psmv5: Bright lights: Day two

This being notice of the second day of our Easter outing to the big town, the first day having been noticed at reference 1. A day which opened with a Sebo vacuum cleaner in the corridor of our hotel: a brand which suits BH, but not a brand that is very visible, at least not to me.

I see today from reference 2 that they do cordless - but given how much the one we have weighs, is that going to be something that BH will go for when it wears out?

Next was an unsuccessful attempt to buy a newspaper in or around Tothill Street. I had thought there was a small Tesco where I could buy such a thing, but perhaps that was in Victoria Street. St. James's Park tube station no good. To think that when I was young, I should think that pretty much all central London tube stations did newspapers, magazines and tobacco.

Into the breakfast buffet where we were looked after by a rather flustered queue manager. A decent breakfast, including small rather than large oranges and conversation with a Texan who hailed from Glasgow, over to do something in connection with the Normandy landings, in which an uncle had been involved.

Full of breakfast, a snooze for an hour before setting off through St. James's Park, on our way to the Albert Hall. Which offered both large numbers of tourists and quite a respectable showing of cowslips.

And some rather modest echiums. Not in the same league as those to be seen on the Isle of Wight in July.

Onto the palace, just in time for the changing of the guard - both foot guards and horse guards. Hordes of people and some very impressive tulip beds. BH lower left centre. His Majesty was not at home on this occasion.

I associate to the William & Mary quarters of Hampton Court Palace, roughly speaking the top/north, right/east and bottom/south sides of Fountain count, lower right in the snap above. The fourth side, left/west, was, I think, added later. Regular entrance to the king's quarters was through his guard chamber and to the queens's quarters through her guard chamber. Presumably both manned 24 by 7. This being in the good old days when monarchs really did have had to have regard to their personal safety - rather like chief executives of countries now; the Starmers, Macrons, Carneys, Putins, Hitlers and so forth. Maybe even the governors of the states of the US, many of them bigger than many countries.

Pity about the Victoria Memorial in front of the Palace, to my mind a rather ugly contribution to the royal collection.

From where up Constitution Hill, looking right and left for any signs of Wellingtonia.

I thought this one was a possibility, after making due allowance for its cramped position.

But zooming today suggests not. These do not look like the distinctive scale leaves of a Wellingtonia to me; much more like the flat, compound leaves of an ordinary cypress.

I also wondered which direction the hill rose in. Bing thought it rose from east to west, while Gemini hedged its bet, opting for pretty flat, but allowing that some people reported a slight gradient. Ordnance Survey says that it rises around 6m along the 750m from the Victoria Memorial to Hyde Park Corner, a bit less than 1%. This by creating a route and looking at its statistics. So I think Gemini beat Bing on this one.

And so to the Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, which I had been prompted to take a closer look at by an article in the NYRB. And impressive it was too, despite being perched on the edge of a very busy road: a pity that we were unable to manage a bit more respect.

These snaps give something of the flavour, but being on the spot is the thing. A stark and proper reminder of the cost of the triumphalism on top of the arch left.

A Bank Holiday protest by quite a number of veterans - both, I believe, of the army and motor-cycling. A chap near the front told me that the protest was about our failure to close down inquires and litigation about the behaviour of our soldiers in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. On which my line is that I dare say that plenty of bad stuff went down - on both sides - but we now have to move on. With the current goings-on seeming to me to be rather unfair, rather one-sided - as well as it being far too long after the event. I wonder if the other countries of Europe are as bad as we seem to be at getting closure on tragedies?

At this point, BH put in for a pit-stop. With the catch being that this was the western side of Hyde Park Corner, not the best place to be catching a cheap coffee bar. We wound up in a fancily appointed and not very busy place called Shot, of reference 3. The coffee and cakes were very good and not particularly expensive. Mine was some kind of chocolate, coffee and hazelnut confection, the near empty glass right in the snap above. I wondered how they made a living, but maybe they get busy in the evening, with refugees from the neighbouring hotels.

