Cheese

This cheese took place on a bright but cool day with what started as a cool easterly breeze, very cooling on the exposed platforms of Epsom Station. Added to which the trains were having a bad day, with no London Bridge trains being offered at all. Was cheese to be taken at Seven Dials or Borough?

Having mulled all this over, I decided that a Victoria train to Balham followed by tube to London Bridge was the way forward. To find that the relevant train to Victoria had been cancelled, possibly because of a work-to-rule inspired safety check, so fell back on Waterloo.

Got myself to London Bridge, to come across a black pickup with a very elaborate camera on a tripod mounted out back and with all kinds of expensive looking electrical gear in the cab. The sort of thing one would expect from Google's Street View operation. The driver, also dressed in black, had a US accent, but assured me that he was nothing to do with Google, just a humble freelance photographer out on a training mission. Hmmm.

Into to the market and got my cheese, to be surprised by a starling on the ground, poking around for morsels. Not a sort of bird I see very often these days, let alone at close quarters - while they were common enough when I was very young.

Got my Bullingdon back - numbers the same in the snap above - and headed out for Stockwell, along CS7 - with the nice neat formulation snapped above glossing over the fact that it is easy enough to miss one's way around Elephant & Castle. But not forgetting that actually cycling around Elephant & Castle itself is not something I would fancy these days - despite having done it often enough in the 1970's - I dare say when it was wet and dark too.

Another catch was that the easterly breeze noticed above had become a westerly breeze, strong enough to notice even on this pretty much level run.

There was also a young chap on a electric roller ball equipped with a plank, the idea being that the ball rolled while you stood on the plank. The acceleration of this thing away from the lights was impressive, much faster than anything I could manage these days. Top speed not so impressive and I dare say I could have kept up not so long ago. Young person's circulation as he was dressed for the gym while I was duffel coat, scarf and gloves - or maybe you use more muscles keeping the right way up on such a thing than at first appears.

And so to the Tate Library on South London Road, where my usual terminal was free and I was able to do my business. After being helped through the login procedure which involved leaving off the first two characters of my library number. Odd that I did not remember about needing to do that.

After which I strolled across the road to the Estrela to partake of cow chop - otherwise costeleta de vaca - served with chips, rice and salad. I managed most of it. Rather like a very large lamb chop in appearance, perhaps made by taking a half-rib slice off a joint of fore-rib, possibly frozen for ease of slicing with a table-top band saw. Followed by a sort of cheese cake involving passion fruit. Taken with Deu Deu - as snapped properly at reference 1 - and a spot of brown agardente to follow. All very good and very reasonable.

Being sat outside, close enough to be impressed by a recovery vehicle towing a double decker to Stockwell. I remember the front being hauled up rather higher than in the snap above, but maybe that was the Deu Deu talking.

Mystery calls during the proceedings, not taken up until later, which turned out to be someone flogging HSBC flavoured wealth management. What do they know that I don't?

While at Raynes Park the announcer with a US accent was back. Assuming that he was from the US, rather than just learning US English rather than the proper sort, how on earth did he wind up at Raynes Park? Perhaps I will try asking someone next time I am there.

PS 1: on some previous expedition, I had acquired a copy of Kennedy's portrait of Elgar, once the property of the Shaw Library of the London School of Economics. As I recall, a comfortable place with more armchairs than bookshelves, but not a place that I much used in my time there; perhaps more the domain of the postgraduates. I might also say that I don't think I ever set foot in the main library downstairs, which I believe was more used as a place for quiet study than for perusing the volumes stored there. That being as it may, I have learned from this book, now placed on the retired list and destined, when it stops raining, for the brick formed compost heap, about the birth of Elgar's 'Enigma Variations'. I can't have heard them above once or twice, if at all, but I now know that the variations are all musical portraits of one or other of his many friends, while the origin or model for the theme was and remains an enigma. I have also been reminded that the creation of what is now an established part of the classical repertoire is often a more fraught and messy business than might appear from the finished product, years after the event. There are also the last couple of sentences of reference 3 to consider. For most of which see the handy summary at reference 2.

PS 2: I close with keys. Serious enough looking keys, but what might have been a name tag had rotted off. In any event, they had clearly been out for a while and the owner had probably moved on - so not much would have been gained had it been possible to return them. Left on top of a post for greater visibility. I will see if they move in due course.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/battersea-beef.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_Variations.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/10/politics-on-edge.html.