Two large bill boards - maybe eight feet by twelve feet - have appeared on Station Approach, attached to what I take to be a Network Rail wall. I wondered about the regulation of such matters; presumably one is not free to erect such things without asking someone's permission.
While maybe half the young box plants in the beds a bit further on have died, the entire plants being a very pale shade of yellow. Was it the drought or is some selective bug at work - there being quite a lot of talk in the gardening pages about box bugs at the moment? Or at least so BH tells me. It is also true that there is something wrong with some of the well established box bushes at the bottom of our garden, bushes which see little direct sunlight. And that there are plenty of well established box bushes on Box Hill, a hill made mainly of chalk and so not very wet at all. More research needed.
Pulled a Bullingdon at Waterloo 2 to make it to Drury Lane in 9 minutes and 12 seconds.
Strolled through to Neal's Yard Dairy to find that they had taken on a Francophone counter hand to chat up all the French tourists; to convince them that there was good cheese to be had from this side of the channel. Sadly, during the course of my visit, he managed a good deal of chat but did not pull any sales. Maybe the French have to warm slowly to the idea of this good cheese. I took Lincolnshire Poacher for regular consumption and half a Gubbeen for irregular consumption - quite good but I thought it could have done with a couple of days longer than I gave it. BH happy enough with it as it was.
Onto the Crown, where the barmaid with tattoos remains missing, but I was able to observe the ebb and flow of holiday makers around Seven Dials. Some of them quite fetchingly turned out.
Onto to Terroirs, more or less empty this Friday lunchtime. The verdict was that it was a locals place rather than a tourist place and the locals were all on holiday. Also, for a change, we had an English waitress - who worked quite hard on her food and wine flannel. Both turned out well, with my eatable being something new to me called an onglet - a beefy version of pork belly but not at all fatty - and a touch of Slovenian, something different from the stuff bought towards the end of reference 1. Wound up with a drop of their excellent Calvados. Bread as good as ever. Chocolate tart a bit hard and sweet for me, but we got it down.
I could not place the accent of the waitress, which I thought south London but which turned out to be Reading and Oxford. I associated to the Maigret story that I was reading at the time in which Maigret was able to establish a rapport with the beautiful girl friend of a posh villain by guessing that she came from the Sainte Reparate area of Nice, then rather dodgy. A female of the people, just as Maigret was a male of the people. Also to a young lady we once knew who had a regional accent, possibly from Kings Lynn, and was rather uncomfortable about it, despite the fact that I found it rather attractive. Perhaps the game plan of such ladies was to blend with us speakers of proper English, this being before the current policy which rules that you don't get a job on the BBC unless you can sport a regional accent.
Called in Gordon's on the way back to Waterloo, to find the place fairly full of holiday makers, eating rather than drinking, and the facilities up some very steep stairs. Probably best to practise a bit before the light goes and before one has taken on too much freight. I thought it best not to take a peek at their wine list. But I must do so before too long, it already being many years since I took a drop there.
Just about managed to work the self service machine in Smiths, but managed to exit with a handful of their unusual plastic bags, which I was presumably supposed to pay for.
Also managed to chatter to various unsuspecting passengers in the train. But if they minded, it did not show.
PS: according to Wikipedia: a hanger steak, also known as butcher's steak, is a cut of beef steak prized for its flavour. Derived from the diaphragm of a steer or heifer, it typically weighs about 450 to 675 grams ... This cut is taken from the plate, which is the lower belly of the animal. In the past it was sometimes known as butcher's steak, because butchers would often keep it for themselves rather than offer it for sale ... The hanger steak is usually the most tender cut on an animal ... The hanger steak has historically been more popular in Europe. In Britain it is referred to as skirt, which is not to be confused with the American skirt steak. In French it is known as the onglet, in Italian ...
Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/wine-shipper.html.
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