Thirsty

Back to Soif on Battersea Rise, the place that is 'bursting with character and atmosphere'. A visit already noticed for the fake at reference 2.

A cool but pleasant day. The new frame house on Meadway had lost its digger, but not its garden container, which was still sitting at the top of the gravel entrance. No access for cars. Three trolleys on Station Approach, two from Waitrose (just across the way) and one from Sainsbury's (maybe a kilometre up the road).

We took a new train to Waterloo to get us to Clapham Junction. A new train with connecting carriages and with a new kind of indicator board. BH thought about leaving her Metro tucked into her seat but I managed to locate a rather small and discrete litter bin for it - a litter bin that would not have coped with many Metros - let alone the Daily Telegraphs of my youth, the days when all self-respecting commuters carried a newspaper which they had paid for - and a good proportion of them left them on the train for people like me. Some of the meaner ones removed or defaced the crossword on the back page - but they were not to know that I don't do crosswords - which is curious, given that I like mathematics and I like words.

While at Clapham Junction some of the paintwork to the fairly newly renovated stairs down to the underpass from the platform was not looking so new at all. Presumably something wrong with the paint, or with its application. A bit poor, since the paint in question looks to have been applied in a factory, rather than on site.

A little early for Soif, so rather than loiter around the shops of St. John's Road, we thought we would take refreshment in the famous Falcon, just outside the station. Famous, but seemingly not visited since mid December, after a previous visit to Soif, noticed at reference 3.

Interested to see that it had been worth their while, say a hundred years ago, to have their clock faces personalised. And reminded that zoom on the Microsoft phone does not buy much, if any, additional resolution. Or perhaps my hands were shaking a bit. Or perhaps I should have tapped the focus ring it sometimes gives you on the screen.

Amused by the attractive young barmaid, in full war paint despite it being a little before noon. War paint which included an elaborate and rather attractive job on her eyes.

So after a decent pause, off down St. John's Road. Where we came across a small terraced house, opening straight onto the street - in the way of a lot of houses, as it happens, in Romsey Town in Cambridge - priced at more than we would get for our rather larger suburban villa - this last being how our entirely ordinary estate house in Epsom, from the 1930's, is described on the deeds.

Just by the big roundabout, tucked in against the railway lines, just west of Clapham Junction. Perhaps on a clear day one can glimpse the Thames.

What would it have fetched at the time in the mid 1970's when we were buying our first flat in Wood Green for around £10,000?

Arrived at a not very busy Soif. Started off with bread and wine, our now usual Montenidoli white from Italy, first taken from the carafe during the visit noticed at reference 4.

Moved onto the lamb dish of the day, a thick slice or perhaps a lump, medium rare as I like it and rather good. Beans, watercress, a thin brown gravy and perhaps other stuff by way of trimmings, plus further supplies of bread, but I forget now what BH took in place of the lamb.

Followed by one of their cook-to-order apple tarts, which on this occasion turned up in Yorkshire pudding format with turned up edges, rather than flat. Wound up with Calvados for me and Expresso for her.

In the margins we learned that at least some of the ovens in the kitchen came with a steam option, used both for the preparation of the chips and the cooking of the bread. But they were far too expensive to think of using one at home.

Some antique cars on the way back to the station. The chap standing by, having a fag, didn't know anything about them, but one was a Rover (left) and the other a Hawker Siddeley (right), a company I know better for its aeroplanes, to be found at reference 5.

After showing me a lot of railway locomotives and carriages. Bing turned up the snap above, from the people at reference 6. A Star Sapphire, complete with lady in period dress. The sales pitch went:

'The Armstrong-Siddeley Star Sapphire was the final car produced by the company, and it genuinely was a case of going out in style. It might have looked rather similar to the old Sapphire 346, the Star Sapphire was a completely different proposition. For a start, it built on the older car's excellent dynamics, but added a considerable amount of performance and dynamics.

It received a lusty 4.0-litre straight-six saw the car top 100mph – and, finally, the four-speed all-synchromesh gearbox was joined by the option of a Rolls-Royce Hydramatic automatic transmission that made driving this swift saloon genuinely easy. Even today, a well-sorted Star Sapphire will surprise other people on the road. And anyone who's seen these cars in action on the circuit, will never forget the improbability of something of its bulk being able to run rings around more nimble sports cars'.

Back on the platform, a cold east wind, no aeroplanes and no seats.

But there were a few books at the Raynes Park platform library.

Probably the first page of the book on the right. We opted instead for the seemingly brand new Good Food Guide for 2020, somehow mixed up with Waitrose, top red. Quite a nicely produced catalogue, complete with useful maps and indexes, a catalogue which reminded me of the National Trust Handbook. We were assured that no money changed hands in the course of selecting fooderies for inclusion. Inner and outer London accounted for about 150 of the 500 pages. Sold at £17.99. But who on earth would buy such a thing?

The new Samsung phone, noticed at reference 7. Early days yet and my hands have yet to learn where the lens is, but such as it is, the snap turned up in gmail, accessible from my laptop in a few seconds. We are getting there!

And there seems to be quite a lot of zoom power.

PS: interested to read in yesterday's Guardian that, if I were an Italian conceptual artist of standing, I could stick a banana to the wall of an art gallery with duct tape and sell it for more than 100,000USD. See reference 8. Our Damien of the dead sheep has clearly missed a bit: why bother with blood and guts when you can do it with bananas?

References

Reference 1: https://www.soif.co/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/fake-157.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/soiffed-again.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/bread-and-cheese.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley.

Reference 6: https://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/samsung-day-one.html.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedian_(artwork).