Grappa

Last Sunday to the Wigmore Hall to hear the new-to-us Quatuor Voce. Beethoven Op.74 followed by Ligeti String Quartet No.1 followed by an encore which was something to do with soothing the oxen marching around a well, drawing the water, somewhere in Egypt. This last by way of an encore. The draw was the Beethoven, but as it turned out we liked the other two pieces well enough.

Ligeti not completely unknown to us as we had done something as far back in March 2009, then a cello sonata in March 2015 and another cello sonata (possibly the same one) in December 2017. But no sign of a string quartet, No.1 or otherwise.

Amused at Epsom station by the poster right. I don't know much about Simon and Garfunkel, apart from their being barely on speaking terms these days, but I had not thought that brass bands came into their act.

Less amused on the train when we sat near a couple of young men, perfectly decent, but who having what seemed like a rather loud conversation about some aspect of sport. The sort of conversation which is fine if you are part of it, very irritating if you are just within earshot of it. We decided to move to the other end of the carriage.

Spent the journey wondering about the Post Office boast that their banks were to be open on Sundays. With ordinary banks steadily closing branches down because they are not doing enough face-to-face business, how is the Post Office, which has also been steadily closing branches down over the same sort of period, going to manage on a Sunday? From where I associate to the days of the Post Office Savings Bank, useful when I was young, because using your Savings Book, you could draw money from any Post Office in the land, whereas banks, even supposing one had one, were apt to be a bit difficult about dodgy looking young people anywhere other than at their own branch, where the books were kept.

There were some Police Community Support Officers in the Vauxhall tube concourse handing out folded yellow cards about hate crime, crime which includes anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents, as well as crime motivated by intolerance of difference more generally. Although thinking with my fingers, maybe a lot of this is not so much about the people who are different as about the angry young men who need some channel for their anger - with their not being too particular about what channel. So out in the country, people who hunt foxes would be fair game. See references 1 and 2.

Got to All-Bar-One in Regent Street to sit down next to a couple of young women who were talking earnestly about some aspect of work. Almost as irritating as the young men, but we did not move a second time. Only one pot of smarties on this occasion.

Into Wigmore Hall, where the twin flower arrangements were very pale green in tone, with large green somethings, possibly green anthuriums. Set off with a few touches of colour. BH approved.

Sat behind a middle aged, middle income couple, the husband part of which spent most of the concert trying to read the sports part of the Observer. Wife part just fidgeted in various other ways. All in all, not at all clear why there were there; it was not as if they were tourists or holiday makers, taking in a bit of culture to fill out the space between breakfast and lunch.

But the concert was very good. Furthermore, it was in the right order from a hearing point of view - although had the Ligeti been listed second rather than first in the brochure from which I made the booking, I would probably not have made it, being rather conservative in such matters. With the quartet going in for rather effective rhythmic standing up at one point in the Ligeti. The cow piece which followed was a version of a piece written for the lute, I think based on an Egyptian folk song, originally used to calm the oxen while they marched around the well, drawing up the water. A piece which was rather moving and which made good use of silence and quiet. Being surprised, once again, a quiet a full concert hall can be when the musicians go about it the right way. With the quartet seeking out all kinds of connections and very much following in the ethnic-music-collecting footsteps of both Dvořák and Bartók . See reference 3. See Hamza el Din: 'Escalay'.

Quick shot of sherry and then off to the Caffé Caldesi, not visited since the beginning of last year. See references 4 and 5. Being surprised this morning at how long ago this last visit was, considering that we eat in town reasonably often, probably once or twice a month.

Warm enough to eat outside, unusual for the second half of October, but we settled for the quiet interior.

The menu seemed to have got a bit shorter since we last saw it and there was no Greco di Tufo, so we settled for a wine from the Alto Adige instead, which was entirely satisfactory. Cantina Toblino for the curious, with the printing having lopped off the bottom of the relevant line of print. See reference 6.

Bread, olives, lasagne, salmon (for BH), spinach (with the advertised chilli) tiramisu. All very satisfactory. Bread better than average.

Washed down with a couple of shots of grappa, with my being upstaged by the probably Italian waitress who offered no less than three sorts. I saved some face by asking for yellow rather than white, a trick I learned in Ryde. By way of a reward it turned up in a rather splendid glass. See reference 7.

Service good. All in all a very satisfactory meal, only slightly marred by a party next to us, made up of two girls, expensively turned out in matching red coats, and two older people on grandparent duty, if not actually grandparents. With the two girls being tiresomely pre-adolescent and making it abundantly clear by their behaviour and body-language that they would have far rather have been somewhere else. We might all have been there in one or other capacity (or both), but one can do without the families of others!

Lots of pretty people running around outside. Some, looking a little left over from the night before, only managing a walk.

Down the hatch at Bond Street to make a nice connection at Waterloo. Home and dry outside, if not inside.

PS: the Pacific Standard Time of this blog does not seem to know about winter time, so the start of the day has receded from 0800, back to 0700. Whereas all right thinking, Greenwich time people think that the start should be 2400=0000. So this post scores to Sunday, whereas a post the same time yesterday would have scored to Friday.

Reference 1: https://cst.org.uk/.

Reference 2: https://tellmamauk.org/. Beware of the unsolicited noise.

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

Reference 4: http://caldesi.com/.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/02/debutante.html.

Reference 6: http://www.toblino.it/vini/muller-thurgau-trentino-cantina-toblino.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/yaverland-continued.html.