D960

Near a fortnight ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear the young pianist Lukas Sternath give us Liszt's Funérailles, S173 No.7 and Schubert's sonata in B flat major, D960.

The Liszt I did not know at all, although I did a spot of YouTube to get the idea, while the Schubert had had a proper outing, just about three years ago, as noticed at reference 1. The sort of thing that does not appear much at lunchtime for some reason, lunchtime concerts being almost all we can manage these days - with one result being that I did not know it as well as I had thought I did.

Started by parking at the Eclipse, where we caught some starlings on Fair Green. Birds which were once common and which seem to be a lot commoner here in Epsom this year than they have been for a while.

A bit of the hoarding around the stalled site at the bottom of Station Approach had come away, so I was able to take a peek inside. No action that I could see, despite a builder's van having been parked outside the open gate during the week.

It being the day after the Derby, there was a stack of crowd control barriers in the entrance to the station, some new, some not so new. The clerk told us that they started out all new, but the security people - a sub-contract, naturally - came and swapped them out for the mixed batch which was there when we arrived. He had no idea what this was about.

A cold wind on the platform, mitigated by a rather feeble sun. But better than it had been for a good part of the day before, Derby Day, noticed after a fashion at reference 2. And not so cold that BH did not notice that the Courvoisier hoarding was probably talking about the rather less glorious Napoléon III, not the first one, Napoléon I, when it talked of 'maison fondée à Jarnac en 1828, Le Cognac de Napoléon'. Jarnac being a town in the Cognac region, best known for a battle during the French wars of religion in the 16th century. I dare say the first Napoléon knew of this battle, but I would not care to speak for the third.

Our High Street butcher, Prestige, had bothered to get itself onto an advertisement, the people at reference 3. During the day, they mainly seem to function as a café with an interesting clientèle and the one time I tried to buy a joint of beef from them, they were not terribly helpful. Maybe I should try buying some steak: BH's Canary Islands living uncle was a great fan of beef from Argentina and maybe beef from Brazil would taste just the same to us Brits. Would they be better than M&S across the road, who give a lot of highly visible space to pieces of steak?

On to All Bar One in Regent Street where they are getting to know us again, completing the order of tea, decaff and three toasts for me should I pause in the middle, as I did on this occasion for some reason. Comfortable seating, friendly service, fine toast and generally very good value.

Unusually for a Sunday morning, very few joggers to be seen.

Having served as a builder's yard for months, after just a short holiday, the corner of Cavendish Square is being dug up.

While a private arm of of the Marsden Hospital is behind blue scaffolding again, that building having been made over quite recently too.

We also had one of the Port cycles, noticed recently at reference 4. A more appropriate location than Epsom.

Wigmore Hall was busy, as it usually is for these Sunday lunchtime concerts. And the flowers were back on form, not having been up to their usual high standard on our previous visit. On this occasion it was quite startling how much their appearance changed when the stage lights came up.

The Liszt was not the sort of thing that we are used to and I was glad of my modest preparation. While I found the Schubert rather loud, very much a young man's performance. We must make the effort to hear it from a more mature, older pianist. Still a fine piece though, even on this occasion.

And Sternath chose a good winding down piece for the encore. Brahms, No. 2 Intermezzo in A from Op.118.

Having been denied access to the public house of the same name in the past, I had taken the precaution of booking, so we did get in. Albeit to rather low chairs in the back room, to which we had not penetrated before. We got ourselves moved back to the front where I, at least, had a proper chair.

Harvey's Best for him, something more frothy for her. The bread was very good and I went for a second portion. Served with a prodigious amount of butter. And with a butter knife from Opinel of reference 8.

To follow, BH took cod and I took beef, but for some reason we had a fair wait. Perhaps they had had to fetch the cod from the main kitchen over in the Langham. Whatever the case, I had plenty of time to admire the fancy parquet and reminisce about the similar parquet at the Antelope in Tooting, a rather different sort of establishment altogether. See, for example, reference 7.

When it turned up, the roast beef looked a bit raw, but actually it was very good. Nothing like the sort of beef that I might serve at home. Quite a decent portion too.

Gravy a bit fierce, but contained in a jug, and it served to dip the roast potatoes in. A form of potato which I believe to be rather overrated. 

Green vegetables good, much better than average.

Yorkshire pudding a bit tired, probably fresh out of the freezer via a microwave. Nothing like the stuff that my mother used to manage when I was a child, or indeed like that which BH turns out from time to time now. Not something that we bother with terribly often.

BH entirely happy with her cod, not the usual pub fish and chips at all, although she was a bit cross about how long she had to wait for it.

Outside to admire what we took to be  bicycle for selling ice cream. But does it ever move or are the pedals just for show?

Made it nicely in time for a train to Epsom and headed home - to discover that our road was closed for a few hours for children to play and neighbours to natter. I discovered that one of our neighbours was an Albanian married to a Ukrainian - but I did not get to find out what they spoke at home, although they might well have both had some Russian.

I also got to try a piece of ginger cake, or perhaps ginger bread, not something that I take very often.

The road being closed meant that we had time to inspect the house going up behind the sub-station - probably not the right term for a local distributor. Not really a new house either, rather a rebuild on roughly the same footprint as the old one. The house now looks more or less complete and they are finishing off the ground work outside in slow time. Not clear if the new occupants are in residence yet.

The point of interest on this occasion being the start of the new drive, seemingly finishing a couple of inches above the level of the pavement. Stream left, sub-station top centre in the snap above.

A more general view of the new house. Stream still left.

Finding previous notice of this development is left as an exercise for the reader.

PS 1: I see from reference 9 that the US is having trouble with air traffic control. Or rather that they are not prepared to pay what decent control would cost and there will be more accidents, some serious, in consequence. Just the sort of problem that successive governments over here have failed to get to grips with.

On this account, the service has never really recovered from the shutdown back in President Reagan's time.

PS 2: for the avoidance of doubt, I did not have a clue what the encore was. But they helpfully include it in the archived version of the programme.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/09/more-schubert.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/fake-200.html.

Reference 3: https://prestigebutcher.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/ask.html.

Reference 5: https://youtu.be/oCn0PjPHdrc. For an older taster. Doesn't sound much like what little I can remember of this performance.

Reference 6: https://www.the-wigmore.co.uk/. For beef and beverage.

Reference 7: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/08/visiting.html.

Reference 8: https://www.opinel.com/en/.

Reference 9: America’s intractable air traffic problem: Tech outages and staff shortages are causing traveller misery as World Cup fans arrive and summer travel peaks - Guy Chazan, Ian Hodgson, Financial Times - 2026.