Portraits

Off to London last week to the see the portrait noticed at reference 1. Overcast but set to be hot, although not in the same league as it has turned out to be this week.

Started well with a fine shot of a crane from Ainscough from the walkway out of Waterloo Station, where it overlooks the northeastern side of what was the Eurostar terminal. The people last noticed more than four months ago at reference 3. We stopped to wonder about the economics of building a shiny new terminal for what Wikipedia tells me this morning was exactly 13 years, to the day. Someone up there must have a sense of humour.

On to the Festival Hall, extensively decorated with large, brightly coloured flags, not obviously arty. We did not get to find out what they were doing there but BH did take her morning coffee. We were entertained by an energetic young man haranguing a school party down on the floor of the Clore Ballroom and by a meeting going on in the main sitting around area consisting of a dozen people sitting in a circle, all gazing at the laptops on their knees. The leader of the meeting appeared to be droning on about something or other; perhaps he was explaining about something important on their screens.

Not many minutes later we were in the National Portrait Gallery, to find the BP exhibition in a rather smaller space than I had expected, rather hot and crowded. There was some rubbish, as was to be expected in these days of Catholic tastes, and a number of portraits which we liked, but we thought that the judges had got it right and Miriam Escofet's entry was best of show, if seeming rather mannered in real life. We also found we had completely missed the important symbolism of the furring of the edges of one of the items arranged in the foreground and the double rim of another, something to do with the transience of all earthly things.

Upstairs, where we spent some time with the Elizabethans with their love of finery. Jewels for the ladies and large fancy swords for the gentlemen. I was particularly taken with a narrative painting about a gentleman who died fairly young, commissioned by his grieving widow. Lots of very small undertakers' mutes filing across the landscape. Illustration to follow.

A bit further on we came across a young foreigner who was make a small scale copy of a bust in a lump of some pale stuff on the end of a stick, with the aid of a small spatula and his fingers. It was rather a good copy, so he clearly knew his stuff. Once again, pleased to find an arty person who took his craft seriously.

Altogether a place which was pleasant, quiet and spacious, but somehow more like one of the museums at South Kensington than the National Gallery next door.

Out to see a fine cavalcade heading up Charing Cross Road, towards Tottenham Court Road. Big black Mercedes, outriders, goon cars, the works. Why on earth would anyone that valuable be travelling up Charing Cross Road? To open the fine new tube station at Tottenham Court Road?

Struggled through the scaffolding to take a downstairs table at Terroirs, away from the heat and the bustle. Service and bread as good as ever. The dish of the day was a simple rissotto, rather good. Followed up with some salad and pork terrine. I had forgotten to look up the name of the Sylvaner which they do here which I like, so we settled for something else, to be rather taken aback to find that the bottle was a litre rather than the usual 750ml. With the result that we were somewhat full and somewhat pink by the time that we had finished lunch.

Wandered through a surprising amount of new build Seven Dials to the cheese shop to stock up on Poacher.

Wandered on towards Kingsway. Item one, we noticed what we had thought were two regalia shops outside the Grand Temple had shut down, one of them with two rather disconsolate looking masons, with tails and top hats, standing outside. Item two, we noticed that Lowlander, a bar I once used to be taken to, was more a Belgium themed restaurant these days, offering, inter alia, moules with chorizo. Perhaps not for me any more.

Arrived on Kingsway, we inspected the church of St Anselm and St Cæcilia. An oasis of cool and quiet on a hot and busy afternoon. Unusual in that it had a rather open plan altar with the organ behind. Sanctuary light appeared to be over this altar, rather than in the more usual Lady Chapel. Windows looked to be the same sort of thing - iron casements in wooden beds - as those with which the houses on our own Chase Estate in Epsom were built. Perhaps worth another visit, perhaps before lunch this time.

Church done, we caught a bus, with the final sight of the day being the Kingsway offices of Mishcon de Reya, whom I know, probably quite wrongly, as doing very well for themselves out of the antics of celebrities. No doubt they deserve each other. See reference 4 to take in a very noisy promotional film clip. I managed about 10 seconds of it.

Hot, bright sun on the train home, making viewing a bit tricky, but I still managed a couple of ones at Earlsfield.

PS: some time later: it has been drawn to my attention that Miriam Escofet passed through the University of Creation in the days when it was more modestly known as the Epsom School of Art & Design, shortly before we arrived in town from Norwich.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/06/portraits.html.

Reference 2: https://www.ainscough.co.uk/.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/02/steel-day.html. The day of the inspection of the constructional steel at Tate Modern.

Reference 4: https://www.mishcon.com/.

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