psmv5: Incense

A fortnight ago into town for a Sunday morning at the Wigmore Hall to hear the Brentano Quartet of reference 1 give us Purcell's 11th Fantasia, an arrangement of Bach's Contrapunctus 7 from the 'Art of Fugue' and Beethoven's Op.130. A thirty year old quartet from the US which, I am reminded this morning, we first heard ten years ago and noticed at reference 2. We liked them then - but perhaps they do not bother with Europe that often.

A damp, mild morning. I took time out to notice the building on the corner of West Hill and Station Approach, the small car park of which was recently taken on by NCP, and on which the developers cannot agree a plan with the combined forces of the Council Planners and the Heritage Crew. But the number of dwellings and the number of floors does seem to be drifting down. A building which has seen various occupants over the years, including, for many years, my hairdresser, who operated out of a modest salon on the first floor. Good man on the scissors.

Damp, mild and quiet. Enlivened first by a story how a mystery gate at Waterloo was wiping Travelcards, sometimes a nuisance as one then had to summon attendants to get one through most if not all subsequent gates - a proceeding which could seriously slow one down. Second by a very smartly turned out black girl, perhaps in her late twenties. Shoes, bag, hat, coat, face - in short the works - but not a party smartness. Or left over from the night before. So why such smartness so early? Going to visit her family and go on to church? Work at a very fancy hotel, a conference or something of that sort? No hand baggage so probably not a business women on her travels.

Onto to the tube platform at Vauxhall where I noticed another advertisement for T levels. I seem to recall reading, since noticing them at reference 3, that the Tories were about to get rid of them in yet another reorganisation of of the sector, yet another drive to drag the UK back into the top drawer. A recollection confirmed this morning by Wikipedia which tells me that: 'speaking at the October 2023 Conservative Party Conference, Rishi Sunak announced that T Levels and A Levels will be merged to form the Advanced British Standard'. A plan with a ten-year horizon, a plan which may already have been buried, but it must all be a bit depressing for those committed educationalists working on or with what we have now.

The trains had been busy, but All Bar One was very quiet when we got there, although the waitress said that they had been very busy the day before, the Saturday. I was pleased to get something more like a tea cup than the great chunky cups you often get in places of this sort. Great chunky cups which are very heavy and which feel rather odd on the lips. The little milk bottles pour rather better than you might think before handling one.

For some reason, I was moved to ask my telephone for the meaning of 'hubris', which I then glossed as pride coming before a fall. My telephone reminds me, not for the first time, that originally it just meant the pride, usually excessive or unpleasant pride. The fall must have come later. In Webster's we have just the pride, plus the contrast with 'sophrosyne', a word which I have never come across before and which is a relative of 'sophomore', which last appears to be an oxymoronic junction of the Greek for both wise and stupid. Websters's reminds me of what was a slang word when I was young, 'moron' for someone who was very stupid. Also a technical term in the special needs sector of old. More recently, I had thought the word came from Moroni, an Italian gentlemen who gave you electric shocks or something, almost certainly a confusion or conflation with the Mesmer of reference 5. The chap who gave us mesmerised.

OED goes no further for moron than an old and now obsolete word for salamander. From which I deduce that the Webster's story is a north American story, and my family's use of the word came with my mother from Canada. Plus, she had done time in New York.

The concert was very good indeed; I was clearly in the right state for the occasion. Good flowers too, a rather light and summery arrangement as I recall, with reds and pinks on a green background. All rounded off with James MacMillan's 'Memento', which we rather liked. See reference 6.

For a change, back to All Bar One for lunch, where I took their paella. Good, but not quite enough for a main meal, more of a snack. But getting two did not really work last time either. As noticed getting on for a year ago at reference 7.

From there, across to the rather odd shop called Brityard, noticed on our first visit. Hard to see how such a place is going to survive, but we did buy a small quantity of rather good orange flavoured chocolates - at £2 a pop, not that dear for fancy chocolate. See references 8 and 12.

Whereby BH learned that she could use her new telephone as a telescope, with the zoom capability - live or recorded - doing quite well. This afternoon, I eventually ran the snap down to 295 Regent Street, more or less next to All Bar One, the home for many years of Boosey & Hawkes, the music people, not Bourne & Hollingsworth, as I had assumed. I am fairly sure that I once used to own one of their clarinets, the story there being that I could read the notes and work my mouth and fingers - but that I had poor sense of time and rhythm. So no future in it. While B&H, going through a tricky patch, moved on in 2005. See reference 13.

From there, down to All Saints in Margaret Street, which I now know from the Barchester book noticed at reference 9, to be important in the Anglo-Catholic world. Strong smell of incense. Lots of red lights, what I call sanctuary lights, flanking the altar. A very fine organ, in practise mode when we were there. An organ with a very impressive sound, with a lot of volume available when needed. It would have been good to have stayed for the evening service as I expect the music in this church is very good, but it would have been a long wait, so we didn't.

The choice at the not very healthy Raynes Park platform library. We plumped for the right hand book, one of a series of compendia of curious facts. I haven't checked any of them, but I would be surprised if a book of this sort was particularly carefully edited. More for fun than for education. But I have learned, for example, of the concept of rivers under the sea and rivers in the sky, rivers in the sense that they are moving large amounts of water about in a linear fashion, after the fashion of a regular river, on the land. You also get waterfalls under the sea, but not, as I recall, up in the sky. Just the thing for the advertisement breaks on the telly - the only catch there being that with our smart new telly, I don't get advertisement breaks anymore. While BH, who has more varied tastes in such matters than I, does.

And so home. Two special needs on the train, one loudly into trains and train numbers and suchlike, one just loud. Plus a chap who looked sane enough otherwise, but who appeared to be out in pyjama trousers and bare feet. From where I associated to the gentleman on a bicycle of reference 10.

In the margins, the train guard explained to me that he lived in Bedfordshire, with the journey taking less than an hour - and free, given that he was a railwayman. I did wonder afterwards how that worked with earlies and lates - and when there were timetable disturbances for one reason or another. But he seemed confident that quality of life and price of houses made it worth his while. I associate to the pub cook, deep in the long post at reference 11, who lived in Milton Keynes.

Back in Epsom, I marked this trolley down by the Tesco cashpoint for capture the following day, but, sadly, it had vanished by the time that I got there. As previously noticed at reference 14.

PS 1: regarding reference 9, I might also say that I continue with Orley Farm, which I continue to like, although my reading is interrupted from time to time with other stuff.

PS 2: this morning's mail box advertisement from Google. Not quite worked out their thinking yet. A reference to my failing lower rank of teeth?

PS 3: slightly later. My theory about the Canadian origins of my use of 'moron' was slightly dented by BH being perfectly familiar with the word. Although she agreed that it had fallen out of common use.

References

Reference 1: https://www.brentanoquartet.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/03/wooden-boxes.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/10/trios.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_British_Standard.

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

Reference 6: https://youtu.be/0Hafp5P2oH0.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/smetana.html.

Reference 8: https://www.brityard.com/.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-passing-of-barchester.html.

Reference 10: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/05/hmmm.html.

Reference 11: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/edgware-road.html.