psmv5: The day of the rabbit

A day built around a visit to the Wigmore Hall, starting with parking at the Eclipse car park. Car visible top right in the snap above, with an impressive Thames Water hole in front.

One of the new off white trains instead of the red ones we are used to, with this one having something about violence against women stencilled onto its side. Given that no-one fusses about class on these suburban trains anymore, we elected to travel first - which got us curtains which could be useful if the sun was in the wrong place, but which did not get us exemption from all the irritating announcements.

Plus we got a lady in higher-grade full warpaint, battledress and so forth. A bit early for that sort of thing, and a bit too fresh looking to have been left over from the night before.

We found out rather too late that there was no Jubilee Line at Waterloo, which meant taking the long walk back to the Bakerloo line.

We passed a group of supporters, I thought for NFL at Wembley, but Bing eventually tells me that it was the Vanarama National League Promotion Final, which I eventually find to be one the lesser leagues of our own sort of football. In any event, even with troubles on the train, the supporters had plenty of time for before-match beverages.

Extensive graffiti inside our Bakerloo train. The first time we have seen such a thing for a while.

Given that we were getting out at Oxford Circus rather than Bond Street, a visit to ABO rather than Olle & Steen was indicated. A place we used to use quite often before we switched to Bond Street. A place which could offer us very reasonable toast, instead of the Olle & Steen bun, albeit on the sour end of the sour dough spectrum. Near empty, good service. Near empty despite other, smaller places nearer Oxford Circus seeming to be doing better. Perhaps they had more catchy names.

The long empty building, once part of the RBS empire on the way to the southeastern corner of Cavendish Square, was on the move. This image having been doctored by some AI flavoured part of the Microsoft portfolio, at the cost of one AI credit on my 365 subscription. The doctoring being the neat removal of a back view of BH between the car and the hoarding. Apart from the shadow going a bit awry and lopping off the bottom left hand corner of the green hoarding, not too bad at all. Certainly better than I could have managed, messing about in Paint or Powerpoint.

So anybody can now fake up photographs - and maybe the day when the camera never lied is coming to an end - and we will need to learn to deal with the consequences. While the Powerpoint job above, while not pretty, is at least honest. I failed to find out how to do colour and transparency in Paint, although I dare say it was there, somewhere.

Maybe green would be better than blue. One could go on.

While Aki will be a Japanese dining experience offered by the Maltese hospitality group at reference 3. I don't suppose we shall ever venture inside, with my not being that keen on raw fish. All those Michelin stars gathered up by Japanese cooks notwithstanding.

I think we get these shrubs, possibly the smoke bushes of reference 10, both at Epsom and Wisley.

With a smart car parked nearby. According to Carcheck, a a 2017 GHIBLI DV6 Maserati which failed one of its MOTs on a wiper blade. Looks in quite good condition for a seven year old car. Maybe it does not get taken out that much.

And so to the Wigmore Hall to hear the Dudok Quartet give us Mozart K387 and Tchaikovsky Op.22, both works which we have heard before, at least I imagine so. But not the Dudok Quartet, who are to be found at reference 6, but not in the archive.

Full house. Interesting flowers: green onions, pink carnations and green foliage behind. Fascinating how their appearance varied with the lighting. Does the flower arranger take that sort of thing into account?

The three smaller instruments stood to play and all four used computers rather than paper. Much in-work tuning, especially on the cello. Much face action, but not much body action. An arrangement of a Shostakovich piano prelude by way of an encore, possibly the one at reference 7. All very good, with my preferring the Mozart, BH the Tchaikovsky. We also got introductions, in the of the BBC people at St. Luke's. Not too keen on this sort of thing - and I can remember nothing of them now.

Outside, we came across two ladies with what was called a service dog, some kind of lapdog, there by prior arrangement and special permission. I have not come across them before, but Bing knows all about them. See, for example, reference 8, for a less doggy take.

Ponti's looking very abandoned, without have been stripped out. Perhaps it is up for some major redevelopment. In any event, we were headed for the Italian restaurant at Waterloo, the one more or less next to Fishcotheque in Waterloo Road. A place which we now know has been there for a long time but it up to date enough to be found at reference 9.

And having almost got there, picking up this interesting old building at the bottom of the street snapped above. Probably worth a bit of digging, or perhaps closer inspection.

All very Italian inside and, after due deliberation we ate off the specials board. The wine, from Zonin UK of Battersea Park Road, also to be found at reference 11; seemingly the London end of an Italian wine operation. The only catch being that while Casal Farneto is one of their brands, I can't find this particular one. Google does though, offering the stuff for around €8, around a quarter of what I paid.

Tasted OK though.

Bread and so forth.

Crab flavoured ravioli.

And for the main business, half a rabbit. A bit different to the scraps of rabbit in the pie noticed at reference 11, just about a year ago. And I had quite forgotten about the fine rabbit stew from the Estrela before that. This rabbit was good too.

I don't think BH took tea, never mind dessert proper. Not very often that I take an Expresso. Plus a spot of house red and a drop of house grappa.

All in all, a good meal. And very convenient for the station.

A couple of chaps from the Royal Hospital with day-passes. Regarding which, not altogether pleased to see that they are reduced to offering guided tours. But I have learned that the hospital sports what is very probably a handsome chapel.

Having remembered in time that we had left the car at the Eclipse car park, we got home to finish off the rhubarb cordial, aka kissel, previously noticed. Must make some more.

PS 1: STOP PRESS: we have just found what Google Images identifies as an oak processionary moth nest at the bottom of the oak tree in the middle of our back garden. Very odd looking thing and not much doubt about the identification. The chap over the back fence had them on his oak tree a year or so ago, although I did not get to see them: it was the tree people he had in at the time who found them, so they dealt with it. Do we go the whole government hog as suggested at reference 4 or do we just pour boiling water on it?

PS 2: there turned out to be plenty more caterpillars inside the nest, which BH has now given the boiling water and salt treatment. But, unfortunately, there are plenty of tracks up the tree and what looks like at least one more nest, far too high up for me to deal with. So I have done the tree alert offered at reference 4: '... We may issue a Statutory Plant Health Notice (SPHN) asking you to take action...'. But maybe they will come and deal with it. We will give them a week or so before pulling in our own tree people.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League_(division).

Reference 2: https://www.wembleystadium.com/events/2025/Vanarama-National-League-Promotion-Final.

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

Reference 4: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/managing-oak-processionary-moth-in-england.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_processionary.

Reference 6: https://dudokquartet.com/.

Reference 7: https://youtu.be/wamvjAK7fpw.

Reference 8: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6625941/.

Reference 9: https://www.4fratellicaprini.co.uk/.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotinus_coggygria.

Reference 11: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/modigliani.html.