But my failure to ride in a ten carriage train was compensated by the presence of quite a lot of ladies in fancy dress at Waterloo Station, presumably on the way to the races. Didn't see any gents. who were similarly dolled up.
The three Bullingdon stands at Waterloo were near empty, but I was able to take one from Waterloo Station 3 for my ride to Old Street where the stands were near full. I was, nevertheless, able to get a post at the stand at Roscoe Street. On the way, a Chinook flying low over Stamford Street and an open top grey Mercedes driving up Farringdon Road. First guess from the back view of the driver was footballer, second guess was drug dealer, but when I caught him up he was a paunchy middle aged chap, so perhaps retired. Alternatively estate agent.
At the Market Café I didn't need to tell the girl my order, but she managed to get it slightly wrong, giving me regular rather than crusty bread for my bacon sandwich. I coped with this on this occasion, but I shall have to be more careful on the next.
St. Luke's fairly full again, for Veronika Eberle (violin) and Michail Lifits (piano) giving us the Beethoven violin sonata No. 3 and the Schumann violin sonata No. 2. Both very good, but I think the Beethoven is more me than the Schumann. Bit more control and a bit less chiaroscuro. This despite the violin being more closely coupled with the piano - while in the Beethoven we seemed to go piano dominant for the first part, violin for the second and all together for the third and last. Eberle impressed with her control and lightness of touch, which included a very fast flash of the left hand to turn a page. There must have been a lot of power about as her music stand swayed slightly during the power bits, although whether the energy was coming off her or the piano was not clear.
While I felt very sorry for the young page turner for the piano, presumably a piano student at the nearby Guildhall School, with a draft from somewhere continually trying to blow the left hand page up. But both she and the pianist kept their cool.
The printed programme included a note about Salieri, one of Beethoven's teachers. Sad that this musician, both decent and illustrious, should now be best known for his role in the popular pantomime 'Amadeus'. Also sad that such a man should die of dementia at the not very advanced age of 75.
The chap in front of me was obviously a regular customer as he has brought two thin cushions to put between himself and the rather hard seats. I learned in passing that he was getting cross about the decline and fall of his spoken French, this despite his attendance at adult education. It seemed that he spoke English, French and Polish from childhood, this despite his English, at least what I could hear of it, being accent free. Quite unlike the often thick accents of many Polish speakers from Poland.
From there I pulled a Bullingdon at Finsbury Leisure Centre for a quick hop to Stamford Street where I took a quick look at the new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery - decision by Carsten Höller, inter alia a Belgian expert on agricultural bugs who spends quality time in Ghana. An exhibition which I was told by the 'Evening Standard' offered profound sensory and intellectual stimulation. It also contained the roaming beds which UK readers may have read about elsewhere.
All very slick & clever, but for me anyway, also rather empty, despite the some of the older people (most of the people there were young and foreign, including one chap with a very fine moustache, pulled out to two very fine, horizontal points) at the exhibition being very earnest about it.. But at least it was not offensive and the work exuded care and attention. Which last I liked: I like my artists to take a bit of trouble with their work, and certainly not to make a parade of being slap dash or worse, to make a parade of taking their paying customers for twats.
I would say an even chance that I will be back.
On exit I thought to speed my way up the ramp to Waterloo by taking a Bullingdon from Concert Hall approach 1, but foiled by the tunnel (the one that used to be home to a cardboard box village) being shut, I had to go round the roundabout to get at the ramp, with the result that the hop on the Bullingdon took about the same time as walking would have done. And the ultimate post on the ramp was occupied by a broken Bullingdon, with the best I could do being the ninth post.
PS: Eberle last heard just about a year ago, offering much the same sort of thing. See reference 1. Lifits more like eighteen months ago, doing Mozart violin sonatas. See reference 2. Didn't remember either of them.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/eberle-wosner-kreutzer.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/frang-lifts.html.
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