Posh end of neck

A visit to Terroirs was indicated on the day of the election last week.

Iowan font

So started off in the rain to vote (Labour) in the church hall behind Christ Church, across the green from the Cricketers. Entry, as is traditional on these occasions, through the west end of the church, where I was able to admire a large brass jug underneath the font, presumably used for filling the font. I wondered about how holy the water had to be for these purposes, on which point Bing was not very helpful, beyond reminding me of baptisms in rivers and by immersion, in which cases using special water might be a bit difficult. But it did turn up a rather splendid font from a cathedral in Iowa, catering for both affusion and immersion options.

The day's Bullingdons

No trolleys on Station Approach on this occasion, but there was a train to Victoria, ready and waiting which I declined, preferring the ride from Waterloo. First stop, Houghton Street which I used to know well as an undergraduate student there, but instead of revisiting LSE, pushed onto the Post Office, where I was pleased to find that there was no queue, so completed my business in seconds rather than minutes - not thinking it necessary to record the delivery of my Christmas cards.

Wren's door

1958 nave

Sliding pews

After the bombing

From there pushed on to St. Clement Danes, perhaps the fifth church on the site, if you count the rebuilding after the second world war in 1958 as the fifth. Now the central church of the RAF. Which solemn function did not stop the bells playing 'Oranges and Lemons' for me on arrival.

A large number of squadron shields, in grey slate, have been let into the floor of the nave, more open than it might otherwise be, the result of the deployment of cunning sliding pews, which slide back to reveal floor when they are not needed for sitting. Not altogether sure how they work, but the pew ends are doubled, so the outer one of each pair presumably slides out.

I got Bing to find the famous picture of the church after the bombing, as my snap of same taken in the church did not really work.

A handsome building, well suited to its present function, although I imagine that relatives and former members are more interested in having such a building than serving members. Do these last still have to do church parades?

The very grand and very long escalator

Mrs. Jordan

The rather splendid bust of...

Mrs. Clarke

From there to William IV Street, where I was a little early, so wandered along to the National Portrait Gallery to look at a group of paintings devoted to Regency royals and their ladies, some of whom were treated rather badly. Although I believe that the chief villain, the future William IV, had had a perfectly respectable career in the navy. Note the way the screw holding the cover on Mrs. Clarke's label had been over-tightened, cracking the plastic. Sloppy work by some contractor?

I was sorry to learn that the staff did not know what was going to happen to them when the Gallery closed for its three year refurbishment in June. I dare say they are employed by some labour only subcontractor on zero hours contracts - who might or might not redeploy them to some other contract for the duration. Sorry that we are no longer able to run such places on the more leisurely and comfortable lines of old - they are, after all, supposed to be showcasing all that is great about Great Britain. Sorry also that instead of the comfortable, old-fashioned gallery we have now, we are probably going to spend millions turning it into an experience, with all the audio-visual contrivances that money can buy. Perhaps the now mature Dame Trace has been hired as artistic director for the refurbishment. Long live unmade beds!

Austerity Britain on show outside Terroirs

Two desserts

Onto Terroirs, where there seemed to be a new crop of young waiters, not all of whom were empowered to serve alcoholic drink. In the end I settled for the same wine as last time, that is to say, in no particular order, Les Vignes de Paradis, IGP vin des Allobroges Savagnin - 2018. As noticed at reference 1. To go with some neck of lamb, which turned out to be much higher grade meat than what I know as best end of neck. See reference 3. In fact, rather good, only marred by their having put far too much pepper in the watery gravy which came with it. I stuck with the Swiss cheese for dessert, the same as last time, rather than the elaborate confection of blackberries and white chocolate, also on offer and snapped above.

Plus a spot of Calvados. I had also thought to take a glass of the most expensive white wine which they sold by the glass, by way of an experiment, but this failed. It seemed that, it not being very busy, they did not want to take the cork out of the bottle and the gadget which allowed them to serve a glass without so doing had broken. Perhaps it was just as well.

Out to buy some scribbling paper at Rymans, where I decided that 500 sheets of their copying paper was the way forward. Not cheap, but a lot cheaper than what they called drawing paper. It was also rather heavy by the time that I had got across Hungerford Bridge (in light rain) to Waterloo, where there seemed to be a lot of people standing around the concourse area, but I did not have long to wait for my train, strike notwithstanding.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/lincolnshire-poacher.html.

Reference 2: https://www.rafnews.co.uk/. I picked up a copy of the news on the way out of St. Clement Danes. Something else perhaps more aimed at friends, family and former members, rather than serving members?

Reference 3: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=neck+lamb. Something which we used to have quite a lot of, up to around the end of 2011, but have not had much of since.

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