Back to St. Luke's

Back to St. Luke's last week, starting off by nearly being run down by a chap on a scooter, for the second time that week. The first time I was in the tunnel at the West Hill rail bridge when a young man whizzed through the tunnel without dismounting. All very dangerous. The second time, this time, I could not really complain as I was on the road, on the Meadway roundabout. But I did wonder where these fast moving scooters were supposed to go: on the roads they were not very safe from cars and on the sidewalks pedestrians were not very safe from them. Maybe the answer is sidewalks, but with speed limits when there were pedestrians about. But are scooter riders a more considerate class of traveler than all the inconsiderate cyclists about these days?

Pulled my first Bullingdon off the ramp at Waterloo to come across several inconsiderate cyclists, one of whom narrowly missed bashing me as he whizzed passed me, stationary at a red light. Stamford Street completely blocked up eastbound once again, not clear why. Farringdon Street better, despite the continuing works on the northbound cycle way. Remain puzzled how cyclists are supposed to use these things in both directions, which I think is the idea. Fine when you are travelling north but not so fine when you are travelling south. In which last case, it is hard to see why having the cycle way is an improvement. But it has provided a lot of work for migrants of various shapes, sizes, creeds and colours. The first three stands around St. Luke's were full so I ended up going on to Old Street, where the stand was half full, as it should be by late morning on a working day. Luckily I still had enough time to get back to Whitecross Street for my bacon sandwich - to find that the sandwich was fine, but that the waitresses had been replaced by waiters, one of whom told me that they had gone to work in offices. Which he found rather puzzling.

Sat down in the more or less full St. Luke's at the back of the front block of seats to be joined by two large ladies, possibly Dutch or German, with the one nearest me so large that she could not decide whether it was more comfortable to sit on one seat or two. I don't think either arrangement proved very satisfactory.

We had the scarily young Jennifer Pike (see reference 2) on the violin, assisted by Peter Limonov (see reference 3) on the piano do Elgar (Violin sonata, Sospiri) and Vaughan Williams (The Lark Ascending). None of which knowingly heard by me before. Sonata good, but I felt that it lost its way a bit in the last movement. Lark very good, if only very vaguely like the skylarks that I have come across - usually, to be fair, ascended rather than ascending. Sospiri so short that I did not have time to adjust to it. Plus a short encore, the name of which I did not catch. Plus irritating flannel from the lady from Radio 3. I do wish that she wouldn't.

Limonov ably assisted by a page turner, but appearing to have his music in a folder made up of plastic envelopes, the sort of A4 plastic envelopes widely used in offices. A plus being that one's loose sheets were not going to get into a muddle, a minus being that you would get crinkly plastic between you and the music. But between the two of them they seemed to manage OK.

Just about worth while pulling a second Bullingdon from the Finsbury Leisure Centre for the short hop back to the tube at Old Street. And so to the Polish shop and Mixed Blessings in Mitcham Road. The girl in the Polish shop seemed to have great difficulty understanding me, but I eventually got out with some rather good kabanos, without any of their rather nice looking, but rather large and gooey cakes. I did not think that these last would make it home in decent condition. To think that it is nearly six months since my last visit. How time flies. See reference 1. The lady in Mixed Blessings was very cheerful but I passed on her huge supply of sour dough white - which she assured me would soon be flying off the shelves - taking instead a spicy fruit loaf and some gingerbread (bulla) instead. All of which turned out very well, with the gingerbread being finished off here in Ashburton. A gingerbread which was much more like bread than the German stuff, more like a biscuit. Also more robust than the Polish cakes would have been. Appropriate in that I had just been reading Agatha's 'A Caribbean Mystery'.

A quick pick-me-up in Wetherspoons, where I learned that the man himself did occasionally visit. I had been prompted to ask by reading that he spent so many days a month visiting his pubs - although given that he how had more than 500 of them, it must take him a while to get around them all. This one perhaps made it to his visiting list because it made up in seniority what it lacked in grandeur, having been opened up near thirty years ago, well before he moved onto high class conversions of bank, churches and such like. Before he moved into the heritage world. I wondered whether he traveled with an entourage of fawning flunkies in the way of a Soros or an opera singer.

The barmaid asked came from Italy, rather than parts further east, from somewhere near Venice. Here, she told me, to get her English up to scratch, at which she must have set herself a high standard, as it was not bad already - and this despite the fact that she did not give me impression of being a studious girl. Although that might of been her nose and lip rings rather than her brain.

No record of matters aeroplane or moon from Earlsfield, so I can only assume that I just caught a train to Epsom and so had no time for such frivolities.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/removal-day.html.

Reference 2: http://www.jenniferpike.com/.

Reference 3: http://peterlimonov.com/.