Korean lights

A day which started at Epsom Hospital. Heading back to town impressed by the queue which had developed in South Street, a queue which created minor difficulties for ambulances heading to the hospital from town. The building upper left, now flats, used to be a perfectly decent house called the Queen's Head. Oddly, Bing offers no results at all for 'queens head epsom south street' while Google turns up quite a lot of stuff, including the 2011 date of closure - which left to myself I would have put much more recently. And while we are on search, neither Bing nor Google find anything for 'jfvyjmhcwjw8jw73jsrwc46qxmjhlp', a search term included at reference 1. Last time I tried, Bing succeeded where Google failed.

Up the Kokoro ramp with my own trolley, rather than on the look-out for someone else's trolley. Which meant that I had to pass on the large B&M trolley there.

Onto the platform, where I just missed a train, which gave me time to be irritated by the advertisement for the University of Creation, inviting young people to come to 'dream discover disrupt'. A principled objection being that shock and disruption are not ends in themselves; to be useful they have to propel the victims in a useful direction and I rather doubt whether many of these creational students have much direction of that sort. But I suppose I did this sort of thing when I was young, so I must just be getting old. 

There were no timetables on the platform, but my telephone suggested that there was no London Bridge advantage in pushing on to Sutton; one might just as well wait for the next train. Being reminded about St. Alban's on the way: a few weeks ago, having noticed that I could get there from Sutton, I was all for making a day trip there. A place we have not visited for years. All set to go when some minor bug intervened and sense prevailed over sensibility. And now I have cooled off. Maybe in the next couple of weeks?

Another search titbit being that search of the blog archive gives me lots of hits for 'alban cathedral'. The first one I checked was about an ecclesiastical folly at Teddington. Maybe I will continue checking later.

A lift tower looking well in the bright light after the rain. Looking at it again this afternoon, the tower looks quite old to be holding a lift, which I would not have thought has been there very many years, far fewer years than the brickwork of the tower. Maybe on some future occasion I will be able find one of the station staff which is also a railway buff who would remember about such things.

Bread and cheese from my usual suppliers at Borough Market, after which I remembered about the Korean immersion exhibition at Borough Yards, just around the corner from the cheese shop. As advertised at reference 2. On this occasion the spirit was with me and I gave it a go.

It turned out to be rather fun, not too noisy either visually or aurally. Half a dozen or more rooms of it. Lots of clever stuff with mirrors and computers, but nothing too elaborate. Lots of Asian customers, quite possibly lots of Koreans. Lots of young women enthusiastically snapping themselves against the displays. Some very small children, not particularly interested. I didn't notice any other oldies like myself.

Not that clever for trolleys, which meant I missed out on a couple of upper rooms. Not that clever on facilities generally, but I got my money' worth for all that. When I told BH all about it later, she was quite clear that this was not the sort of thing for her. And I don't expect to make it to the rather more elaborate Van Gogh offering somewhere near Liverpool Street station.

Thoughts then turned to luncheon. Despite the wealth of eateries between London Bridge and Waterloo I did not settle on anything. The nearest I got was the Thirsty Bear in Stamford Street, where I had the satisfactory experience noticed two years ago at reference 3, but which on this occasion was too busy for my comfort. And then I remembered that I was carrying bread and cheese, albeit without clasp knife or water, and that I could perfectly well picnic on a bench somewhere.

And so I found myself in Beanie Spain gardens. Both bread and cheese in perfect condition. Then this afternoon, Bing found nothing at all for 'beanie spain gardens stamford street london uk', while Google worked out that I should have been looking for Bernie Spain. Maybe Bing is more literal, more pedantic, and fails to flex a bit like Google.

On the other hand, Google fails to find out more about Spain than is to be found at reference 4 and Google Image search declines to play at all with the snap above.

Moving on, I just made it to Waterloo as it started to rain. Got into my seat on my train, to be asked a few minutes later by a helpful railwayman whether I was going to need help getting off. My trolley continues to prompt all kinds of helpful attention. The system works!

PS 1: a spot of heritage activity. I assumed the deal was that the developer could build the flats provided he kept the Grade I listed door. I thought he did quite a good job of building it into his design. 

Google tells me that it is nothing to do with the Nautical School next door, rather the front of what was once the Unitarian Chapel described at reference 5. While Flickr tells me that: 'The Doric portico was originally the entrance to a Unitarian Chapel built in 1821. The main body of the disused chapel was demolished in 1964 — the portico retained and Grade II listed. A 7-storey residential development, in modern style, was added c.2004. It provides 59 flats for short-term rental. London Borough of Lambeth'. Which reads as if Lambeth are still into council housing, or at least they were in 2004. Even if it took them 40 years to get around to it. Hmmm.

PS 2: Bing searches distinctly off-colour this afternoon. Maybe a restart is called for.

PS 3: after an update and a restart, Bing now finds reference 1. Doing a rather cleaner job than it did first time around.

PS 4: a rather loud picture to be found at the website for the Sherlock Holmes in Northumberland Avenue. Inspection called for to see if the real thing matches. Once the haunt of older civil servants from nearby Whitehall, probably more tourists these days.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/his-and-hers.html.

Reference 2: https://delightexpo.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/cheese.html.

Reference 4: https://coinstreet.org/about-us/our-developments/bernie-spain-gardens.

Reference 5: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol22/pp122-124.