psmv6: Trios

A fortnight ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear a couple of trios: Beethoven Op.70 No.1 and Dvořák Op.90, aka 'Dumky', this last being a piece we have heard quite often - with a search of the archive turning up eight hits - it having taken some time to work out why 'Dumpky' did not get any hits. Maybe five life-time hearings? In any event, probably what drew me to this particular concert.

A day when there were no trains to Waterloo, which meant an early start to the Eclipse car park, known to RingGo as West Hill Car Park.

Some great tits in the trees across the rails. Some sporty young ladies on the platform, with one sporting a lacrosse stick and one sporting high-sprung trainers. Train pretty full when it left Epsom.

The Toby Carvery at Ewell East under serious scaffolding, so clearly having some sort of a makeover. An establishment to which we are invited from time to time and which offers very good value carvery meals. Read all about them reference 1.

Onto Oxford Circus to find that the premises which used to be occupied by Ponti's was more boarded up than it had been. Maybe they have given up on finding another catering tenant and have stripped the place out. Maybe they are just waiting for something or other - financial or planning - in some proposed redevelopment. Just about a year since we noticed that it had closed - not so long, I suppose, in the redevelopment life cycle - not if Epsom is anything to go by. See reference 2.

To All Bar One for tea, coffee and toast, where planned engineering work in the kitchen meant that we had a bit of a wait for our toast. Which gave me time to be intrigued by the sugar tongs, far too springy to be brass. It turned out later that Bing could find lots of them on the search key 'sus 304 sugar tongs': stainless steel with some kind of plating. Quite good plating as it had not chipped or scraped at all in the dish water. We also had time to be irritated by some nearby braying voices. I wondered at the time whether they were the result of trying to make oneself heard in a crowded public school, but then, I don't suppose they are any more noisy than regular schools.

In any event, we were rewarded for waiting by getting more toast than we had ordered. Very good toast is was too.

The concert also turned out to be very good, trios doing it for us once again, only very slightly damaged by a fidget in front. Plus two children in front of him that should not have been there: their parents should have known better.

We passed the Wigmore at the end of the street, but access was denied. A bit of a puzzle why the place is so popular Sunday lunchtimes. Is it taking people from the church across the road? No loss for BH, who is not very keen on the place.

So across the road to what had been a pizza place attached to the next door hotel, noticed, for example at reference 3, now made over as a branch of Richoux of reference 4, which I thought I remembered from somewhere near Green Park tube station. The log fired oven had survived.

Cloudy cider from him and something softer for her. Sassy being a brand that I only knew for its Calvados, perhaps from a fancy bar near the other end of Regent Street, and, contrariwise from the late lamented Majestic warehouse of Epsom.

Plus burger for him and chicken salad for her. They could do sauce on the side which did very well. One wants a modest amount of the stuff, but nothing like they amount they are apt to include in the ready mix version.

For dessert, I managed to confuse pralines and truffles - but at least I now know that these last are named for their resemblance to the things one uses pigs to dig out for you from around the trunks of trees. And we passed on HRH Higgins speciality tea from Mayfair: an establishment which clearly exists, but the Richoux marketing men have added an extra 'H' to give the tea that extra aroma of royalty. See reference 5.

Notwithstanding, BH was rather taken with the place, which she liked much better than the pizza plus place which had gone before.

Out to pass an old style post office in Great Portland Street. There can't be many of them left. But what was the history of the place: it looks a bit grand to have been built as a post office, or at least the wrong sort of grand. And what went on on the upper floors?

An interesting discussion with Gemini followed, which suggested a fair amount of guess work on his part, of joining up the available dots, but together we put together what seems like a reasonable story. Originally built as a flagship store and headquarters for Rymans, who probably used the whole building at that time - but who now, according to Gemini, just have a corner of the Post Office. Portland stone and red brick above; polished granite below. In a street once big in the motor trade, then in the clothing trade. Some of this last survives, but more creative types more generally. Creative types who probably occupy the upper floors today.

Not a bad effort from Gemini considering that I think that he is working from the written word and does not have access to pictures in the way of his stable-mate Google Images.

On to pose outside a place o the northern side of Soho Square where, many years ago we took rather a good meal - but which could not have been very expensive, as we did not have much money at that time. The place we visited is long gone, after which there were various other tenants - and the place now appears to be empty.

Noticing the small but heavy duty door to the right of the door proper, I have another conversation with Gemini, this time involving Google Images. Again, a fair amount of joining up the dots, but the story seems to be that the building, a rather handsome, six-storey Art Deco affair, probably once had a branch of Martin's Bank on the ground floor, and that this was its night safe deposit box for the various eateries and entertainments round about. Boxes which are typically built into the fabric of the building and quite hard to get out. 11 Soho Square, now destined to be a club according to reference 7.

Gemini also mentions that the mock-Tudor hut in the middle of Soho Square was once the entrance to an underground electricity substation and an air raid shelter. A story which is confirmed by Bing search and various other sources. The only catch being that Bing attached a picture of the wrong place to his summary - the rather bigger hut over the substation in Duke Street in Mayfair.

Or Brown Hart Gardens, for which see reference 9. The snap above is lifted from reference 10 and further corroboration for Soho can be found at reference 11 and 12.

The stand which is in Soho Square from which an out-of-town correspondent once took her one and only ride on a Bullingdon.

I don't think I had really noticed the decorative brickwork before, or the buttresses to the upper level, perhaps properly the clerestory.

The right hand brick, flanking the central, white pillars of the Phoenix Theatre in Phoenix Street. An odd bit of architecture. Perhaps the cumulative product of several campaigns? There was something going on in the theatre this Sunday afternoon, with a lot of young people shuffling through control on entry.

And so to the cheese shop in Shorts Gardens.

From there to the Northern Line to Balham, where a train to Epsom rolled in a couple of minutes after we arrived. Spot on.

Furthermore, BH had done very well on seats, being offered a seat almost instantly on each of the three or four crowded tube trains we had caught during day.

A small tree in full flower on Station Approach. On a close up of the flowers, plus a few clues, Google Images says that it is quite likely to be an 'Amelanchier lamarckii (commonly known as Juneberry or Snowy Mespilus)...'. The accompanying notes fit the tree well enough. The red tinge to the few young leaves that can be seen was a clue. As were the five petals.

I shall try to keep an eye on it as the year progresses.

PS 1: a quote from the FT:

“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!”

Somewhere else in the FT, Janan Ganesh writes that the populist far right may be making a mistake over God. He no longer has the pull that he had thirty years ago, and that he may put people off. I hope that Ganesh is right.

PS 2: while in a story in the Guardian by Stuart McGurk about stealing pallets from soft-sided lorries, apparently a relatively easy way to make money from crime, I read that, some while back, Tesco's, unwittingly, bought back some of their own stolen barbecues from some intermediary. I presume we are talking gear for cooking meat rather than the gear, the meat, itself, but it does, all the same, look like slack procedures in their buying department.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Carvery.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/trios.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/waterloo-wigmore.html.

Reference 4: https://www.richoux.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://www.hospitalityandcateringnews.com/2025/09/richoux-returns-to-the-london-dining-scene/. A puff for the above.

Reference 6: https://www.hrhiggins.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://www.buildington.co.uk/buildings/4907/england/london-w1d/11-soho-square/11-soho-square.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanchier_%C3%97_lamarckii.

Reference 9: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/03/hot-meat-sandwiches.html.

Reference 10: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/7765901.

Reference 11: https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/lopsided-london-tudor-hut-hiding-18990357.