To the temple

Last week saw a return to the temple, that is to say the lawyers' one off the Strand (reference 1), rather than the masons' one off Kingsway (reference 2). A place which it seems we last visited more than two years ago and noticed at reference 3.

On exit from the house, early in the evening, the tarmac noticed at reference 4 was still just warm.

Arrived at the station to find that Amazon were offering what appeared to be significantly more than either the minimum wage or the living wage. But I have yet to investigate, never mind read the small print.

After much pondering we had decided that the way to the Temple - actually the Middle Temple Hall - was train to Waterloo then bus to Fleet Street. Oddly, the option of train to Wimbledon then tube to Temple did not occur to me until we passed through Wimbledon on the train. It would have probably taken longer and by that time we had the wrong sort of ticket, but it was still odd that the option did not emerge at a useful time.

Some rather curious damage to the train window. What was the back story here?

Some more pondering on the train about debts to Iran. With the first ponder being that if person A murders person B, what happens about the debt which person C owes person B and which person C was about to pay off at the time of the murder? With the Shah of Iran playing person B. And the debt being advance payment for a batch of big tanks which never, in the event, got delivered. The second ponder being that the rights and wrongs of such a case are not entirely trivial or obvious. But the law does seem to have been working its way to the right answer for a very long time.

Getting of the train, we had some trouble finding the right bus stop for Fleet Street buses, which eventually turned out to be stop F right outside. We then managed to get off at Fetter Lane, rather than the Royal Courts of Justice, and managed to get rather lost in the maze which is the Inns of Court. We did have a map, but it was not as good as that above and the light was poor. Furthermore, none of the various people wandering about, mostly working there or with business there, seemed to have a clue. We did find a hotel, actually inside the precincts, so even the lawyers are not immune from that kind of thing. A good address, a strong price, but possibly, in the way of old buildings which have been repurposed, a little cramped and awkward: but see reference 6.

A high half moon. Something I think we last saw on exit from the Kings Place at Kings Cross. That is to say the culture place underneath the Guardian. Not been out much after dark since!

But eventually we found our way to Temple Church, where we picnic'd, and from there to the rather grand Middle Temple Hall. About the size of the hall at Hampton Court Palace, not quite as old but a good deal more ornate. Including, lots of pictures of eminent lawyers (including the odd lady), some pictures of monarchs (Charles I was prominent for some reason) and a brown wood, double hammer beam roof. There was also some armour perched on top of the brown wood panelling: it looked very small, so perhaps it was quite old, from the days when people were generally smaller than they are now.

Some of the eminent lawyers were covered up by a display celebrating what one hopes is the increasing diversity of the trade.

Rather like a hall in a Cambridge College and there were signs of High Table flummery. I remember once reading that the grammar school boys - this was a while ago now - got a bit fed up with all the Bullingdon style antics of the wannabee lawyers from public schools, and would much rather have gone to the pub or done their homework. But no, they had to put in the requisite number of dinners at hall and chuck bread rolls about. Get properly into the swing of things, despite their late start.

Hall reasonably full for Alice Coote, Stuart Jackson and Julius Drake give us some of Mahler's songs of life and death - which were new to us, but which we found rather good. Coote and Drake we had heard before, perhaps most recently on the occasion noticed at reference 8, four years ago now.

Mask discipline very good - much better than on the trains.

Coote, not looking much like the snap turned up by Bing above, sported the fancy clothes considered mandatory for a lady singer, including a sort of bib hanging down from her collar, perhaps nine inches by nine inches. Very sparkly and looking rather too big for all the sparkles to be real diamonds. We wondered what they actually were and this morning, Bing doesn't seem to know about this sort of thing at all.

The usual fussing about what to do about the words, but as usual I settled for a quick glance, then watched the action, while BH followed the words in parallel translation.

As it turned out, the acoustics in the hall were very good and the seating was rather better than that offered in the church adjacent.

Getting home was a lot less bother than getting there.

PS: this was the day of the attack on my telephone, noticed at reference 5. I might say that since that notice, I did succeed in moving messages from my telephone to my laptop, but in the form of a dump file, not that far removed from the XML of the Internet. Which was more or less intelligible if you took your time. The move involved loading some dump app from Microsoft, an app which appears to have been loaded in an execute once format as it never appeared on the list of applications you get by swiping left from the main menu.

References

Reference 1: https://www.templemusic.org/.

Reference 2: https://www.ugle.org.uk/freemasons-hall.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/czech-songs.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/trolley-442.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/criminal-tax.html.

Reference 6: https://www.apexhotels.co.uk/destinations/london/apex-temple-court-hotel/.

Reference 7: https://bachtrack.com/review-drake-connolly-jackson-mahler-middle-temple-london-november-2021. A review.

Reference 8: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/trouser-roles.html.