Beethoven & Bayes

A fortnight ago to St. Luke's for some Beethoven from Cloë Hanslip and Danny Driver. A day which started with some difficulty with the usually helpful National Rail Enquiries service denying the possibility of getting to Old Street from Epsom via Balham. It was if it had been told that Balham was shut on the day, which it was, as it turned out, not.

Getting on the train at Balham was complicated by a lady of middle years pushing ahead through the knot made by a party of women and children in foreign dress and ourselves, complete with rollator, managing to fall over in the process. But she recovered herself and proceeded to hold one of the women in conversation all the way to Moorgate, where she got off. I think the ladies came from Afghanistan, were living in Croydon and fancied a day out at the zoo, together with an infant and a small child with special needs, I think of an autistic variety. They appeared to have no idea how London transport worked or how far (Regents Park) Zoo was from Croydon. We thought that the whole expedition looked rather ambitious and that they would have done better to settle for some attraction a bit nearer home. 

Old Street turned out to be far from step-free  but we managed and got ourselves to our café at Whitecross Street in good time for a bacon sandwich (him) and toasts (her). Bacon sandwich as good as ever.

Onto a reasonably full St. Luke's. We would have liked the 12 variations (derived from Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro'), except that the piano rather drowned the violin. Things were rather better for the Kreutzer Sonata, either because the music gave more scope for the violin to assert itself or because they had warmed up a bit. While according to the programme notes, the pair play together regularly and she plays a violin which is near 300 years old by Guarneri del Gesu (aka Jesus), a maker who, according to reference 1, is up there with Stradivari. I think that the piano was by Steinway, although the lettering on the side was barely legible.

After the concert, to Pasta Nostra of reference 3, a restaurant we had found and liked back in May, as noticed at reference 4.

Carafe of something red. Something soft for BH. Olives and garlic bread to start. Crab flavoured black pasta for him. Truffle mushroom penne for her. Followed by a spot of orange flavoured ice cream for him and green tea for her. All good.

Washed down with a spot of grappa. Rather less of it than on the last occasion, despite being very reasonably priced.

Walls livened up with various Lucien Freud or Francis Bacon inspired paintings.

Cheerfully served by a young lady called Tabitha, a name we thought might be found in Alison Uttley or Beatrix Potter. Inquiry turns up one Tabitha Twitchit, a shopkeeping cat invented by Beatrix Potter. Not sure that I knew about her beforehand. Plus the Tabitha Paige of Texas of reference 5 who illustrates children's books, whom I certainly did not know about. Nothing on the Uttley front, although I have learned that she was a teacher of physics before she became a writer of stories. There is also a Tabitha (aka Dorcas) mentioned somewhere in the Acts of the Apostles, a devout lady living in Joppa (aka Jaffa), now absorbed into Tel Aviv.

However, at the time, my thought was that I would not be able to keep up such a friendly manner, all day with all comers. Maybe she takes a lot of black coffee to carry her through.

Lunch done, we headed south to inspect the tomb of Thomas Bayes, the low church parson who gave his name to an important branch of statistics and who spent quality time in Tunbridge Wells. I last paid my respects nearly ten years ago, as noticed at reference 6. He was from a family which made its money from knives and forks in Sheffield. Mixed up with the Cottons, in whose family vault he ended up. For all of which see reference 7. 

Rather more prominent was the vault of the water lady noticed at reference 8.

Various buildings important to either Methodists or Quakers nearby, which we shall have to take in properly on a further visit.

We also managed a glimpse of the curious crane noticed at reference 9. After which we dived into the tube at Moorgate and headed for home, with the rollator prompting welcome offers of seats.

The day closed on the platform at Epsom Station with a serious looking young lady - in a blue uniform - hauling a large flat package about on a little trolley. She explained that it was her portable massage table, all 13kg of it. Quite a lot to be hauling about. Google revealed that there is lots of business in articles of this sort, although I was unable to find one which matched the name I had remembered in part, something to do with feet.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Guarneri.

Reference 2: https://www.chloehanslip.com/. A one-time child prodigy from Guildford who went through the Yehudi Menuhin school not so far from us here at Epsom.

Reference 3: https://www.pastanostralondon.com/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/bacon-lite.html.

Reference 5: https://tabithapaige.com/. Cunningly organised to deter theft of her pictures.

Reference 6: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/09/bayes-1.html.

Reference 7: The Reverend Thomas Bayes, FRS: A Biography to Celebrate the Tercentenary of His Birth - D. R. Bellhouse - 2004.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/water-tablets.html.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-bent-crane.html.