Started the outing with a large fox eyeing me on Platform 4 from across the rails. I tried shouting at it a bit and eventually it loped off, not very bothered.
Uneventful Bullingdon from the ramp at Waterloo to Roscoe Street. Bacon sandwich on form, enlivened by some young agent-manager chit-chat at the next table, which went to show that it is not only blue collars who like bacon sandwiches. Probably nothing to do with the Caio Casting event in Nomad at the top of the street - an outfit which does not appear to exist online - so one wonders whether it exists at all. Deposited two DVDs at the nearby charity shop - the source of various items of interest in the past, for example 'Cadillac Desert' by Marc Reisner. Perhaps all the more relevant for recently learning that one of the causes of the Syrian disaster was a disastrous fall in the water table: too many farmers for too little water, resulting in massive migration from country to town. See reference 1.
St. Luke's was sold out for this popular number, which fared rather better with me than the Piano Quintet of the week before. Not great, but adequate, which was fair enough given that the team - the Royal String Quartet plus Guy Johnston on cello had been thrown together at rather short notice. A team which preferred to play from substantial music stands, rather than the flimsy but cunningly folding things more commonly seen. A quick peek at stand shops online did not turn up quite the thing, but it did turn up the gadget illustrated for holding your iPad, score on iPad being something I think I have come across twice so far - but for which there must be enough demand to make it worth while making the things. The shop concerned, Black Cat music, can also do you a mock antique stand, for only a modest premium on what you might otherwise pay.
Slightly odd name for this Polish string quartet, given that there has not been a king in Poland since the end of the eighteenth century. Do the Poles still run to a restore-the-monarchy outfit - as I think the French do?
For me, some of the small parts in loud passages got a bit lost, with the quiet passages faring rather better. And things got better generally as we went along.
Afters taken at the nearby Masque Haunt, where a fairly lively afternoon drinking scene was getting under way by the time we left. We had stayed there too long, as by the time I reached St. Bartholomew's at around 1650, it had shut for the day. Better luck next time. But in the meantime, I pulled a Bullingdon at West Smithfield Rotunda and pedaled off to Waterloo Bridge - via Fleet Street rather than my more usual Blackfriars Bridge, this being thought the safer route on a drop of wine. Good acceleration across Waterloo Bridge, amid plenty of other cyclists.
Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Marc+Reisner.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/carducci.html.
Reference 3: http://www.royalstringquartet.pl/en/home. The English of the English version of this site is not that great. I dare say it reads better in the original.
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