A Doll's House

Off on Thursday to see a 'Doll's House' at the Duke of York's.

Eschewing Gordon's, started off with a hot samosa lunch from a kiosk in the Embankment tube station in the Embankment gardens, with the gardens looking as good as ever. Onto to Cecil Court where the main claim to fame now seems to be that the shop selling exotica was the place where J. K. Rowling bought the recipes for all the spells which figure in her Harry Potter books, or at least so a tour guide was telling his assembled flock. There were still some antiquarian book shops but they looked a bit left over - not that I have ever been much into their sort of books, liking to pretend (at least) that I buy books to read, not because they are old, collectible or pretty. Plus I can't afford many of theirs.

Into the Salisbury for an apéritif, rather quiet and selling nearly as much food as booze. To think that this used to be a proper boozer. A fine place to while away an afternoon with beer (large) and cigars (small).

An so on into the theatre to a house full of grey hair (it being a matinée) for a perfectly respectable and well cast show. The only relatively weak link was the husband Torvald, but he grew on one and seemed OK by the end. Rather a splendid revolving set. But the interest in the show lay more in the subject matter itself, rather than in this particular treatment of the subject matter; first order rather than second or third order interest for once. No less than the proper place of women in the world. I share just one thought: that despite the main interest being that of the heroine Nora deciding that she needed to find herself, the herself apart from being a dutiful, fruitful and seductive wife, there was the aside from her old friend Christine about how she needed someone to care for, that life without care was empty for her. I remember almost the same aside from somewhere in 'Hedda Gabler', so I think that this is another important strand of the Ibsen thought, this last being a bit more subtle than just jobs for the girls.

After, to Terroirs (http://terroirswinebar.com/ and 14th February) for a snack, where they did me a fine pork chop, interestingly served on top of cold chard tarted up with anchovies and such like. I think that the chard was colder than it should have been - warm would have been better - but not being hot did work OK. Taken with a 2011 Rami from Sicily, chosen in honour of Alio's delicatessen. Pudding was a raspberry and almond tart, served with rather too much cream sauce, so BH had most of that. Taken, I think, with a 2008 Malvasia passito from, I think, somewhere else in Italy. Also a relative of the stuff in which they drowned the Duke of Clarence, a Dublin boy, back in 1477. Or perhaps 1478. Very pleasant and attentive service. Pleasantly free with their rather good bread and butter. My second visit to the place and I dare say we shall be back.

More or less closed the day with a rather unsuccessful game of aeroplanes at Clapham Junction. The idea is to stand at the north western end of platform 11, more or less underneath the flight path down into Heathrow and see how many aeroplanes you can see at once; well not see at all once in the strict sense, but have in sight if not on retina. My memory says that my life time best is four. On this day I did not get above one, although I did come close to two at one point. The eastern sky was OK but I think there were three other issues. First, it was early evening, after the commuter traffic from Europe had slowed down a bit. Second, a large hoarding was obscuring part of the western sky. Third, the setting sun was obscuring a lot of the western sky. So not good at all and I got to wondering whether the game would not have been better played at Wimbledon where one would not be so under the flight path. But it had been a long time since I had last played and I could not remember where.

I decided, after wavering for a bit, that I had never been to this play, not even to the sofa to watch it on telly, ever before, despite its fame and the familiarity of the name. But it did stick in the mind that there was overlap with the D. H. Lawrence story of similar name which cropped up when I was at school. I shall check in due course.

Woke up in the morning to think about how spinning had been an important part of wifely duties at one time, with even the wives of lords not disdaining to take up the distaff. I then found it hard to visualise how exactly spinning worked, so got out the Chambers which helpfully explained that the key to modern spinning was getting from a discontinuous to a continuous motion. It also explained that the British Museum had ancient Egyptian carvings of noble ladies spinning their whorls on their naked thighs, so perhaps those stories about cigars are not altogether invented. Onto Bourne Hall where they did not have a spinning wheel for my inspection in their museum, so pending a visit to one of those medieval fairs for a live demonstration, ordered up something (second hand) from Amazon.