Gnashed

Ten days ago to St. Luke's to hear the Nash Ensemble (of reference 8) give us what was for me rather modern music: Turina, Ravel and Granados - with Ravel being an honorary Spaniard for the day, his mother being a Basque. While Turina and Granados both spent time in Paris. The place to be at the time.

The day started with the important matter of a new pint glass. I use a pint glass as part of measuring the water I put in my bread, finding that a pint glass full to the very brim is a reliable quantity; the sort of pint glass that I call a sleever, but which, as explained at reference 3, might be more properly called a nonik glass. Name apart, neither charity shops nor Poundland-like shops could oblige, but as it turned out BH was in the process of recycling her food mixer, and the plastic glass which came with that, probably virtually never used, being intended for smoothies and such for young people, contained, when full to the brim, exactly a pint, despite being marked in millilitres. Presumably some hangover in the machine shop from the days Imperial. It will probably do until we hit the Isle of Wight with its more serious charity shops in the summer.

A wet morning following serious rain overnight, but the rain had more or less stopped by the time that I needed to leave. Bullingdons were go.

Obliged to change seats on the train by a loud, well dressed, middle aged lady on her mobile phone. Assuming that there was somebody at the other end, he or she was not getting much of a look in.

The London Eye did not appear to be moving and I wondered whether it had shut down for the winter. But I learned subsequently that this was not the case. Up and running.

A lot of the Bullingdon seats at the top of the ramp were wet, despite being more or less under cover, so I declined the one at the pole position, taking instead one a few poles down. Which took me a couple of attempts to get in. After which, it seemed a bit cold and wet when I kicked off, but one soon got used it. Quite mild really. Just a few idiots about, ignoring lights and so forth.

Whitecross Street seemed very quiet, as did the Market Restaurant, but this last picked up and was near full fifteen minutes later. Unusually all men. Luckily the waitress, despite being foreign, knew all about how to handle herself in such a place and was fully up for a bit of harmless banter; harmless even for the most careful reader of the Guardian. Bacon sandwich very much up to scratch, and, being a little early, I toyed with the idea of taking a second, which would have been a first. Settling instead for my first visit for years to the rebranded 'Whitecross Tap' a few yards up the road. A big place, no doubt once a serious boozer. Maybe a dozen people there on this occasion, with ladies tennis for entertainment. Pizza seemed to be the only food on offer, which I am sure was not the case before the rebranding. Maybe yet another change of the plague years.

While behind the camera in the snap above we had the iron pillars and cased ceiling steel which is the normal form in such a place. Iron then steel seems right here, although I would prefer not to be held to account on the point.

Whitecross Street from the church porch - moved around to face the yard rather than the street right - as it had done until quite recently.

For some reason they had fiddled with the décor inside the church, adding screens to the lower tier of windows and blue lighting. One of the ushers said it was to do with acoustics, which I found puzzling, as I had always thought the acoustics very good. Who knows.

I enjoyed the Spanish offerings, so perhaps will not avoid them on grounds of being modern and from the wrong part of Europe in the future. But I don't think I would need a lot of it: all tone and texture, not enough structure. At least, that is how it came across to me.

A fine bit of new growth in Mitchell Street, on the way to the Bullingdon stand in Central Street. Pulled a Bullingdon and made my way to a stand near Bankside, across the river, where the Society of Wood Engravers had an exhibition on.

A Bullingdon stand on Southwark Street, in light rain.

The exhibition turned out to be much more traditional than I expected, with a mixture of linocuts and woodcuts. 

Some of the inking I found a bit harsh, more right hand than left hand in the snap at the top of reference 6. I thought this was probably the difference between the lino and the wood, with their taking the ink in a different way. Or perhaps the two media used different sorts of ink.

Quite a lot of work by one Sue Scullard, of which a sample lifted from reference 4 is included above. Tempted, tempted also by a woodcut by Kayoko Moriyama, seemingly cut from a block made from an entire slice of tree. In this last case put off by all the whimsy, perhaps more to the taste of King Charles, if the book of his garden at Highgrove is anything to go by, and fell instead for a lightly coloured print of a wood (rather than a tree) by linocutter Vanessa Lubach. Which was slightly odd as I don't usually go for coloured prints, except perhaps for the occasional red of the likes of John Farleigh. The whole business of having a block or plate for each colour strikes me as an abuse of medium - perhaps more so in the case of a woodblock, intended to be printed in one pass along with any letterpress, than a linocut.

Lifted from her website at reference 7, which I think fair given I have paid for the real thing.

The telephone effort on the real thing. Which apart from the distortion in the plane, which I dare I could remove with editing, at least in theory, looks too pink to me. The website version is nearer the real colours. We shall see when it comes back from the framer.

It looks as if she has done alright. In any event, the red spot was up before I left - a little unsure about the wisdom of the thing being sent through the post - but in the event it was fine, rolled up, well wrapped, in a fat cardboard tube.

Took a beverage at the White Hart, just before Waterloo, where the food was off until 16:00. It was only a few minutes to wait, after which I was told that their bread was off. Again. I wonder if the problem is that they don't want to serve bread unless you are taking a meal but are shy about saying so. I was offered various savoury snacks, but none of them appealed.

The house was busy at 16:00, mostly with people of working age, mostly wearing the cheaper sort of suit, so probably not bankers, but there was a gaggle of what I took to be retired railwaymen.

A café where one could once buy uncomplicated rolls for 70p or something. At least one could a few years ago.

Reminded by a poster on the train that Ian McLellan has yet to hang up his cloak, and was told that I could see him in a condensed version of the two parts of Henry IV at the New Wimbledon Theatre. Which we subsequently fell for, despite being asked near West End prices for what we find a rather unattractive theatre; rather big and drear. A matinée. But at least it is a good deal nearer Epsom than the West End.

My Travelcard did not work at the wide exit at Epsom and the young ticket collector thought that it was not valid. Epsom not in zone 6 he said. But he was not going to make an issue of it, I was tired and tore the ticket into the bin before I thought better of it. So I will never know what his problem was.

Outside the station, captured the trolley already noticed at reference 9. Thought about the Cricketers as I walked home over the hill, but in the event passed.

PS 1: the red of John Farleigh. From the set called 'The man who died', from 1935. In the margins of which, I find that the similarity of one of his magnolias to some by Monica Poole that hang on one of our walls is no accident.

PS 2: home, I wondered, not for the first time, whether the Metro avoids paying royalties to use photographs by mucking about with them in Photoshop or wherever. But then, perhaps I am wrong in assuming that that is cheaper than knocking out a copy by hand. It would be something remunerative for one of the more old fashioned of our creationists (from the art college at Epsom) to do.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Turina.

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

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-special-sort-of-hand-eye-coordination.html.

Reference 4: https://www.societyofwoodengravers.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://www.re-printmakers.com/. A rival, and I think older, outfit. The one with which my wood engraving uncle was more associated. But I think they both use the gallery at Bankside, along with the water colour people (RWS).

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/orley-farm.html.

Reference 7: http://www.vanessalubach.co.uk/.

Reference 8: http://www.nashensemble.org.uk/. A little out of date if the programme is anything to go by. But the cellist Adrian Brendel is indeed the son of the pianist Alfred Brendel.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/trolley-628.html.