Pain one

Someone or something suggested that I attend a Christmas conference about pain, put on in what used to be the BBC headquarters in the Aldwych, aka Bush House, by the British Neuroscience Association, for which see references 1 and 2. Not sure that I was good for a whole day of this sort of thing, but at £30 or so including refreshments - including wine if I lasted that long - it seemed too good to miss. And last Monday was the day.

The Bullingdons

An overcast, cool morning and for some reason I was late starting, so accepted a lift to the station. Abandoned the lift in a queue on West Hill, to reach the station just about the same time as it did. Spurned the M&S food hall trolley next to the free cash machine (the only one of the three in the vicinity which is still free) and pushed on into the ticket hall to find that there had been a landslip somewhere on the town side of Epsom and that there were, in consequence no trains to Waterloo. Opted for a Victoria train, which would maybe get me there in time.

For about half the journey a chap across the aisle was making loud and irritating phone calls to colleagues about work.

Housing estate?

There seemed to be a very large housing estate going up outside Hackbridge Station, probably what looks like brownfield below the proposed Lidl in the snap from Google above. Much larger than anything I have ever seen under construction in Epsom, although we do have some large, former council estates in the borough, built well before our arrival. And we do have some brownfield, although nothing that I know of that is as big as this one.

Changed at Clapham Junction to get a train to Waterloo. Now running late. Took the last Bullingdon from the bottom of the ramp and headed off across Waterloo Bridge to find the various stands in the Aldwych were full and had to park up Kingsway. Access denied at what had been the front door to Bush House and so walked around to the back door, where I managed to trip over to a flat down on entry, attracting the attention of various concerned ladies. Luckily no damage done on this occasion. They had some trouble finding my delegate's badge and suggested that maybe I was really for colorectal, which I declined, and eventually found my badge myself. About ten minutes late by this time, but no trouble about sneaking into the back of the near full lecture theatre which had been contrived in what had, presumably, once been one of the grand rooms. The only bad news was that there was a woman, no longer young, clicking away into her laptop more or less the whole time. It might have been more considerate either to turn off the click (which I believe is an option) or to take her notes with paper and pencil.

The conference

The promised keynote speaker - Joanna Bourke - could not make it at the last minute, but a stand in did pretty well, considering. And I shall be noticing the content of the conference proper in due course. In the meantime, down to the entrance hall for a spot of lunch, in the form of vegetarian, but quite good sandwiches. The idea was that one was supposed to stand with one's sandwiches and mingle, but I was never much good at that sort of thing, and managed to find what seemed to be the only bench, where I was joined by some other oldies. Where we talked about the propensity of (single track) conference goers to take the same seat in the auditorium for each session.

Did my sandwiches and decided that the next move was to nip up to Covent Garden and buy some cheese for Christmas - Lincolnshire Poacher naturally. Grabbed a Bullingdon outside and nipped up Drury Lane to find the stands I usually use there full. So for the first time ever, parked the Bullingdon outside the shop in Short's Gardens while I bought my cheese. From a position by the door from where I could keep an eye on the Bullingdon. And so back to Bush House, with cheese, in under 20 minutes. I was very impressed with myself.

Did the first shift in the afternoon, from a rather better seat on the other side of the hall, but decided against going right through the day and abandoned ship at that point.

Back on the ramp with the last Bullingdon of the day

Back to Waterloo to find that strike and landslip still ruled, so took a train to Clapham Junction, where I thought to pay a visit to the famous Falcon while waiting for a suitable train to Epsom. The place with the longest continuous bar in the land. They also serve wine in proper wine glasses with thin stems and properly thin rims.

I think there is another ceiling of this sort in or around Balham

Brown wood and Escher

Island bar one, not that much changed over the years

Island bar two

The sign just visible in the second of the snaps above claims that M.C. Escher (1898-1972) was involved in the design of the bar counter, which went on to win a mention in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest bar in the country. While the Wikipedia entry for Escher suggests that what time he did not spend in the Netherlands was mainly spent in southern Europe. So how does one check such a claim? Why would such a person need to be involved anyway, publicity stunt apart?

I managed to restrain myself from telling the bar staff that I had been using the place since before they were born, which might just about have been true. Nevertheless, it remains a grand boozer. Not many such left these days.

Out to almost score a three from platform 15, with the third aeroplane only being visible by virtue of its headlights when the first aeroplane dropped below the horizon.

Imperial war museum version

Army surplus website version

Having held my tongue in the Falcon, I managed, on the train to Epsom, to tell a young lady with long finger nails, while she was undoing a tricky knot with the point of a biro, that what she needed was a proper army knife, complete with spike. She managed to be gracious about my intervention. The second snap, said to be of a knife from the 1950's is the very thing, if a little more unkempt than mine.

Home to reflect on how being flustered and late increases the risk of accident.

Reference 1: https://www.bna.org.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.bna.org.uk/mediacentre/news/bna-xmas-symposium-2019-1/. Works at the time of writing, but probably not for very long.

Reference 3: https://mcescher.com/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon,_Battersea.