SS. Luke & Cera

Friday past was a day for music with cheese. A damp, cold & gloomy morning at 1030. Work on the landslip continued, so Southwestern Trains were helped out by coaches from Andover. With a Waitrose trolley being tucked behind that snapped below. Left for later, but in the event, I forgot all about it and just jumped into a waiting taxi.

Coach from Andover

The free Metro was back on the stand, but the station was otherwise quite quiet. There seemed to have been a modest rise in the price of senior travelcards, up maybe 30p or so on something under £10.

Fancy brick work at Clapham

Fancy pipe work at London Bridge

Train to Victoria, changing at Clapham Junction. From where I got a fast train - that is to say not stopping at Vauxhall - to Waterloo. With time to snap the fancy brick work at Clapham, first noticed but not snapped at reference 1. Note the use of speciality, tapered bricks to make the arch and the speciality trim above. Not the sort of expense one would go to now, with architects preferring to put the money into elaborate steel pipes, faked up to look structural, as per the second snap above.

The day's Bullingdons

Roads quiet on the way to Whitecross Street, although I did notice the cold north wind as I crossed Blackfriars Bridge. I also noticed neat little stashes of the new hire bikes scattered about, the fluorescently coloured ones, suggesting that there is at least some maintenance activity underpinning their street-littering operation. Journey time of just under 20 minutes probably a little better than average, wind notwithstanding.

Market Café fairly full, with some signs of gentrification. There may even have been one or two other people heading for St. Luke's there. But the bacon sandwich was on top form. On exit, marked down a trolley for collection later, the capture of which has already been noticed.

The programme

St. Luke's full, which is unusual, from which I deduce that Alina Ibragimova is a pull. With her on the violin and Carole Cerasi on the harpsicord offering three Bach sonatas, BWV 1017, 1014 and 1019.

Five microphones, some flickering of the lights and the usual irritating stuff from the Radio 3 announcer - stuff which I don't suppose sounds much less irritating on the radio than it does live. I think I preferred Fiona, who talked the same sort of stuff but managed to be jolly rather than pretentious about it.

A Peccatte bow

Both musicians smartly but soberly dressed in black or near-black. High heels but no glitter and discrete jewellery. Page turner for the harpsicord, foot operated computer for the violin. With very little foot action in the event, so I still wonder whether the computer usually manages to turn the pages itself. Arms held high to the keyboard, much higher than one usually sees on a piano. While the bow to the violin was unusual, with the wooden shaft bending out, rather than the usual in (as above), sometimes to the point where it seems to almost touch the horsehair. Bing alleges that she uses a François Peccatte bow - something it seems that you can pay £50,000 for - but this knowledge did not turn up any bows anything like the one used here. But it does turn up some heavy commentary on matters bow.

It took a little while to get used to the combination of violin and harpsicord, newish if not new to me, but it all turned out very well. Something to be looked out for if it comes round again. Audience enthusiastic enough to earn an encore, although I don't think we got told what it was. And maybe it was really more a matter of making up the hour slot needed for the radio.

Lately Jane Roe

Out to find that the place which used to be called Jane Roe and which we had visited and liked a couple of times or so back in 2015 or so and noticed, for example, at reference 4, looked definitively closed. But maybe they had not reopened after the break.

On to collect the trolley, and then to wander down to the Barbican Centre. Where I might say that the toilets were not great for a tier one destination. Clean enough, but no soap, erratic water and no drying capability that I could find. And I thought that they had been refurbished quite recently, just a year or so ago.

The cheese (from Bing)

The place (from Google)

Pulled the last Bullingdon from the stand at Silk Street, although to be fair, another pulled in as I pulled out, on my way to London Bridge. Got my usual ration of Poacher from the branch of Neal's Yard Dairy next to Borough Market, and fell for a small and pretty looking, but quite expensive tub of something called Cera. Made in Suffolk (the farm) and Bermondsey (the curing rooms) and named for some obscure saint from 7th century Ireland, presently very rural, if Street View is anything to do by, apart from the state of the art kitchen furniture operation of reference 2. The presence of which may be connected with the fact that there seemed to be a lot of large new houses in large plots dotted around the countryside of Kilkeary, this being the name of the place in question. Houses which suggested prosperity. Also a reminder that there are a lot fewer people to the acre in Ireland than there are in England. No church that I could see; certainly no church towers of the sort that dot our countryside.

And so back to the ramp at Waterloo, where I logged back in at post six or seven. No indications on the indicator board and announcements which suggested trouble, but there were trains to be had to Clapham Junction. No Guardians to be had at Smith's at Waterloo, but I was able to get one from the much more modest operation in the tunnel at the Junction, passed on my way to the Falcon, where I took a beverage in the small and comfortable snug, complete with a small version of a Wetherspoon's library. Clientele in the main bar mainly young, mainly couples, not at all like the Tooting Wetherspoon's crowd in the middle of a Friday afternoon. Lots of screens going, but the sound was off and they did not intrude in the snug.

Book a booth options

All of which made me think it appropriate to take a second beverage in the Sports Bar next door, where there was a far more serious set of screens, mostly boothed and not intrusive - beyond my learning that my lip reading skills were nil. There was also what looked like a small dance floor, presumably intended for later on. Clientele mainly youngish male, but not exclusively so. Service good. Plus they did snacks, so I was able to have some adequate garlic bread for a little less than £4. Which did fine, given that I did not want a main meal at that point. Wine maybe 25% dearer, at a little more than £10, than next door. I reminisced about the first such place I was in, in a place called Newport Beach, in California. Same sort of idea, but darker and with waitress service. Waitresses with fair hair, short skirts and well up for working their customers for tips. According to Bing, there are lots of such places there now, with reference 5 being top of some list of same. Not the right place at all.

Back on the platform, aeroplane conditions good, with my making a three and a couple of twos. Plenty of high flying clutter. A high half moon, pointing right to the set sun.

Read about an upcoming shake up of rolling stock on the Island Line in the Isle of Wight. Maybe we will get seats with bottoms? But a good sign: seems unlikely that they are about to close the service if they are investing in new-to-them rolling stock. We will still be able to get to about from Brading without always be needing to take the car.

Home to chicken stew. And to try the Cera. Which did not look anything like as pretty as when I had bought it, despite carefully keeping it the right way up, and what was left was mainly a thin yellow liquid, both smelling and tasting a bit strong. I thought ammonia, the sort of smell you get from fish which is some way from being fresh. Not my sort of thing at all. However, things did get better as after a day in the fridge the cheese had thickened to be something like a strong Brie. Still nothing like the sample that I had tasted in the shop: white, soft but just about solid and not very strong. I don't think that I shall be buying another tub of the stuff: my first dud in well over five years of buying cheese from the Neal's Yard people. Although I should say that 95% or more of what I buy there is Lincolnshire Poacher - an expensive but very reliable cheddar type cheese.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-last-endellion.html. We will indeed miss the ultimate Endellion concert at the Wigmore Hall, due in July. We will also miss the penultimate concert in February, having elected to go to something else. So this one will probably prove to have been the last of many outings to hear them.

Reference 2: http://tippo.ie/. The kitchen furniture.

Reference 3: http://www.saintciar.com/. One of the various alternative spellings for St. Cera.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/11/cupboard-love.html.

Reference 5: http://dannyks.com/.

Reference 6: https://stjudecheese.com/. Name notwithstanding, the home of the St. Cera.

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