The Constable excursion advertised at references 1 and 2 continues with a trip to the Tate at Vauxhall.
Another overcast and cold day, but a dry day. Good for cycling.
It is not just our own trees that drop a lot of twigs in the winter. These being under one of the young willows on Clay Hill Green.
I had got into something of a muddle about exactly where the docking stations were on Millbank - a muddle which went so far as to suspect errors in the TFL map of same - and thought about travelling via Victoria. But it turned out that that was ruled out by line problems at Battersea and tree problems at Dorking, so Waterloo it was. Which was fine as it turned out.
Except that on the train to Waterloo we had a young man, decent enough looking, perhaps in his late twenties, having a particularly inane and interminable conversation on his mobile phone. Taking the odd vape as he went, not something that one sees very often. The lady on the other end of the phone sounded a bit odd too, although it was a bit hard to be sure about that, sitting maybe 3 metres away.
Some alternative trains at Wimbledon. But not real in that they are carrying ballast for the lines, internal rather than paying, external business.
We were also visited, for the first time for a very long time, by revenue protection officers, officers who barely glanced at my travelcard. They were followed by someone doing a customer satisfaction survey, a survey which seemed to involve one's mobile phone. No idea how he was selecting his victims, if indeed there was a method about it at all, but luckily he did not see fit to ask me.
And so to the Tate, to find that the docking station was only a few steps away, particularly now that was allowed to use the front door again, rather than the new entrance in Atterbury Street, which would have been rather more steps. The chap on the door said that it was all to do with Covid, which I was not quite convinced about.
Along the way I was reminded that I was once rather keen on the Millbank Tower, particularly from the other side of the river, particularly liking the way that the tower and its plinth seemed to float over the ground, the plinth actually being a deck over a pedestrian area. In all my years as a civil servant in the vicinity, I think that I only managed one tower meeting. No idea now who with or what about. Certainly not with the Labour Party people there for at least some of the time.
Having sat and admired the picture of Waterloo bridge for a bit, a footnote to the odd thoughts already at reference 1, was the thought that in a complicated picture such as 'The opening of Waterloo Bridge', some elements may have more than one role. So an old lady might be a comment about old ladies generally, a comment about the role of old ladies in the context of the picture, a comment about ladies' fashions or she might just be an important anchor of the composition as a whole, perhaps from the point of view of its geometry, perhaps from the point of view of its colours and contrasts. A thought to take back to Gombrich, when I finally get back there.
Tate done and mindful of the fine steak and kidney pie I had there back in 2022 and noticed at reference 4, I thought I would try for lunch at the Tea House Theatre in Vauxhall Gardens, a place noticed in a previous existence by the likes of the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail. Or perhaps the Mail on Sunday.
Steak and kidney pie was indeed on and very good it was too. Rather bigger on the day that it seems here. The green vegetables were good too - green beans and broccoli - rather surprising for a place of this sort. I even liked the gravy.
Tea and cake were still available, but I was far too full for that.
The proceedings enlivened by at least two cats. There was also a small stage right next to where I was sitting, justifying the name of the establishment, although I never thought to ask what sort of theatre it was. Then, as I left, a member of the chattering classes, out with his family, forgot to flash his discount voucher before they made his bill up. Which meant that to give him his discount they had to roll the whole transaction back - which, in the event, crashed the till, resulting in something of a hold-up in proceedings. But he had stood on his rights, he was going to have his discount, even though he probably had a lot more money in his bank account than I do. Never mind the (cheerful) front-of-house staff, probably on or close to minimum wage. The behaviour of a gentleman? At least, that was what I wondered about.
The rather cluttered exit. There was also a supply of board games. Maybe they have old buffers who come in every day for chess?
No Guardian to be had at Vauxhall, so I fell for an Economist for a change. Perhaps a bit OTT given that I spend quality time with my online subscription to the FT.
Continued the search at Clapham Junction, which was successful, and celebrated by a visit to the Falcon hard by. I learned that they sold sandwiches as well as meals, a throw back to the good old days. And also that if you watched football on the box, there was a great deal of Emirates branding to be seen in the background.
Back on the platform, there was a lot of low cloud and no aeroplanes were to be seen or heard. Nil points.
Stop-over at the Raynes Park platform library where I picked up the good-as-new, December numbers of 'The Sprits Business' and 'The Drinks Business'. Glossy magazines, perhaps a quarter of an inch thick both.
In the second, I read all about some Talisker nonsense. All because, despite all the peat in it, they need to draw extra flavour from used Bourbon casks from the US. The casks are taken up to the icy wastes of northern Canada where they are left with their lids off for a bit. This opens up all the grain, a process called ice fracturing. You then ship the casks to Scotland where the whisky has much more surface area from which to extract flavour. Aged for 45 years, you pay £4,500 for a bottle - I suppose the idea is that you order (and pay) now for benefit of your descendants. All sounds terribly contrived and not very planet-friendly to me. A bit like some of the fancy cuisine you read about in weekend foodie supplements.
Took a left out of Epsom Station instead a catching a taxi, to be amused by a small girl who was puzzled by a beef burger on the wall which was rather larger than she was - part of an advertisement hoarding for some burger chain. The burger, even in its bun, must have looked a bit grim at such close quarters.
To close the proceedings, I finally made it to the Blenheim (aka TB) when it was open. Public bar on the left divided off again from the saloon bar on the right. Public fairly busy with younger people I did not know, saloon bar empty apart from a few men, possibly delivery drivers, clustered around the entrance to the kitchen, now offering some kind of beef flavoured street food, with an entrance out front.
The bar left in the snap above being a place where I have spent quality time in the past. Mine host would be behind the white column with his cronies. A perch from which, the way things were organised at that time, he could manage the whole place when it was not too busy, single handed.
The jam, the novel and the back of one of the drinks magazines. Jam, from the Tea House, very good, involving lots of real strawberries. A bit sweet to have too often, but good on toast. BH has now been snared by the novel after an uncertain start. Drinks cover much more blue here than it is in real life, more green-blue. Perhaps the product of the neon (?) tube light in which I snapped it, perhaps of the many layers of processing.
PS: while the novel on which I am snared (or snagged) is 'Orley Farm' of reference 5 and have just read the Latin tag 'Vox et praeterea nihil', which I find Bing knows all about without my having to finish the phrase. Which might be loosely expanded to 'a lot of noise and nothing more'. Vox and nihil I know about, but confused by preaterea I press Bing a little further, to get the snap above. All is revealed. But my present question is that while Trollope know doubt knew his Latin well enough, did he expect his readers to know theirs too, there being a sprinkle of these tags? Or, bearing in mind that a lot of his readers were ladies without the benefit of a public school education, was it more that his readers wanted it to be thought that they did? Or what? All that apart, a good novel which is wearing its age well.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/constable.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/pie-and-wain.html.
Reference 3: https://www.teahousetheatre.co.uk/.
Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/back-to-abbey.html.
Reference 5: Orley Farm - Anthony Trollope - 1861.
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