First stop, Westminster Reference Library, which I had remembered as being a place catering primarily for the Chinese catering community, but which on this occasion looked to serve as a work space for assorted young foreigners, with one librarian speaking Mandarin as well as English and the other speaking French - this last to a tourist family which might well have been rather surprised to be so well catered for.
I took a tour around the ground floor which was decently if conventionally provided with reference books, including at least two which we own ourselves. I then ask to be allowed upstairs, a gallery around the walls of this roughly cubical space, at which point the stock takes a very interesting turn. All sorts of stuff which you would not expect to find outside of a specialist library, runs of all kinds of obscure publications, the demand for which on this day must have been modest. Statistics from the United Nations, Science from AAAS, Public Bills from (I suppose) HMSO and an astronomical calendar running to many volumes which told me where to find all the important stars. Not quite sure who this last might have been directed at; it seemed a bit bulky for sailors and explorers to carry in their haversacks for navigational purposes. Altogether, a rather pleasing anachronism. Good that we still have room for such a place.
Second stop, rendez-vous underneath the Bard in the middle of Leicester Square, another pleasing space, nicely refurbished and including an ornamental garden around the base of the Bard which itself included the fine plantain illustrated. A plant which was important part of play during summer lunchtimes at my primary school and subject to an extermination order in BH's part of the garden here at Epsom.
Third stop, Le Méridien Piccadilly for tea or a drop of chardonney according to taste. Served in a bar carved out of part of the basement by a friendly young waitress, but whose friendliness was not matched by her generosity with the biscuits, which I had to top up with some of the salty nibbles which were provided. Chardonney entirely satisfactory.
And so to St. James's to hear Marta Kowalczsk (violin) and Somi Kim (piano), recent products both of the Royal Academy of Music. Schubert's Sonatina No.1 (D.384), Prokofiev's Five Melodies (Op.35bis) (whatever bis might mean in this context) and Beethoven's Sonata No.7 (Op.30 No.2). Opened (with my mistaking the Schubert for Mozart) and closed well, not too sure about the Prokofiev in the middle. St. James's itself rather splendid, if a little faded, with not a dosser in sight on this occasion. I had forgotten about the Gibbons carvings at the east end and wondered who had brushed out the words from the panels which usually contain the commandments and other material of that sort. Closer look indicated the next time that I am there.
Kim played on a Fazioli piano, something one does not see that often - see for example reference 1. On this occasion I found it a bit harsh, a bit too brassy for what was being played. I wondered whether she had a rich father who stumped up for her piano and its removal from one place to another but the organiser told me as I was leaving that it belonged to the church, with its purchase having been the subject of a special appeal. But why would they have chosen such an instrument? I don't suppose they are much cheaper than the more usual Steinway.
I also found the piano a bit loud, certainly at the outset, with the violin not really coming through. But things got better as the concert went on and I wonder now whether it was not all in the mind. That is to say that maybe the brain can selectively turn down the volume of one of the parts, rather in the way that with a bit of effort one can shut out the background when conversing somewhere noisy.
On to the South Bank for more tea and chardonney at the Marriot there, stopping on the way to inspect the grave of Ribbentrop's dog at the top of the Duke of York steps. Being a bit uncertain about whether I approve of it being there, let alone my going to inspect it, I check this morning, to find that - according to http://darkestlondon.com/tag/nazi-dog/ anyway - that it is not Ribbentrop's dog at all, rather that of his predecessor, the old-style diplomat first sent here to represent the Weimar Republic. Probably not the site of the grave either, probably just the stone, re-erected somewhere handy to where it might have been. Had it remained Ribbentrop's dog, I think I would be in favour of getting rid of the memorial. One should not be making pilgrimages to such places, but as it is, I think I am content for it to remain as a curiosity.
South Bank busy with tourists, with the wheel doing a brisk business, so the lounge at the Marriot provided a haven, although not a quiet haven as it had a rather tiresome line in background music. Lots of servers, but service rather slow and the salt beef sandwich was not very good at all - it might as well have been a corned beef salad sandwich, a far cry from the glory days of the café in Great Windmill Street, long gone. Plus the thing came with a cornet of chips, freshly enough heated up but not fresh and well soaked in cooking oil.
The lounge itself was a handsome room with a handsome plaster ceiling, housed (I think) in the right hand end of the arcade as you face County Hall from the river side and more or less overlooking the river. But somehow the décor did not work for me. It all seemed slightly tawdry and I think I ought to write to the television people and get the hotel inspectors in to tell them how to do it properly. Nevertheless, a handy retreat from the bustle of the South Bank; you might pay a bit more than you do in the pub but it is well worth it.
Spotted an interesting load on a lorry passing over Westminster Bridge and it took some minutes to work out that the load was not crush barriers from the opening of Parliament earlier in the day, rather two or three large tubes of rebars, all ready to be dropped down foundation pile holes of some building going up nearby. Interesting how I nearly convinced myself that it was crush barriers, then suddenly flipped to the right answer.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/an-italian-job.html.
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