psmv5: Simply Quartet

A fortnight ago to hear the Simply Quartet at the Wigmore Hall, whom I do not think we have heard before. A member of the Simmenauer family of quartets, first noticed at reference 2. The snap above being lifted from the Wigmore Hall website this afternoon: identical to the front of the printed programmes they hand out, so not exactly evidence of attendance, but avoiding the vagaries of the late afternoon light and my telephone. Aside: the printed programmes for these Sunday concerts used to be just the one sheet as now, but rather more glossy and informative than the sheets of today.

The head of the family likes to keep a grip on things, with the snap above lifted from the tail end of the biography at reference 1 - a biography which fails to give us date or place of foundation. But they are young and there appear to both German and Austrian connections.

The programme was Haydn's Op.33 No.4, Webern's Langsamer Satz and Beethoven's Op.135. So it augured well.

A bright cool morning. An M&S trolley by the cash point on Station Approach, a trolley which did not stay there long enough for me to capture it. A senior moment at the window when I asked for a Day Return to Senior Railcard tor some such thing. It took the clerk several goes to shake Senior One Day Travelcard out of me. And on the platform, another of those advertising hoardings featuring food which would be a lot less offensive if one were not so close to it. But fairly gross anyway: is it any wonder that so many of our young people are overweight?

I spent some of the journey pondering about the male tendency to deny what has just been said, with some males being particularly averse to taking anything of importance from a female. So if FIL made some banal observation about the garden, I couldn't just make some conversational noise, I had to argue about it. The best example I can remember this afternoon is an older man in TB holding out for some proposition long after it had become clear to the rest of us that he was wrong about it. He clearly thought that admitting he was wrong, or at least mistaken, would damage his standing in the world. The thing to do was to stand and fight it out, against all the odds. Talking of which he also declined to pay out on the bet that he had made on the matter - which, oddly, the chap whom he had made the bet with did not seem to mind. Or perhaps he thought that it was all a bit silly and couldn't be bothered to take the matter any further. Time to move on. All things considered, is it any wonder that, collectively, we often behave so irrationally? Clever animals or what? BH claims that females are much better, but there I would not like to comment.

Out at Oxford Circus to pay our usual visit to All Bar One, which I now know to be a member of the Mitchells & Butlers family, along with Toby Carvery, the meatery of Ewell East. On exit, BH noticed that the decoration of the building snapped above went down a few notches as you go around the corner. It was clearly the Regent Street facade which counted.

While I noticed the car snapped above, more or less opposite the Wigmore Hall. Which I now know (from car check) to be a 'MUSTANG MACH-E EXT RANGE BASE' which Wikipedia at reference 5 suggests I might buy for upwards of $50,000. While Google images suggests 'Ford Mustang Mach-e MK1 Front Splitter V.2 - Maxton Design' which I can have for less than £200. But is does go on to say that Marshalls of Cambridge will do you one for something over £40,000. Presumably a special registration plate.

I thought that the concert was very good indeed. Once again, the force was with me, perhaps helped along by continuing with tongue control, which does seem to go a long way to blocking extraneous thoughts. A useful aid to concentration. While BH was very taken with the Webern, so much so that she found that there was rather a lot of Beethoven to follow. The flowers were very good do, with a pink foreground against a green background. Possibly including pink anthuriums.

Out for lunch, to find that the pizza place that I like next to the Treehouse Hotel was shut, so we pushed onto the Crown & Sceptre beyond, in Great Titchfield Street, last noticed well over a year ago at reference 6. This evening, neither the website at reference 7 nor Bing were helpful about the ownership of this establishment, but Google turned up a document, the top of which is snapped above. Surely that does not mean that Mitchells & Butlers own all the public houses of this name? How could they? While Gemini declined to play - with the slight complication that, in the first instance, search turned up reference 8 rather than the reference 9 which I was expecting. But we do now know that we have another member of the family, properly Mitchells & Butlers Leisure Retail Ltd.

A rather indifferent loaf, warm, but otherwise probably fresh out of the Bidfood freezer. But it did serve to fill me up, it might have served to make impromptu beef sandwiches and to mop up some of the gravy which I forgot to ask to be put on the side. The beef coming with the roast beef dinner - which was not bad at all, perhaps not quite as good as last time. But good value and convenient. There was also entertainment in the form of a young couple next to us, with the young lady wearing one of those split level top which did not seem quite the thing for a restaurant, even a pub-restaurant.

Out to wonder about the establishment snapped above. Investigation this evening reveals it to be the small hotel at reference 10. A hotel which does not do online booking and which is coy about room rates. Which probably means that we can't afford it. A pity, because an affordable hotel within easy walking distance of the Wigmore Hall would make the occasional evening concert possible - with the nearby Holiday Inn being terribly expensive.

And then one of the bicycle sheds that I first came across at the Vauxhall Station end of South Lambeth Road. The shed looks to be provided but not operated by the people at reference 11. No idea how you go about getting permission from the council to erect one in the street.

Irritatingly, I cannot turn up my notice of the Vauxhall version, while Street View turns one up fast enough in Bonnington Square.

And even armed with that information, I still can't find my notice. Not yet anyway. Later maybe.

From the shed to Oxford Circus to catch the tube, where I was amused to come across this relic of the past, of the days when you could buy fags without let or hindrance at every street corner. And everywhere else as well.

Sun in a bad position at Vauxhall for the aeroplane game. But I still managed a couple of rolling twos and a three - the first for a while. This despite being confused by some sharp looking turns to the west over east London.

Not much luck at the Raynes Park Platform Library, closed for repairs. But I dare say we found some seats somewhere.

On to inspect the goings on at Motspur Park, seemingly rather more than just putting some lifts in.

Lift shaft under construction.

Access to the Earl Beatty still a bit difficult.

A lift shaft a bit further along. To be clad in red brick in due course.

And so to Epsom, where we probably took a taxi for the last leg of the journey.

PS 1: the cycle shed at Vauxhall finally run down to reference 12. It only gets a very cursory mention, which explains the difficulty in running it down. And I had forgotten that it was the last time I saw the strayed sheep for real. Just over a couple of years ago.

PS 2: I need to review my use of the word 'but', there seeming to be rather a lot of them in the foregoing. Does it matter? Not for the first time, it occurs to me that it would be useful to have a word counter, to highlight such outliers, being vaguely conscious of having transient fads for words. Fads which might irritate the reader, might irritate me after the event. I dare say one could write such a thing in Excel easily enough, but will I get around to it?

References

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

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/life-in-string-quartet.html.

Reference 3: https://youtu.be/gCycLmzKRao. The Webern, given by the Quatuor Arod.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/to-shy-horse.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang_Mach-E.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/better-pub-beef.html.

Reference 7: https://www.thecrownandsceptrew1.co.uk/#/.

Reference 8: https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/.

Reference 9: https://gemini.google.com/.

Reference 10: https://www.magdalondon.com/.

Reference 11: https://cyclehoop.com/product/bikehangar/.