No spätburgunder

Having liked the spätburgunder noticed at reference 1, I thought it would be clever to amaze Terroirs with my knowledge of German wine and ask for some. So off to London to give it a go.

The record

Bad start with no Guardians to be had from Tesco's at 1100. In fact the whole selection looked a bit low brow. Things started to look up at Ewell West where there were a couple of floating diggers at the town end of the car park, that is to say like the digger noticed at reference 2. Then a party of ladies who lunch of middle years got into the next lot of seats to me. Ladies who clearly, on occasion, took alcoholic drinks with their lunches. In any event, they chattered happily all the way to Waterloo. Curiously, neither interesting nor irritating.

Took a Bullingdon from the pole position on the ramp, that is to say the very top of the ramp, next to the public cycle store, and glided down to the roundabout which gives access to, inter alia, Stamford Street. Where I was rather dangerously overtaken on the right by a white saloon which then veered left onto Waterloo Bridge. Not very clever.

A cold wind, but a wind that was behind me, on Blackfriars Bridge, then no further incident until the junction of Old Street and Goswell Road, when a couple of twats on bicycles, one young and one old, both male, wobbled across the junction at red while interacting with their mobile phones. The sort of people who give cyclists a bad name.

Market Café quiet, but bacon sandwich on top form, as indeed they have been for the last few occasions.

The programme

The organ

The people at St. Luke's seem to have got a bit of a thing for the viola, as for the second year running we have a series of concerts curated (in contemporary art-speak) by a violist, in this case one Maxim Rysanov of reference 3, from the Ukraine, the state in some danger of failing. Who offered, with a couple a friends in support, Cello Suite No.1, BMW.1007, arranged for viola, a selection of two part inventions for violin and viola and Sonata for viola da gamba, BMW.1027.

Quite busy, with no less than nine microphones, four up and five down, and one small organ, snapped above. The violist was well up to dealing with silly questions from the presenter, and we learned that when he was starting out, presumably in Soviet days, wannabee violists had to spend quality time with the piano - which included playing first one hand of a two part invention, then the other hand, then both together. Which sounded as if it was a bit of a trial at the time - and he much preferred the St. Luke's solution of having two instruments.

With, as it turned out, the concert turning out very well indeed. Bach worked his magic well. I even managed the novel combination of viola and organ - with this last played by one Steven Devine, a founder member of the band noticed at reference 6.

I noticed that both string players breathed through their noses, with the viola making a fair amount of noise about it. Noticed, I had a day or so previously been reading about the way that the noise made the air reaching the lungs both warm and wet, which meant that the lungs worked much better than they would otherwise. The mouth does not do the job nearly as well. Which matters can be followed up in reference 5.

I also noticed that, à propos of the layers of LWS-N, about which I post from time to time, that I did indeed seem to be listening on several levels or layers. And while one might be continually switching most of one's attention from one to the other, there was a sense in which two or more were being attended to at the same time. From which I associate to my mother's claim that she could follow all four lines of a string quartet at once. A claim I would not make on my own account: two yes, three possibly, but not four.

The meat

Out to pull the last Bullingdon on the stand at the Leisure Centre and headed off to the West End, more particularly William IV Street, off Trafalgar Square, to attend to the aforementioned  spätburgunder. One traffic violation as I tried but failed to get from New Oxford Street into Upper St. Martin's Lane.

After all of which the spätburgunder turned out to be absent. The moment I said German red, the French waitress knew that they had not got it, being primarily a French wine house, with just a sprinkling of aliens, and I settled for my usual Les Vignes de Paradis, IGP vin des Allobroges Savagnin - 2018, followed by a drop of their economy Calvados. Then white bread, then black pig, aka iberico presa, this last served with a dollop of something orange, a confection of bread crumbs, red peppers and so forth. The meat was very good, looking like red meat but definitely tasting like pork. Read all about it at reference 7, from where I have lifted the snap above, quite like what I had in appearance.

And maybe there had been a change of chef as the food was organised in those arty little mounds which have been all the thing in other restaurants for years now. Perhaps the Terroirs people have been too concerned to keep their wine menu up to snuff to bother about fashions in the food world at large.

The confection

In the margins I learned about a place called Bartek Express, in Streatham High Road, not that far from Epsom, from where it was likely that I could get decent kabanosi, not so easy to come by these days. Probably the people caked above - it certainly being true that Poles like hard core cakes to keep the cold out in the winter. Presumably people in cold countries generally.

Out and over the river to the Royal Festival Hall where I was able to change my ticket for a concert which had been moved from before the holiday because of illness. It was enough to recite my postcode and surname, for which I got a reprinted ticket and a voucher. Oddly, this last was dated 8th December and timed 1500, while the concert had originally been scheduled for 2nd December and time 1930. All very puzzling.

No street food out the back and trains moderately spouted at Waterloo. But forward to a busy Half Way House at Earlsfield, which seemed, at 1730 or so on this Friday afternoon, to be full of young people, including several young families. Where I wondered about whether all these young people would get all nostalgic about vaping in 50 years time, in the same way as people of my age get all nostalgic about half ounces of Boar's Head and roll-ups. Or Golden Virginia for wimps.

An Epsom train turned up just as I got back to the platform, so no aeroplanes on this occasion.

PS: I noticed that the violinist, Alexander Sitkovetsky, was off to Chattanooga. A place I remember for the impressively curving bridge across the Tennessee and the recovery truck museum. It was also rather cold, this being early one New Year. The actual visit to Chattanooga took place before the birth of blog life, but for a mention see reference 4.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-white-that-got-away.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/trolley-363.html.

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

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/12/visit-report-jigsaw.html.

Reference 5: The evolution of the human head - Daniel E Lieberman - 2011. A handsomely produced book, known to me from review in NYRB.

Reference 6: https://artofmoog.com/. 'Art of Moog plays the music of J S Bach on cutting edge analogue and digital synthesizers, with some unashamed electronica overtones. The band, formed by harpsichord and synth player Robin Bigwood with fellow classically-trained musicians Steven Devine, Annabel Knight and Martin Perkins, made its debut in the 2018 Bach Weekend at Kings Place in London...'.

Reference 7: https://upstartkitchen.wordpress.com/tag/presa-de-iberico/.

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