Cold and misty morning, but the contractors were already busy in what used to be a building contractor's yard at the entrance to Station Approach. Two vans, with a double barreled name which I had never heard of before, so I suspected a gang-master under contract to one of the fragments of what was British Rail. The gang was busy with chain saws chopping down all the trees growing out of the top of the wall propping up the railway embankment, capping off the stumps with some kind of green paint. Plus they we pushing rings of white plastic plugs into each stump, the sort of plug which one might otherwise use for a fixing in masonry. I supposed they were pouring more of the green paint down the plugs, with the intention of killing off the stump. Never seen such a thing before.
Further entertainment on the train in the form of a small party of young men dressed up as penguins, on their way, so they said, to a darts tournament at Alexandra Palace. They thought that the palace would probably be licensed for the occasion. Then, at Wimbledon, a mixed party on the platform dressed as elves.
At Vauxhall, they seemed to have finished wrapping the cubical building, ten stories or so, possibly the new US embassy, with the finished building looking rather odd. Must take a look from closer quarters.
Oxford Circus seemed quiet enough, it now being around 1100, but All Bar One was busy and, not getting served with sufficient speed, we passed up on their smarties and made used of the nearby Starbucks instead. The first time I have used one - outside of motorway service areas - for a very long time, having some obscure prejudice against them. But this one was perfectly satisfactory, pleasant and lively without being crowded or noisy. The prejudice remains obscure - but perhaps nothing more than jealousy of the swift rise of this company, from nothing not so many years ago.
Trios very good; clearly a form it would be worth getting better acquainted with - there being, I believe, lots of them. Presumably popular in musical families of two hundred years ago. Full house, enthusiastic.
Lunch at Pontis, very satisfactory as ever. A sort of thin pizza described as garlic bread with mozzarella to start, very good, followed by lasagne followed by tiramisu washed with a spot of amaretto. The tiramisu came in a bowl, while I remembered bricks of the stuff, but our waitress assured us that there had been no recent change of format and it tasted fine. Main business washed down with an Italian sauvignon blanc.
Wound up the proceedings by our Christmas visit to John Lewis, where we managed to lose each other, not realising that there were two lots of escalators up the middle. Maybe there used to be two light wells, not just the one. Maybe BH should learn how to use her mobile phone against emergencies of this sort. We eventually got to the cheese department, to find that they did indeed have Poacher, a snip at £13 the kilogram - a lot cheaper than it used to be in their Epsom shop, so perhaps they really are running down on the real cheese. I'll just be left with the Neal's Yard people. In the meantime, it was a very cheerful lady who served us, a lady who reminded me of the manic singer in the 'Funnybones' in a television adaptation of the Agatha story 'Sleeping Murder'. Not bad at all for the middle of what was probably a busy afternoon.
However, I must have been looking my age as a young man tried to give me his seat on the tube. Probably foreign.
PS: a chance picture in the Evening Standard has confirmed that the cube will be the US embassy.
Reference 1: http://www.pontis.co.uk/.
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