For the first time attested, I rode in a ten car train from Epsom to Waterloo, the first time since all the considerable expense had been incurred on updating platforms to make this possible. Counting made easier, not to say possible, by the new technique of counting the pairs of yellow doors, rather than trying to count the breaks between carriages; the pairs of yellow doors showing up rather better against the red carriages when viewed at an acute angle than the dark stripes of the breaks.
Uneventful run on a red (Santander) Bullingdon from Waterloo Station 3 to Roscoe Street, with plenty of time for the traditional bacon sandwich, even remembering to ask for crusty bread, code in this café for thick sliced white.
On to hear Christian Tetzlaff, first heard in March as a stand in for Midori. See reference 1. On this occasion he gave us second Bach Partita (BMW 1004) again, plus the rather shorter third Sonata (BMW 1005). Strong stuff, complemented by some young people behind me who seemed to be able to chatter about recordings of the partita that they had known.
Calmed down with a brisk pedal from Finsbury Leisure Centre to South Lambeth Road and was pleased to make it just inside the half hour, thus avoiding the £2 penalty fare. Further calming down afforded by a drop of pink Swiss wine, Le Penseur Oeil-de-Perdrix de Genève, probably 2012 or 2013 and very nice it was too. So nice, that I completely failed to guess the price of the Mercedes CLK 320 convertible outside, going for £50,000 rather than the £30,000 which google suggested.
Several two aeroplanes scored at Earlsfield in the bright, clear late afternoon air. Western sun not a problem on this occasion for some reason. Maybe too early for it.
Moved on to asking Cortana about raspberry ripple, to be mortified to find that she knew nothing about my various posts on the subject, being more or less completely taken up with tales old and new about raspberry ripple ice cream. A bit of prompting and she deigned to tell me about the agent from whom we had rented the cottage but did not deign to tell me about my own blog until I had more or less fed her the address. And google did not make me feel much better, needing almost as much prompting, despite being the host for the blog. I used to do rather better at this in the days of http://www.pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/, but I consoled myself with the thought that my telephone only carries the beta version of Cortana; perhaps she will get to know me better as time goes on.
Then onto the number of objects in our house worth £500 or more, not counting cars, to be surprised at how small the number was. But, tiring of the first problem, I strayed onto the philosophical or perhaps definitional problem of when is an object an object? Do the various parts of one's sound system count as one object or two? Does it depend on whether they all appear on the same invoice or not? I associate now to a story about Woolworths, from the days when everything there cost sixpence and when things which cost more than that were broken down into their sixpenny component parts and sold separately.
Perhaps it all lies in the letter of the law. Like insurance: you are covered for some obscure risk when and only when that particular risk is written into your insurance policy. Insurance companies are not charities and do not pay out for things that you have not paid for. Hard luck stories are of no avail.
And so onto the Horton Clockwise, where the hawthorn is in better flower than it is here at home, where it is not a good year at all.
PS 1: YouTube has a previous Radio 3 concert performance of the partita by Itzhak Perlman at St. John's, who performs the piece sitting down. Of necessity to judge by the crutches, but presumably rather style cramping - not that I would know from what I get on the headphones. Odd how old fashioned the BBC announcer sounded - maybe just 25 years ago.
PS 2: the illustration is of a once orphaned, near dead pot plant chanced upon some years ago now near Crouch End. Now alive and kicking good at Vauxhall.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/violins.html.
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