From there we took a cab - a proper black cab - to the Albert Hall, with the idea that BH could get a proper sandwich to carry here through the performance to come. Sufficiently energised by decaff & cake to go striding off with my stick in search of same. Royal College of Organists to the right, a properly fancy building to match the huge organ inside the hall left.

But I was more impressed by the isolated chimney round the back: a fine bit of Victorian brickwork. BH explained that there was as much stuff below ground as there was above ground, rather like the not-so-dissimilar Colosseum in Rome, so presumably the chimney sits on top of some huge boiler room, driving the radiators that the very up-to-date Prince Albert no doubt specified for his Hall. The only catch with that being, that he had died well before the Hall went up in 1870 or so.

BH managed to grab a sandwich from one of the cafés there, which we carried off for consumption on the steps of the Albert Memorial, across the road. I decided to pass, having had a substantial breakfast and a calorific if insubstantial cake.

Inside was quite impressive too. Perhaps the more so as it is not a place I have not been too very often and not at all in recent years. Promenading never caught on with me. According to reference 4, it can take a bit more than 5,000 people. So large for a theatre or concert hall, but small, very small even, by the standards of a football stadium or maybe even O2.

The occasion was the Royal Choral Society's Good Friday afternoon performance of Handel's Messiah, something they have been doing more or less every year since the Albert Hall was built around 150 years ago. With the snap above looking to resolve our query about whether a musical or a choral conductor was in the chair, as it were.

Not the sort of thing we usually go to, but it was quite an occasion and it was good to have been. This despite the fact that two of the four soloists - I think the mezzo and the bass - did not always manage in the huge space. For those of us who have signed up to the 39 Articles (of reference 7), a restrained and dignified celebration of the short life of the Son of God.

We were amused to find that the all important trumpeters and timpanist were allowed to come in part way through the second half. No sitting there for, po-faced, for a couple of hours for them. Not so amused by the flickering of telephones, far too much of it for the trusties to stand a chance.

Outside to wonder who RT was. That is to say the owner of this 2016 Bentley Bentayga W12. Top speed 187mph. According to Wikipedia: '... the brand's first luxury crossover SUV [?]. Its body is manufactured [by] Volkswagen ...'. In pretty good condition for an eight year old car, will an almost spotless MOT record. You could have something similar for maybe £60,000. A lot more for a new one.

Another luxury brand which is trying to square the circle of chasing volume while remaining exclusive?

I was convinced there was a public house to the south of the Hall and we wondered through the huge Imperial College campus trying to find it. No public hall but we did find this fine example of the scaffolders' art.

I say art because, despite the huge number of scaffold poles involved, it was not clear to me that they would hold if anything went seriously awry with the structure underneath. Perhaps the answer of this august institution to all the rather bad outdoor art in so many public places?

A nearby remnant of something or other. We did not take the time to find out what.

Eventually we made it to the Zetland Arms, a place we have visited occasionally (see for example, reference 9), but not the place I was thinking of. Busy on this Friday afternoon. To mark the occasion, my first pint of bitter for more than ten years. Very good it was too.

Another taxi to get us to PJ's, last noticed at reference 10. Bread, olives and onion soup for all, followed by reprise of the linguine for me. Very good it was too. Salmon salad and chicken curry also got into the mix. Followed by two scoops of pink sorbet for me, orange being unavailable. Washed down with a spot of white, followed by a spot of Armagnac.

Possibly a couple of bottles of a 2023 'Valmiñor Albariño, DO Rias Baixas, Spain'. Possibly Janneau XO.

We learned from the helpful staff that the suspended propellor and the associated engine made an early transatlantic flight. Ambience good. Busy enough, not full - but then, it was quite early.

All very satisfactory. And so to bed. Without the trek to Epsom, with or without the Raynes Park Platform Library...

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/bright-lights-day-one.html.

Reference 2: https://sebo.co.uk/.

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

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Albert_Hall.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_by_capacity. I can't find O2 here.

Reference 6: https://www.royalchoralsociety.co.uk/. They might use the Albert Hall, but their HQ is on the river, just down from Blackfriars.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-nine_Articles.

Reference 8: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/about/history/queens-tower/.

Reference 9: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2007/09/francophile-alert.html.

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/kensington-business.html.