Wanderer

Ten days ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear the Wanderer Fantasy (D760) for the first time since December 2022, as noticed at reference 1. A time when I could still do Waterloo to Marylebone in half an hour on a Bullingdon. Maybe I should give it another go. 

Over West Hill, to find that the small NCP pop-up car park behind the small block at the corner of West Hill and Station Approach closed and building action looking to be imminent. At long last the council, the heritage people and a builder have agreed on how many flats can be put on this site. Very convenient for both station and town.

A block which has housed all kinds of people over the years we have known it, including a sempstress, a DIY beer shop, a pop-in centre for young people in difficulty and my hairdresser, a gentleman I used for many years. A gentleman who had been into bigger things, but in his semi-retirement had taken some cheap upstairs rooms for his modest gents hairdressing business. A very good hairdresser he was too.

Something going on at Earlsfield when I got to Wimbledon, the sort of something which was apt to mean delay. And then we seemed to take a funny route, although it was hard to be sure about that, despite having done the proper route thousands of times. Gmaps on the telephone was unhelpful. And then we got to Clapham Junction at Platform 7. And to Vauxhall at the usually shut up Platform 5. So something was going on.

Looking at Ordnance Survey this afternoon, I find there are two ways to by-pass Earlsfield. First, a loop to the east, taking in Tooting and Balham. But that is a long way around and I think I would have noticed Balham. Second, a loop to the west, taking in Wandsworth, but that seems to take the train onto the northern clutch of platforms. 

According to reference 2, there are 17 platforms, starting at the top in the snap above, also from Ordnance Survey. But I can't find them all. Even though, in the olden days, I used to sneak out of a goods entrance off platform 17 on my way to the rather dusty, old-style establishment now called the Junction. Not sure that it was so called then.

I do rather better on this snap, turned up by Bing: all present and correct. And Platform 7 is the northernmost platform of the southern clutch. And it can only be reached from Wimbledon, not via Wandsworth. Concluding, that while something was going on, it had not involved a scenic route.

Onto the tube at Vauxhall and onto Oxford Circus. Past the nearing-completion Mark II Bechstein Hall, where I could see both pianos and builders through the windows. Hopefully the pianos still had their shrink wrapping on.

Deposited my togs and cycling gear in the cloakroom at Mark I Bechstein Hall, aka Wigmore Hall, and took a coffee in the bar, which also appeared to have been refurbished. Or perhaps just under new management. Hard to be sure as it is a while since I was in the place.

Some diversion from an older couple at the next table along, where the gentleman appeared to be lecturing the lady. Positioned so that I could hear the odd word but not see. Her occasional interjections appeared mainly to serve to prompt another slab of lecture from him. A lecture which was perhaps about how best to organise some sector or other, possibly health (given the proximity of a great deal of private health care) or education, but I did not hear enough to know. But I did hear the words 'socialists' and 'socialism' loud and clear from time to time, which suggests to me, again without hearing enough to know, that the gentlemen was against both, without being too rabid about it. Socialists I know don't tend to use the words in quite this way.

Hall about half full for a good concert. I liked both the Janáček ('In the mists') and the Debussy (Images, Book 1) more than I was expecting, and Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy almost always works, as it did on this occasion. Good tub thumping stuff.

Out to pull a Bullingdon at Chapel Place for the run down to Seven Dials for cheese, where I was unable to find a slot in any of the three stands I visited. In the end I just parked up outside the cheese shop in Shorts Gardens: a thief would have had to have been quick to grab it with me standing by the window inside the shop.

Then some trouble working my way out of Covent Garden into Kingsway. A regular warren of one-way streets and dead ends. Not to mention food delivery cycles popping up out of nowhere. But I got there in the end.

Down to Waterloo to pay my first visit to Fishcotheque, a place which has been there for a long time and which we have visited from time to time over the years. I was due to eat again later, so I settled for pie and chips rather than the full on fish and chips, and very good it was too. Plus the cup that cheers.

On the way, some part of my brain noticed the plaque on the wall, upper right in the snap above, purporting to advertise the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Whatever part of the brain it was was not on focus, because I thought to myself, that's not right. The line is White Star, not Blue Star. And then looking again, it was indeed white. So how did I get to blue, when I knew the answer already?

In any event, Bing does not offer any images which are much like the plaque. Not least because the big red letters are the wrong colour. So who knows what its standing in the Titanic world is?

I don't even know where this image comes from, other than Etsy. Google Images can say no more than retro vintage tin sign. So perhaps, at least, White Star really did make tin plaques as well as paper posters. They would be more durable. But where did they put them up?

And so home, despite there still being trouble with the trains. Along the way trying the braille labels for open and close on the door controls. I could not make much sense of them, but I did make enough to think that, maybe, if I had to, that this was something that I could learn. Or perhaps, could have learned ten years ago.

Out at Epsom to capture the trolley noticed at reference 3.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/impromptu-piano.html.

Reference 2: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Junction_railway_station.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/trolley-759.html.