first visit to the Bridge Theatre (by Tower Bridge) to see Gwendoline Christie - best known for warrior roles in fantasy and science fiction films - doing Hippolyta/Titania. A statuesque performance, as suggested in the snap above, not without merit, but nothing much like the performance by Vivien Leigh, as suggested in the snap below.

Vivien Leigh

But to start at the beginning, we got to know about the show from a review in the Guardian and got ourselves Saturday matinée seats at the front of the temporary seating over what was sometimes the back of the stage, that is to say in the open end of the horseshoe of regular, tiered seats, with the open space in the middle largely given over to people standing, something I have not been good for for many years now; pretty much a modern take on the (very successful) Globe a short way upstream. And we were warned that the production was to be a festival of acrobatics, cross dressing and so forth.

We were then pleased to find that there was a half hourly service to London Bridge from Epsom, so packed up our picnic and off we went. And very surprised to find how busy the London Bridge area was, going east, this Saturday lunchtime. Busy with all kinds of people. Surprised also at how big the Belfast was, despite having been over it a couple of times. Clearly time for our next visit, perhaps to find the medals (or perhaps uniforms) donated by BH's naval uncle who served on her during the Korean War.

The Blenheim

Next up was a Blenheim quite unlike the one which I used to know well in Epsom - which certainly did not go in for higher grade bonsai.

There did not seem to be any park benches in the vicinity of the theatre, but there were clusters of steel arm chairs irregularly concreted into the ground. I suppose the idea was you could sit next to someone without crowding them in the way that you would on a regular bench. Much too cosy for the fastidious folk of today. Fine view of Tower Bridge, last visited by me on a Bullingdon. I also remember the days when the public houses of the area were both seedy and rather rough.

On into the theatre, also very busy, but we managed all of drinking seats, drinks and a programme. With the drinks being quite modestly priced by London theatre standards.

Despite having, a first time for me, downloaded the tickets onto my telephone, they failed to get us access to the auditorium as there was no signal in the basement. I had to nip upstairs, get the tickets on screen and nip downstairs again before they vanished. After which all was well.

Our sitting seats turned out to be rather good, worth the extra we paid for them, right on top of the action in the round, a lot of it in the air, on wires.

There was indeed a lot of acrobatics and cross dressing, with all the speaking helped along with discrete microphones. So good fun, and the plot was still there, but most of the poetry and romance of the original was lost. But what else can you do? I have trouble enough, and I imagine that precious few people these days would understand much of the language of the original. Nevertheless, I do prefer vaguely renaissance costume, rather than the modern dress of this production.

Helena and Hermia good. Puck good. Mechanicals good, even if there was rather a lot of them. And I have learned (from BH) that the mechanicals were named after their trades, in one way or another, which I don't think I knew before.

Out to feed in a rather flashy, but not particularly expensive, place called the Coal Shed. We had not reserved, so were shunted upstairs, which turned out to be a good thing, it being quite noisy downstairs. Service very good. Food over complicated. Perhaps we should have gone for meat.

For starter, bread and olives, satisfactory.

For main, sea bream, hispi cabbage and Jersey Royals. Sea bream fine, but it came with a rather sharp dollop of salad, perhaps fennel, which I did not care for at all. And the hispi cabbage was not properly cooked and was covered in a yellow sauce. But not too bad if you scraped all the sauce off and cut up small the undercooked bits. Bearing in mind that I was dentally challenged at the time. Potatoes fine.

The wine

For dessert, passed. Once again, disappointed at the poor selection of desserts in mid-range restaurants such as this one. I was, in any case, rather full of what had gone before.

To drink, a Greco di Tufo, 'Cutizzi', a type of wine which we usually like. This one was OK, but we thought not worth the money. Guided tours available. See reference 3.

The fakes

Plenty of bottles decorating the place, but the ones we lifted were empty, and always had been. Presumably specially made for display in places like this one.

The gates

You get fancy garage doors if you can afford a flat in the area. Which was still buzzing when we left the restaurant. Including a managed herd of youths charging about on bicycles.

Pleased to catch a train to Epsom from London Bridge with just a few minutes to spare.

The lion, of wardrobe fame

An interesting new venture. We shall keep an eye out for future productions. Perhaps the pantomime at Christmas?

PS: the Indian boy, visible in the first snap, did not make it to our performance. Or at least, if he did, I missed him and his owl.

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=US+statesman+boasting. As far as I can recall, the last time we saw the play, getting on for ten years ago now.

Reference 2: https://www.coalshed-restaurantlondon.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.feudi.it/. Very arty. You get to the wine eventually.

Reference 4: https://bridgetheatre.co.uk/.