Started off, as is now our custom on these Sunday lunchtime jaunts at the Regent Street All-Bar-One (see 28th July). BH settled for the smarties snack but I opted for the paying option, a sort of warm rod of a chocolatey something wrapped up in flaked palm oil, aka pain au chocolat. I have tasted better.
But onto a full Wigmore Hall for the Doric Quartet, where they gave us the new-to-us 3rd string quartet from Martinů, which was rather good. Our repertoire is pushed out a bit, to the extent that I was tempted to follow up with the collected quartets from Amazon. Followed by Op. 127 from Beethoven which was even better, as one might expect. They put a lot of oomph into the loud entries of this last, so much so that I started to think they were overdoing it - but it was OK, they kept things under control. Unusually, the violess appeared to be wearing the same party dress that she had on for the publicity photograph on the programme sheet; clearly the quartet was young enough to get away with using a recent photograph.
Audience a bit more mixed than usual, with the chap next to us determined to assert his mobile phone rights by conducting a rather loud conversation with it up until the off and then again immediately after the quartet had finished. What a prat, but at least his did not go off during the proceedings, unlike that of a middle aged lady a couple of seats along from him, luckily in the gap between the first and second movements of the Beethoven. It could have been worse, even though it did take her what seemed like ages to turn the thing off. And she had the brass to behave as if nothing had happened at the end, not scuttling out shame-faced at all. Perhaps if I had been closer to her I would have done something, That said, I often have my mobile with me at concerts, although not on this occasion, and I do worry that one day I shall slip up and be caught out. All too easily, so perhaps I ought to moderate my tutting.
To lunch at Ponti's (http://www.pontisitaliankitchen.co.uk/), probably our most used place near Oxford Circus. We had thought to go back to Debenham's, but thought that their rather loud musak might jar after the concert. That at Ponti's does not irritate so much. Where, while we waited, we speculated about whether Westminster Council provided adult education classes in 'Restaurant Italian for Eastern Europeans', but such speculations turned out to be slander, at least in the case of our waiter, who assured us that his family came from the Adriatic coast of Italy, about the latitude of Rome, and certainly not from the eastern coast of same sea, that is to say Albania.
Sufficiently on the boil after lunch to proceed to the closing down sale of Black's to buy a pair of trainers. But more of that in due course.
Our business done, home via the free library at Raynes Park where I picked up a couple of items of interest. First, a devotional item from Bogotá called 'La Fé: Sea Usted una persona de éxito'. Unusually google is not very helpful about what this might mean, only suggesting that the booklet in question comes from Jackson Heights in Queen's, New York, rather than Bogotá. All very confusing, but perhaps an opportunity to have a crack at some easy Spanish. Second, the 2011 issue of a rather odd magazine called 'Foresight', a collection of the sort of material which might interest an insurer, the sort of insurer who insures ships in the Indian Ocean or presidential palaces in the Persian Gulf. I shall make inquiries, but in the meantime you can see for yourself at http://www.ihs.com/index.aspx.
Closed the proceedings by pinching an overhanging apple from the end of our road, from owners who are rather careless about where all their apples go, with plenty winding up bruised on the pavement. This one was off the tree, and despite my care selecting it, I missed the small entry wound though which a bug had made it to the core. The apple itself was very fresh, quite unlike most supermarket offerings in that respect, but a little under ripe. I shall have to pinch another in a few days time.
