Ultimate Luke

Programme

Ten days or so ago to what may well prove to be the last bacon sandwich for a while, the programming for the St. Luke's lunchtime concerts having headed off in a direction that I do not care to follow. I suspect also that there may be a funding problem.

A mild but windy day and there was some concern that it might prove windy on Blackfriars Bridge, which can be uncomfortable on a bicycle, a fear which was not in the event fulfilled. No Bullingdons on the ramp at Waterloo, so I strolled across to Concert Hall Approach 2, South Bank, from whence to Roscoe Street, St. Luke's in 16 minutes and 20 seconds. Good run up the Bullingdon Expressway. Lost a contest of courtesy with a bus in a busy Clerkenwell Road. Arrived at Roscoe Street to find just three Bullingdons on the stand there, four with mine. Perhaps the service vans were having a time-out.

Market Restaurant busy. Regular waitress plus a new waiter. Bacon sandwich good.

Into St. Luke's to find a cluster of four microphones on a pole plus two more or less stuck into the piano - not something they seem to do at the Wigmore Hall; perhaps it is a different sound engineer who covers this end of London. Fiona had abandoned her usual trousers for a long, floral print dress, coloured flowers on a white foundation. A material which would not have looked that out of place as a furnishing fabric. But she had not abandoned her cheerful, chatty manner - not something they seem to do at the Wigmore Hall either.

Ireland Piano Trio No. 2. Atmospheric, but a bit thin. Otherwise, I was reminded of his contemporary Shostakovich.

Elgar Piano Quintet. The piece that got me there, having had good experience with piano quintets over the years, although I did not think that I had ever heard this particular one. Checking now reveals that memory fails again and that in fact I had heard the very same piece in the very same concert hall about two years ago. See reference 1. The verdict there stands, with Brahms coming to mind again on this second occasion.

The pianist, Ian Brown, seem a little untidy, a little something of the old gentleman about him. I did not think that I had come across him before either. Checking this one fails to turn him up, so see reference 2.

Arne Street office window

Second leg from Finsbury Leisure Centre, St. Luke's to Drury Lane, Covent Garden in 19 minutes and 56 seconds where I was able to replenish cheese stocks at Neal's Yard Dairy, which had been at zero for getting on for a week. Including the Gubbeen noticed at the end of reference 3.

Along the way being amused by a chap in a small, first floor office in a large, once yellow building fronting onto Long Acre and Arne Street. It might of been a small office but it did sport a picture in a fancy frame with moulded gold around. Too far away to see what it was and although the very window might be in this snap from Street View, I can't pick out any picture.

Lowlander

A building which used to house part of the C&W empire, from which I was occasionally taken to be entertained at the nearby Lowlander, a place which I don't think was red outside when I used to use it. But they did sell quite decent cigars inside and C&W were quite happy to oblige. Also a place from which BH was more recently tempted to buy some mussels, but in the end did not. Otherwise, I forget the occasion and what we did instead.

Whereas on this occasion I was tempted to take refreshment at, and failed at, all of the Charing Cross Hotel (once grand, now rebadged), Gordons (Villiers Street) and Le Cabin (Platform 1). And so home to the bacon and egg flan of reference 3.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/05/dodgy-wholemeal.html.

Reference 2: http://ianbrownclassical.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/dorset-wine.html.