Started off with a bit of tweeting at Epsom station, tweeting a blue tit, a robin, a sparrow and a coal tit, all in the same tree to the west of platform 4. Plenty of twittering to be heard there, but tweets not so easy, usually just the resident pigeons. Coal tit should perhaps only score as half a tweet as I am not very confident that it was not its long tailed cousin.
Got to Clapham Junction where I engaged with an interesting gent. who had come up from Bognor for the day, and was finding it all a bit of a bother. I think he said something about having trouble finding somewhere to park at Worcester Park. Would I have broken such a journey at such a place? Would I have driven at all? Would I have carried on and parked nearer my destination in London proper? What allowance should I make for the fact that he probably did not know London roads and parking as well as I do, not that I am that well up on parking?
By the time I had finished with him, I was in the middle of a sharp shower and so I lurked under one of the arches, along with various rather unsavoury looking rubbish, in the hope that it would stop. Which it seemed so to do after a while so I hopped onto a Bullingdon at Grant Road East and pedalled away to find that it was a lot wetter than I had thought so dropped the thing off again at Falcon Road and walked briskly back to Clapham Junction. By the time I was back on a train it really had stopped so I tried again at Vauxhall Cross, from where it was a very short hop to Smith Square, so had time to pedal gently around the Square and its environs a few times.
And so into the (former) church to find that the seats had been left facing what used to be the chancel, where a screen had been erected for the display of an image of the keyboard, which was actually high up behind us. I found it rather odd to be looking at the keyboard and hands in this way, preferring to let the eyes un-focus gently on something else. Didn't seem quite right to actually be able to see the hands of the organist; he was supposed to be hidden away in his perch in the organ loft while one was carried away by the sound filling the church, a scheme which perhaps worked better when the church was being used in the way that the builders intended, when one was in communication with the higher authorities. Still and all, it was still quite effective with the Bach providing a good, solid introduction. Not so sure about the improvisation, but it did grow on one. Perhaps it is usual practice for such a thing to be the last number of an organ recital.
From there passed through the rather odd little streets tucked in between the Square and the Abbey, including one which claimed the residence of T. E.Lawrence, who must have made more than I had thought out of the seven pillars. Rather startled to find that the Abbey now charge seniors £15 for entrance, and that while there was no queuing outside there were an irritating number of crowd control ropes inside, their impact only slightly softened by their being fancy red ropes. One had to inspect the Abbey in the order prescribed, no free-lance wandering thank you very much.
On this occasion, the overwhelming impression was that of a better class of cemetery. The place seemed little more than an extravagant collection of funerary monuments, with the early seventeenth century grabbing a lot of the best slots. But nevertheless quite impressive that so many of our early kings wound up there. Impressed also by the amount of restoration work on the screens and woodwork, presumably an attempt to get back to the original condition. But ornate woodwork apart, the place was rather austere, with very little of the exuberant decoration to be found, for example, at Ely. But I did come across some interesting animals on the misericords in the quire and on the floor tiles in the very handsome chapter house. I also came across a memorial tablet to GCHQ, fixed to the cloister wall, for all the world like a giant ashtray. Sadly the cloister no longer contained the handy stall where I had purchased tea and hot meat pie in the past.
Very few of those present paid any attention to the call to a short prayer on the hour, carrying on regardless. Perhaps as orientals their English was not good enough to understand what was being asked of them. Or perhaps the tone of the place did not command their respect. I suppose, over time, the place is going to become more and more like a stately home, a place which has lost its intended function and is little more than an amusement for its visitors, not so very different from Wisley or Madame Tussaud's. Tone not helped by the considerable background hum from all the talking tours in peoples' ears. But still a good place for all this moaning and I shall be back.
Next item was a trial of one of the fine new London buses which are attempting to recreate the ambience of a Routemaster. Rather cramped inside, probably brought on by the thing having no less than two staircases, staircases which take up a lot of space. There was indeed a rear exit with a corner pole but it was guarded by sliding doors which were open and a young lady conductor who told me that I was allowed to jump off this way when the bus was stationary, even if it was not at a bus stop. So we had the traditional two man crew to add to the considerable expense of a faux-traditional bus. But the buses do attract a substantial article in Wikipedia, from which I learn that at £350,000 or so a pop, they didn't actually cost a lot more than any other sort of vaguely equivalent bus. At least, that is, if you look at the numbers in the right way. The cost of the things has clearly been a bit of an issue. One also wonders about the cost justification of making the things wheel-chair friendly. Would it not have been cheaper to award wheel-chairs subsisdised rides in London taxis?
And so, via the impressively eclectic sheet music department at Foyles, to the Bullingdon stand at Wardour Street from where I pedaled off to Concert Hall Approach 2, only slightly disturbed on the way by being passed far too close at the top of Whitehall by some rather younger cyclist rushing up behind me, unheard and unbelled. No consideration at all.
On the train home, distinguished myself by being both the oldest person in the carriage and the person to stand up for the pregnant lady. Oldest person standing for the youngest, as it were, assuming that is that she was the only pregnant lady in the vicinity.
PS: correction. Gutenberg Australia tell me that 'Sir Herbert Baker let me live and work in his Westminster houses' while I wrote the thing.
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