Treetops

A week ago to town to hear the new-to-us Agate Quartet (from France) give us Haydn (Op.20 No.2) and Beethoven (Op.130 with Op.133 ending, aka Grosse Fuge). This last being a work which we must have heard many times - although counting them up since 2006 is left an exercise for readers.

A cool and overcast day, which made a pleasant change from the excess heat preceding. But still no rain, at least not even to notice.

Had to grapple with slight changes to the train timetable, with times of the Waterloo trains moving from 19 to 23 and 49 to 53. All a but much for the older brain - so just as well that it had cooled down.

Train fairly quiet, tube a bit busier and hot. We have noticed before that the Victoria Line runs very warm between Vauxhall and Oxford Circus. Wouldn't like to get stuck on it. Oxford Circus quiet at around 10:45. But All Bar One was up and running, with smarties, even if the service was a little slower than usual.

Striking yellow and green flowers in the fairly full Wigmore Hall. A colour mix which was well attuned to the dark brown joinery. And probably involved some flower dyeing.

Music very good - including a power rendering from the young team of the Grosse Fuge. But at a little over an hour, quite enough for one session.

Something going on in what we took to be the garden of the Langham Hotel. Lots of filmy people up to something. But none of them near enough to tell us what was going on.

From where we pushed on to the Pizzeria Mozza, a place first visited back at the end of April and noticed at reference 4. An appendage to the Treehouse Hotel next door. Rather busier than on our last visit. We noticed a sitting at the bar option, overlooking the food preparation and cooking, for which there were at least two takers. Good quality napkins and cutlery.

A fine wine, from Soave, a suburb of Mantua, roughly half way between Milan and Venice. The people at reference 5. More of their sour dough toast, soaked in butter and garlic. For me a good looking pizza, but a little highly flavoured. To my mind, they were trying a bit to hard to have unusual toppings to their pizzas. But the pizza bases were good and my pizza was nicely cooked. BH settled for her usual chicken salad. Staff pleasant and attentive without being intrusive.

We asked if we would be allowed to take our coffee in the roof top bar of the hotel adjacent. After some palaver this did indeed prove to be possible, although we did have to check out of the restaurant, be escorted into the hotel and then check into the roof top bar - to which we took the special, non-stop lift. Everyone was very pleasant about it, but I thought a touch patronising. We were there on sufferance, by special permission. We were expected to spend and we were not expected to stay. We were clearly not quite the right sort of people. But there were very fine views in most directions.

The choice of whisky. I went for Redbreast, which I don't think I have had before. Very satisfactory.

Much gin palaver. Mr. Sipsmith is clearly doing very well for himself - and hopefully make enough to be able to retire in comfort when the alcofashionistas move on to the next thing.

While the fashion in the washrooms was for naked copper with lots of compression joints. Quite a business to fit neatly, with copper scratching very easily.  Very easy, for example, to leave wrench marks on the joints. For which reason, if exposed, always painted when I was young.

I forgot to ask whether smoking was permitted on the outdoor terrace. I would guess in certain parts only, if at all. This despite being right up in the open air with lots of breeze, not to say wind and rain.

On the floor below there was a Mexican restaurant, possibly the source of the trickle of very flashily dressed young ladies visible from where we had been sat. I wonder now how such a restaurant makes a living, so far away from the passing trade on the pavement. Maybe the answer is that they charge a great deal.

Complemented by a change of bird in the lobby. One supposes that there is a special place down in the basement where they have a range of them, plus refurbishment and repair facilities.

Two genuine Minis heading for Oxford Circus, not the things which mostly pass for Minis these days. Seemingly on some sort of event and branded 'SCBC'. Tracked down to reference 7. Entrance to the posh boozer called the Wigmore visible right. Probably part of the Langham Hotel. Closed on Sundays.

And so to the train to Dorking from Vauxhall. Note the building on the left, a building on which the accommodation people in the Treasury did a lot of work, it being intended as a temporary home while Treasury Chambers was privatised and refurbished. But Gordon Brown arrived at a bad moment and declared that he had not waited twenty years to be Chancellor to be shipped off to the wilds of Vauxhall, miles and miles from the corridors of power. Work scrapped.

Work in which I was peripherally involved, supervising the preparation of detailed digital plans of Treasury Chambers. Ably assisted by an able young lady from the US, picked up from some agency in Victoria Street. I remember the change of tone when I explained to the agency that I was hiring rather than seeking work. Perhaps I was already a bit old for the latter.

Big Ben just visible in the middle of the snap, next to the green traffic light.

As it turned out, no rain all day.

PS: slightly too late for this visit, a correspondent has reminded me of Morse's plaque above the All Soul's clubhouse in Cleveland Street, a little to the east of the Treehouse,. An outpost of the church across the road from the Treehouse, a place where I could go to Jesus and do stuff. Not the Morse from Oxford, rather the painter and inventor from the US, the chap who invented the Morse code. And having had a quick peek at Wikipedia I find that there was a quite a lot to be done to make the telegraph work, apart from inventing a suitable code, and that quite a few other people were trying to solve the various technical problems. But he did win out in the end. Something to be inspected on the next occasion.

References

Reference 1: https://en.quatuoragate.com/. The quartet.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/artemis.html. The last outing for the Grosse Fuge. Noticed on that special day, 29th February.

Reference 3: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/05/beethoven.html. The first recording outing.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/april-cello.html.

Reference 5: https://www.coffele.it/.

Reference 6: https://www.scbc.org.uk/. Bing's top hit for 'scbc'. For the love of Jesus. Barking up the wrong tree altogether.

Reference 7: https://smallcarbigcity.com/. The right tree. And a registration plate nut: all the cars seem to have 'LDN' as the second half.

Reference 8: https://www.treehousehotels.com/london. The place with the roof.

Reference 9: https://allsouls.org/Groups/362840/Services/All_Souls_Cleveland/All_Souls_Cleveland.aspx. The place with the plaque.