Chiaroscuro

A fortnight ago today to London to hear the Chiaroscuro Quartet, last heard more than two years ago, at another Sunday morning concert at the Wigmore Hall, noticed at reference 1. Some Purcell Fantasias, Haydn Op.33 No.5, Beethoven Op.18 No.1. A little disappointed that Mozart's clarinet quintet (K.581) had been scratched, but as it turned out, the revised program did very well.

An overcast day, with a bit of sun to be seen, so we took a chance, did not take umbrellas, but I did take my sun hat. Winter sun in the wrong quarter can be a pain. As it turned out, not deployed.

On the train, BH joined in the Wellingtonia fun, spotting what looked like one in the middle distance, to the west, as we came into Worcester Park station on the way out. Not yet investigated thoroughly, although a quick peek into Street View tells me that parts of Worcester Park are a lot more leafy than I had expected. Not wall to wall housing estate, as I had expected, at all.

Made our way to All Bar One in Regent Street for our customary refreshment before the concert, where we picked up the fake already noticed at reference 2.

For the first time, we noticed the pattern in the pavement around Cavendish Square. A pattern which suggested to me that some previous incarnation of the car park underneath the square must have incorporated Luxcrete pavement lighting. Quite surprised today to find that Luxcrete are still alive and well at reference 3. From there to a busy Wigmore Hall, mostly masked.

The order was the conventional V1 left, V2, V then C right. The first three standing. Viola using real music rather than a small computer, with her prize being the entry for the Fantasias. The cello did not come with a spike, rather it was held between the knees. While I had forgotten that V1 was Alina Ibragimova, originally Russian, not further specified. Presumably things are slightly awkward for the large number of Russian musicians who live and/or appear in Europe. Plus I don't think that the St. Luke's concert noticed at reference 6 is the only time that I have seen her without her quartet. In any event, this was a fine concert. Apart from anything else, around an hour in the middle of day, without an interval, seems to suit better these days than full length in the evening.

Out to find a lot of police gearing up to contain a demonstration by the Socialist Workers, apparently against war and NATO. Not sure what their position on Putin was, but they were making a lot of noise, considering their modest numbers. It comes to mind that I last saw Territorial Support Groups looking very paramilitary in the margins of a Notting Hill Carnival, but that was a long time ago and it may have been some other kind of group. Plus six police motorcyclists to provide an escort. Plus 2 Veneti having started opening Sundays not that long ago, has stopped again, not that that had been our intended destination on this occasion.

Over the road to lighter things, in the form of a reminder that the area to the east of Cavendish Square used to be big in the rag trade. Not for the first time, we wondered who might wear this sort of rag, and on what sort of occasion - although a quick glance at reference 7 suggests that they are more into fresh, light cloth than bare flesh. They are also into celebrities, so presumably not cheap.

Out intended destination had been the Bellaria restaurant, last noticed at reference 8, but I had not thought to check on the map where it was before the off. So, in the event, we head east out of the Wigmore Hall and turn right into Great Portland Street. When actually, we should have turned left and headed north. For future reference, at the junction of Great Titchfield Street and Langham Street, tucked away behind Broadcasting House. Where the red pin marks the spot.

As it turned out, we lunched at the Adam & Eve, just off Oxford Street. BH pulled something of a long face as I went in through the back door, but she was reassured to find that the inside was perfectly respectable, if quiet.

Adam & Eve Court. Back door under the orange marker.

New to me line in interior decoration, but BH recognised it from one of the various makeover programs she takes in. 

They also gave us a decent lunch: meaty burger for me, veggie burger (large, lots of lentils) for her. Plus the odd glass of wine, just visible left Pure luck, as we could easily have wound up in the much more expensive Middle Eastern restaurant across the road.

A bonus was seeing a spectacular, not to say acrobatic goal, by Watford in a match against Arsenal. For once I could see the point of watching football. As it happens, played at Watford's Vicarage Road ground, not far from what was the Orphanage in Orphanage Road, a place where I hung out for a year or so in the early 1980's, in the days when the Department of Employment lived there. Most of the Orphanage can still be seen in Street View - while I had thought that it had been cleared away years ago to make way for houses.

Back past the establishment which used to be called 'The Tottenham', which used to have Renaissance style nudes, cupids and so forth painted on the ceilings. Now 'The Flying Horse'. We didn't make it inside to see if the paintings were still there. Perhaps, being fakes, the heritage people didn't bother about them.

Not as impressed with the refurbished tube station at Tottenham Court Road as I thought I would be - although it did look as if Cross Rail was finally coming to the boil. But I was impressed with this air conditioning unit, one of a number scattered about the place. Or perhaps at Waterloo; can't remember now.

The penultimate item of the day was a foreign language version of something from the JW's, picked up at the Raynes Park Platform Library. On the day, I did find this rather muscular angel and I failed to find out what the language was, although it looked alphabetic, looked to be written forwards and did use Arabic numerals. This evening, reading the very small print at the front, I find that it is Tamil. A very old language which, according to Wikipedia, has been both spoken and written for over 2,000 years. Thinking of how most English people don't have a clue about the English of 1,000 years ago, I did not get to the bit which explained how much Tamil has changed in 2,000 years, although I did find sections for Old Tamil, Middle Tamil and Modern Tamil. But how many South Asian JW's are there? Do they have Kingdom Halls like we do?

While the ultimate item was a clutch of unmarried mothers on the train to Epsom moaning very loudly about how little provision was made for them to go out and enjoy themselves in the evening. There were some small children with them and I did suspect them of having taken drink at some point in the afternoon.

PS: checking this (Monday) morning, I find that Tamil gets the centre spot at reference 10, but is missing from reference 9, the word 'Tamil' not appearing in either reference 9 or the paper from which I took the diagram, reference 11. On the other hand, Bing was able to turn up reference 11 fast enough from the title given at reference 9. From all of which we deduce that the Tamils are not Aryans, unlike the Hindus, the Bengalis and the Sinhalese, to name just three people's from the same part of the world. Presumably plenty of potential for problems there, if the present problems in Eastern Europe are anything to go by.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/end-of-term.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/fake-141.html.

Reference 3: https://www.luxcrete.co.uk/.

Reference 4: http://chiaroscuroquartet.com/.

Reference 5: https://www.alinaibragimova.com/.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/ss-luke-cera.html.

Reference 7: https://www.temperleylondon.com/gb/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/access-denied.html.

Reference 9: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/08/aryans.html.

Reference 10: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-are-languages-worth-preserving.html.

Reference 11: Ancestry-constrained phylogenetic analysis supports the Indo-European steppe hypothesis – Will Chang, Chundra Cathcart, David Hall, Andrew Garrett – 2015.