Despite the not very encouraging reconnoitre of the Calder expedition noticed at reference 1, we decided to give it another chance - despite being puzzled by the word reconnoitre, with its suggestion of renewing my acquaintance with something. Consultation of Littré confirms that the French word from which it derives certainly has got to do with renewing, or at least recognising, which is not so far away. While consultation of OED was not very helpful, being strong on the military connection while adding to my confusion by reminding me of the natal connections of the second half of the word. Clearly a matter on which I need to sleep.
Sat opposite a young man who chewed the cud the whole way to Waterloo, while reading what appeared to be a book on his telephone. Very tiresome.
Arriving at Waterloo, we paid what was my second buying visit to Foyles in as many months, to see if they could do a copy of 'Atonement', following the copy of 'Saturday' which they had already supplied (see references 2 and 3), and the discovery that Epsom Library did not have a single book by McEwan on its shelves. Presumably no demand for him in the outer provinces. While Foyles had what looked like one copy of every novel by McEwan - and probably more to back up what was on the shelf. The atonement had been brought on by Bourne Hall library selling me a copy of the film for £1, and having watched it we thought we should take a look at the original. How many liberties did they take? On which further report in due course.
After which we marched off to Gail's Bakery just by the Tate Modern, when I took tea and cinnamon bun, BH coffee and croissant, declining the accompanying cook book. All very good and we thought that £10 was a fair price.
Then into the Tate to inspect the aerial waste land installed in the turbine hall by a very important Mexican conceptual performer. Not complete tosh, but not terribly impressive either. The weeds in the planters were not looking terribly healthy, despite being watered while we watched, despite the lighting. Maybe real rain and real sunlight were needed to make my garden grow.
But we fared much better with Calder, who seemed much better than he had done on my first visit. Perhaps it was not as crowded and it was certainly earlier in the day. I was fresher. I started off not terribly impressed, but when I got to the mobiles I tried blowing them. I had to blow quite a lot to get any action, but once mobile the mobiles were hugely more interesting. Other punters thought the same, although no-one other than BH was up to having a blow. At which point the young lady trusty came and told me that blowing the sculptures was forbidden for conservation reasons. Had I been a bit more on the ball, I would have told her what complete twaddle she was talking: I was and I remain quite convinced that Calder would have wanted us to blow and to hell with the consequences - in the unlikely event of their being any. Mobiles which move, mobiles which are mobile, is the whole point - while the air in the gallery was very still.
I can see that cranking up the rather smaller motorised exhibits was not really on, given their elderly balsa wood and twine style of construction, but these bigger, wind powered mobiles were much more sturdy and would have taken a lot of blowing. Perhaps I would have been more impressed had the trusty said that they didn't want a bunch of geriatrics blowing their germs all over the place. In which case they should have had penny in the slot hair dryers for us to play with.
Having done Calder, we tried one of the other galleries, but found that we had shot our bolts, had gone off the boil, so strolled out for a taste of Puglia for lunch, at a new to us eatery called Pulia. See reference 4 - a pretty but rather tricky web site. No simple menus to refer to in the way of a Wetherspoons - although there were menus on the day.
Main wine was a 2012 Grefia Puglia, a relative of the Greco di Tufo which we take from time to time. Desert wine was a contrasting red, a 2010 Lauto aka Primitivo di Manduria. All washed down with a drop of tap water and all very good.
Even better was their version of bruschetta, called a frisella and involving an excellent soft white cheese which was not mozarella. Made the bruschetta from Pizza Express seem very primitive. Described as a food for the poor of Puglia - of whom, I dare say, there were once plenty. Followed by, in my case, meatballs with some kind of pasta and pasta sauce. Followed by, on a semi-sharing basis, an excellent desert. A sort of rich white creamy stuff. probably involving nuts, with the texture a bit like praline and the taste reminding us of tiramisu, although it did not look anything like either. Served in a small glass.
Cheerful waiter, we thought a genuine Puglian rather than a cockney Italian, who managed to persuade us to take bottles of the wine we had just tried home. Remembering too late the current policy of only buying booze in screw-topped caps, suitable for older drinkers who do less than a bottle at a sitting. Not for the first time, as more than half our stock is now corked.
Getting a bit long winded here, so the remainder of the day will be wrapped up in the next post.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/carducci.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/comte.html.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/a-tale-of-london-life.html.
Reference 4: http://pulia.com/prodotti?lang=en.
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