Entertained on the train by a very active small boy with a fondness for orange poles, which, inter alia, he tried quite hard to climb up. We wondered how one could buy him such a thing for Christmas, with both the colour and grip of the orange poles on the trains of Southwest Trains being very distinctive, and I do not suppose one could easily get hold of the real thing.
On to All-Bar-One in Regent Street, where we were pleased to find that the supply chain problem with the smarties, noted at reference 1, had been resolved. We thought that the colours painted on the smarties had been toned down since our childhood, had been muted and made more tasteful, but that might just be distorted memories combined with failing older eyes.
Wigmore Hall gave us Nick van Bloss giving us Beethoven, and very good it was too. Op.34, Op.31 No.3 and Op.57, this last aka Apassionata. All very good, but I think I was most taken with the new-to-me Op.31 No.3 - which somehow seemed very familiar, despite my only ever having heard it once or twice before, if that, with the blog only revealing several outings for Op.31 No.2. I wondered afterwards whether Schubert had pinched some of the material for one of his sonatas. Oddly, but no doubt for some reason I felt that van Bloss was doing particularly well with his left hand.
For his short encore he moved to Bach giving us, I think, a gavotte. But it served to round things off really well.
Out, we were moved to try the Taillevent restaurant in Cavendish Square, passed many times but never before visited. Food not particularly expensive, so I think the idea is to make on the huge variety of wine offered, including a huge choice of wine by the glass. The idea was very much to match your wine to each course, but we decided that was too complicated for our unsophisticated palettes and went for a bottle. I might say in our defense that, like at concerts, I do not like having to change gear all the time. I like the various offerings to all come from the same stable, as it were. In any event, probably the most expensive bottle of wine that I have ever bought, I think a Chablis Montée de Tonnerre, Domaine Raveneau 2009. Served in very pretty glasses, so dainty that the glass had to be replaced by plastic, but really very good.
Food was a bit low on portions but that did not seem to matter - and it was very good too. In my case a Caesar salad, followed by steamed cod, perhaps the best cod I have ever had in a restaurant, followed by some old Comté. Plentiful supplies of good quality brown bread. Staff appeared to be genuinely French, friendly and efficient without being all over one. All rounded off by a drop of Calvados.
My only adverse comment would be the total absence of cabbage, of any sort, from the menu. Our waiter seemed to think that cabbage was the sort of thing that farmers and pigs ate, not the sort of thing that discerning customers ate at all. As a result, I do not think my taking my own cabbage along the next time we visit, as I had at Bognor (see reference 4), would be quite the thing.
All in all a fine place, all the better for us in that it was not very busy. Not sure that we would have liked it so much if it had of been.
Paused at Earlsfield on the way home, giving ourselves enough time to score a few twos.
Given the low density of level crossings in the London area, we wondered whether Motspur Park was the only place from which one can see two of them. I remember being told that one at least caused long delays in the rush hour.
PS: the programme noted a 15 year gap in the pianist's public life and we noted considerable activity of the muscles of the face, without connecting the two. His own web site says nothing, but wikipedia reveals Tourette's syndrome, a complaint which was sufficiently interesting to earn him a named place in the late Oliver Sacks's book 'Musicophilia'. But without wikipedia I would not have made this connection either, despite having read the book only a year or so ago. Still on the shelf, having survived the various culls.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/danish-bacon.html.
Reference 2: http://nickvanbloss.com/.
Reference 3: http://www.taillevent.com/.
Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/a-tribute.html.
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