Just missed a proper train to Waterloo to went second best on a Southern train to Clapham Junction, not without noticing that Southern provide 13-amp sockets for the convenience of laptop users, unlike Southwest Trains. Their trains also have things like first class compartments and toilets, so perhaps Southern have just the one carriage for all their routes, unlike Southwest Trains which differentiate commuter from main line services.
Fine view of pylons over Mitcham Common, rather better than that noticed, if badly illustrated, at reference 3.
Not as many Bullingdons at Grant Road as there used to be, so maybe trade there is building up. The gears on the one I pulled, as often seems to happen these days, could have used a bit of adjustment - but at least they were not slipping. For a change took the Nine Elms Lane route into London, with the idea of seeing some of the many building sites between Battersea power station and Vauxhall tube station. But this did not work out and I saw more or less no building action, which is odd as gmaps says that I should have. Maybe it was big advertising hoardings hiding the all action from the passing cyclist.
Onto the Auerbach, which I found both interesting and patchy. On the whole I did not like the paintings of heads, while I did like a lot of the town/landscapes, particularly those in the middle of this exhibition. The man's idiom seemed to be to make up these pictures with lots of broad, well laden brush strokes, maybe 2 inches long and 1 centimetre wide, sometimes achieving a quite magical effect. For example Primrose Hill, 1978. This afternoon anyway, 'auerbach primrose hill 1978' gets it to the top of the google image list - but sadly it does not reproduce very well. Magic gone.
I was also rather taken by what might be called a low relief in paint, described as EOW reclining head 2, 1966. Google declines to provide an image for this one, but see the post to come to get the idea.
A lot of the pictures were a bit picky about from how far away you looked at them, with some of them look surprisingly different at different distances. And some of theme did not seem to work unless you were at the right distance.
I wondered what bit of the brain pictures of this sort are talking to, given that their connection with the real world is tenuous. One is not buying 'Primose Hill' to be told, or even reminded, what the hill looks like. Perhaps they talk to parts of the brain which are only interested in colours, edges and angles, without much regard to what these bits might add up to, somewhere on the complicated road between what arrives at the retina and what is projected onto the mind's eye.
Off to the members caff for lunch, where I had a cake, a sort of Nordic open sandwich featuring a topping of white crab meat (complete with a few bits of shell to test the unwary filling), and tea. The tea served in a sort of specialised glass jug, illustrated. Perhaps it doubles as something to serve coffee in, but in any event the tea was OK, if rather dingy in colour. A word of warning: it is easy to spill milk from this sort of milk container, although I got the knack by the end of the proceedings. And a word to the people who use music to cover conversations in public places like public houses and hotel lounges: the bird song recordings (at least that is what they sounded like. Perhaps they were a work of art) used by the Tate made a welcome change from musak. All in all, a decent lunch at quite a reasonable price, that is to say not much more than a tenner.
Back for a second helping of Auerbach, but found that I was not longer in the mood. Perhaps the brain's blood supply had been hijacked by the stomach while it processed the crab. One of the joys of getting older. Have to go back on another day.
Pulled second Bullingdon to take me to London Bridge, via St. George's Circus, where it struck me that it would more properly be called King George's Circus. Quite wrongly, as this afternoon wikipedia tells me it was named for the St. George's Fields there at the time it was first erected, nothing to do with the reigning King George at all.
Cox's apples from a stall called Chegworth Valley (reference 1). Nice enough looking apples and they came in a splendid brown paper bag, sturdy like those you used to get in the US, but the apples were OK rather than good. A few days past their best, probably the result of their having been picked for the weekend trade but sold to me on a Monday
The stall from which I usually buy cheese was missing, so I was reduced to buying my Comté from a chap who was probably French. He sold the cheese in three ages, with samples. I much preferred the youngest, finding the older cheeses a bit strong. I am the same with Emmenthal, not liking the expensively matured ones. I was a bit suspicious about how long the piece of Comté that I bought had been cut, but my fears were misplaced and the cheese turned out to be fine. So maybe I will try to make it to the much nearer Kingston Market, where the wrapper said that they had another stall. Probably the people I turned my nose up at at reference 2.
On to Tooting for a further snack at the Delta Café, a place handily near the Wetherspoons and said by Trip Advisor or some such to be awash with the genuine flavour of the genuine Tooting. I selected what I thought was an interestingly spiral raisin pastry and persisted when I found out that what I had thought were raisins was actually spinach, with the slice of tart being sold warm. Rather good it was too.
On to test Siri on films by asking her how many film versions of 'Brighton Rock' had been made. She clearly didn't understand the question, although she did come up with stuff about the various films. I tried Cortana on the way home and she did rather better, coming back with just three hits, two for the two films and one for a review of one of them, having been confused by the date of the review being the year after the release of the film. An honourable mistake, so a win to Cortana.
I also learned that the Vatican City was the last place on earth to move its age of consent up from a medieval 13 to the 16 which is more usual now. Second last was Alabama or somewhere like that. I was amused, so I recycle this fact without checking it.
A final stop in the 'Halfway House', one of a number of Young's establishments in south London made over for the benefit of young city workers. This one was quiet enough at around 1800, a good place for a quiet beverage. I pondered on the demise of the quiet boozer, of the sort that used to be common when I was young. On the market forces which mean that the owners of quiet boozers want more from their investment than the profit that can be extracted from a few old soaks. Which is understandable, but a loss from the point of view of those of us who have fond memories of such places. Smoke filled, naturally.
Reference 1: http://www.chegworthvalley.com/.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/zanussi-or-bust.html.
Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/rural-pylons-1.html.
No comments:
Post a Comment