Winterreise

A fortnight after the event I notice the concert at the Temple Church which gave us reference 1.

And another visit to the car park at Ewell West Station, which given that it was a bright cold morning, came complete with duffel coat, hat, gloves, scarf and stick. We also had occasion to think that it was a pity that people who were not quite the full shilling (to use a bit of slang which was used a bit when I was young) were allowed to own lethal weapons, lethal weapons in the form of one of those dogs with very big heads - and no doubt very powerful jaws.

We also noticed that they had not quite sorted out the waterproofing of the new lift-enabled footbridge.

From Waterloo, a No.76 bus to Fleet Street, a bus on which the driver had to field some tricky requests from passengers. But he seemed to manage without any tempers being lost. Got off the bus to be called on my mobile by a hospital scheduler with a system which still thought that I lived on the Isle of Wight. Clearly making the correction in one place takes a while to ripple through to all the other places - if, indeed, it ripples at all. An error which first came too light a couple of months ago, as noticed at the end of reference 2. 

To the new-to-us Harris & Hoole for a pre-concert snack. Coffee and what the menu might have called a cheese toastie, had it been working at reference 3. A version of cheese on toast involving a lot of extra cheese. Plenty enough to keep us afloat for a few hours. They seemed to be selling quite a lot of them.

Unfortunately, like a lot of these chains, it might have started very cuddly, and still looks very cuddly, but it is rather murky down below. With the snap above being lifted from Wikipedia. Even more murky according to reference 7, with the intermediate owner, Caffè Nero, specialising in tax avoidance.

Puts me right off both places.

The concert was the 'Winterreise', given to us by Mark Padmore (tenor) and Julius Drake (piano), a pair we have heard separately before, but not, it seems, together. They did us very well, with a lot of it seeming a lot newer and fresher than had seemed likely, given the number of times that we have heard this particular song cycle. Once again, reminded of the power of the trained voice. And they ended on what I felt to be a very ambiguous note - neither fading away nor ending full throttle - the latter being the ending favoured by my father, but relatively unusual when he was a young concert goer, I suppose in London, before the Second World War. But, whatever the case, ambiguous worked for me.

The door visible through the arch right is very old, but a lot of the rest of it is a post-war reconstruction.

The plan was to go home for a late lunch, but we stopped in the once famous Cock Tavern for a little something to carry us on our way; a place I was last in a long time ago. Never a place which I used to frequent on a regular basis, despite the proximity of LSE. Perhaps noisy journos still ruled in that particular roost at that time.

Properly steep stairs from the lower regions.

While outside, keeping track of the time did not seem to be important to the inhabitants of the Royal Courts of Justice. If I were the King, I would keep them up to the mark. And check for appropriate provision for veggies and those of faith in the canteen and elsewhere.

A slightly bleak look Ewell West Station on exit.

Which made something warming from the lentil jar all the more welcome. Taken with some of the bread bought the day before at Covent Garden.

6oz lentils, celery, left over potato, made up to 2.5 pints with water. Butter, garlic, onion and saucisson (by Bastides, out of Waitrose) done separately. Having forgotten that we had some suitable bacon, which might have been even better.

All done in one go, after which we took a bit more of the bread and stilton, as previously noticed.

After which it was time to open up the box of Volcaia fumé, as puffed by 'drinks business' as reported at reference 4. Wine put aside for the forthcoming festivities, the substantial box it came in put aside for a spot of box modelling.

I tried asking Gemini what this fumé business was all about and his story was that, as far as Pouilly-Fumé was concerned, it was to do with the smoky-flinty aroma of the wine. Terroir talk. He goes on to say that it was also a marketing term introduced in the US, originally to designate serious wines aged in toasted oak barrels, which might well have come over as a bit smoky. He also provided a couple of helpful references. To which Wikipedia added the fact that the ripe grapes often have a smoky white bloom - on which subject Gemini got quite fulsome (and helpful) when prompted.

Can't say that I have ever noticed anything smoky about Pouilly-Fumé, so maybe it is just wine-buff talk. Or wine-marketing talk. Further report in due course.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/piano-95.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/hammond.html.

Reference 3: https://www.harrisandhoole.co.uk/. A website on which the food menu has gone missing this afternoon at least.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/october-2023.html.

Reference 5: https://www.inama.wine/en/bottiglie/vulcaia-fume/. More about toasted barrels here.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pouilly-Fum%C3%A9.

Reference 7: https://leftfootforward.org/2018/03/heres-how-caffe-nero-made-2bn-in-sales-but-did-not-pay-a-penny-in-corporation-tax/.