Celebrity selection 1

Last week saw a serious discussion of the selection of all-time greats offered by the Busch Quartet, a quartet which I now know to have been famous in the inter-war years and to have been refused entry for settlement in Britain during the run up to the second war. At least that is what wikipedia says.

Bach and Beethoven fine. One might quibble about the detail, but it is all stuff that one has heard of, heard even, mostly reasonably frequently. But I get a bit more shaky on the Brahms and Geminiani is never heard of - although I find this morning that YouTube knows all about him. Maybe I ought to. Mendelssohn heard of, but not the piece in question. Mozart OK. Reger another never heard of. Schubert OK. Schumann and Vivaldi heard of, but once again not the pieces in question.

So the verdict is that getting to know the stuff I don't already know might well be a pleasurable extension of my rather limited range. On the other hand, I get a bit stuffy about collections put together by the executants rather than by the composer. Not too keen on medleys.

Back to Earlsfield on the bus, where I was entertained by two young ladies. One, who could probably claim links to the north western part of the sub continent, was busily typing away on her apple laptop. not very successfully as far as I could see, although with rather more success than I was managing on my telephone. I blame the small keyboard. And the other, who could probably claim indirect links to the west central part of the large continent, a handsome woman who had spent a lot of time and effort on her appearance, including valiant work on her hair to make it less curly than it started out.

Onto the platform at Earlsfield where, in the dark and with a lot of the leaves down, I was able to score a succession of threes. I even made a four, the first for some time, just as my train came in, noticing in the nick of time the fourth plane rising from the horizon rather to the left of where I was expecting it. I think I have been caught out by this business of rising slightly to the left and heading right before swinging around to the left before: is it all an illusion to do with spherical geometry, with the aeroplanes heading more or less west the whole time?

Other keys to success included first standing so as to block the light from one lamp by the post of another and second swaying slightly so that one could be sure of an aeroplane behind the twigs. The slight movement was enough for confirmation. Or maybe it was really the slight shift of direction keeping the vision system locked onto the case, stopping it getting bored.

Onto the train where I was able to discuss the business of bicycle bells with two cyclists, one after the other. Both had bells and both said they rarely if ever used them, although the lady did say she found it easier to shout, as I do these days - although I have the excuse of older reactions. For some reason the mouth can get into gear faster than the fingers. She also thought that the absence of decent restaurants and bars in Epsom, à la Earlsfield, was all down to the stuffy planning policies of the ruling Residents' Association. I'm not sure she was right about that, but the Residents' may have an image problem among the young.

The outing closed with my inspection of a neat little wooden shelf fitted into the off side driver's window of my taxi, a shelf used to hold a little pad, presumably of receipts. I think the driver was rather pleased to have built something of himself into his workplace. Good luck to him!