Viols

The end of March saw a visit to the Wigmore Hall to hear some Dowland from Phantasm on the viols and Elizabeth Kenny on the lute. A line-up which we had heard before, back in 2017, as noticed at reference 1.

Taking their score up to that of Fretwork, the other viol consort which I have heard of and which we have heard twice, most recently just three years ago, as noticed at reference 2.

This concert was part of the Dowland 400th anniversary weekend, which attracted a slightly different crowd than our usual concerts, some of whom at least were good for the whole weekend. Not something we have ever been terribly good at, although we did once, when we were very young, go to two Shakespeare plays in one day. And, slightly more recently, we did hear the Goldberg variations twice in one sitting, once on a harpsichord and then again on a piano. Same executant. Finding notice of same is left as an exercise for the reader.

Trains to Waterloo were off for the second Sunday running, so off to Victoria via the Eclipse car park.

For the first time that I can remember, there were no cars parked on Meadway, resident or otherwise. And while we still had a hole in West Hill, there was no queue on either side.

On the tube to Oxford Circus, I was sat next to a pretty grey whippet which seemed to be terribly interested in my duffel coat - interested in a very friendly way. I thought perhaps that once the weather turns a bit warmer, a wash is indicated. I am not keen of dry cleaning this sort of thing - my belief being that it destroys the look, feel and hang of a fabric - and I am pretty sure that last time BH did a bath job on it. Hopefully she will be good for a repeat.

Passed the people snapped above. A rather odd shop which I thought, correctly as it turned out, used to be further up Regent Street. On the other side of the road and much nearer the church at the top. They must be doing well enough to have moved nearer the centre of things. Or maybe rents are falling in the rather wobbly scene of bricks and mortar retail. See reference 16 for a short notice from a couple of years ago.

On to ABO for toast, tea and coffee. A fair number of passing joggers, maybe half a dozen, all bar one - no pun intended - although I dare say Freud would not believe that) ladies. I have also noticed that ladies are more apt to dress up for jogging than gentlemen. Would Freud have said that both sides are doing what they think that the other side want? Did he have jogging in city streets in his day? We did have a German gymnasium at Kings Cross at about the relevant time, a place I have visited a couple of times now.

For a bit of background, see reference 3, where I learn that:

Sugar-baking was the largest occupation for Germans of East London in the mid-19th century. The work was extremely hot and dangerous. Due to the heat, workers were provided with unlimited amounts of beer. Few of them survived into old-age and many were admitted to the German hospital with lungs encrusted with melted sugar. The local refining industry suffered from foreign competition at the end of the 19th century, leading to a rapid decline. More modern refineries were also opened by Abraham Lyle and Henry Tate further east at Silvertown, where raw materials could be unloaded directly from ships.

The hall was pretty full, albeit, as already noticed, not quite the usual Sunday morning crowd. We were in the middle of row I which did us very well. And I rather liked the rather quieter approach to life; quiet unlike all the dramatics which were to come in the centuries that followed. And everybody got a turn; something which sometimes seems to be missing from some of the string quarters that we hear.

Out to the Cock & Lion to think about lunch, to find that it had been taken over by new people, although they had kept Sunday roasts - which we had had once before. We thought we would give the roast another go: beef for him, chicken for her. This last involving no more than swapping the beef for chicken and adding a small brick of bread sauce. Or it might of been stuffing. The same power gravy served for both of us. And the little saucepans contained a lukewarm take on cauliflower cheese, presumably thought to be a proper accompaniment to the roast beef of Olde Englande.

Most of the food had been prepared some time previously, either kept warm or reheated in a microwave. The slab of beef was on the chewy side. But the kale and the watercress added a touch of green freshness, the Yorkshires were fresh and light and it all added up to a substantial meal.

I told the new landlord about the clocks of old and he actually seemed quite interested in reinstating them. While I was quite surprised to find at reference 8 that they were still there only seven years ago: I would have guessed much longer. Neither Bing nor Google were any help on the clue 'cock lion clocks wigmore street'. While Gemini is much more positive on the clue 'Do you know anything about the clocks that used to be above the bar of the Cock & Lion in Wigmore Street. Clocks which were once set to the time in various parts of the world', but I needed to correct him on a couple of points and I dare say his story could have been made up by blending my input into his general knowledge about this class of central London public house. Will I find the energy to dig deeper?

On exit we failed to work out whether this was a shop selling fancy new goods or fancy nearly-new goods. On the eastern side of Wimpole Street. The sign in front of the yellow coat talks of one apartment to let and another for sale. Maybe I will check up later. Shortly after that, we spotted another Waymo car, as previously noticed.

And shortly after that, we came across a building under refurbishment, refurbishment which looked to include reinstatement of some serious but decorative stone work on the facades, rather Art Deco in appearance.

Seemingly one of the dead department stores.

Back home, I made some inquiries and eventually found out that it was a major makeover of what had been D. H. Evans. In the snap above, the orange spot top left is the Cock & Lion. Middle left is the block that was Debenhams, the Debenhams which once had a downstairs cafeteria which we rather liked and which had impressive shimmering tiles on its facades. A piece of outdoor art which I really liked - for once. Now substantially remodelled if not demolished and rebuilt. Snapped, for example at reference 10, with the arty tiles replaced by brown slats which are probably not wooden. Maybe even worth scoring as fakes. The tiles are mentioned at reference 15. While middle right, between Chapel Place and John Lewis, is the building site in question, white to the Debenham's grey. You can read all about it at reference 9.

And there the matter rested until yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon. I knew I had done some digging but could not at first find any results. So I asked Gemini who said that I had not asked him, but then proceeded to replay the story about the Elephant redevelopment, complete with heritage and arty trimmings.

I was not so sure that I had not asked Gemini and continued poking around, eventually turning up some screenshots of the conversation, seemingly having taken place in the margins of one about Wells House in Epsom. I politely corrected Gemini, which elicited one his more more gushing replies:

'You’ve got an incredible memory for our timeline—you are absolutely right. We did discuss this, and looking back at the context of Wells House (the massive 1930s block just down the road at 150-158 Oxford Street), it makes perfect sense that we pivoted to The Elephant...'.

In which he dragged a whole new Wells House into the mix. A Wells House which certainly exists and is to be found at reference 12, but entirely the wrong one. A development which, as it happens, involves Wates as building contractor, the company for which I was working on a north London estate as a handyman at the time of my marriage, shortly after I graduated. Wates, at that time, was headquartered in south London, quite near where I was living: Wikipedia at reference 13 is rather more informative for present purposes than reference 14, but it seems that Wates s a family firm which has survived, thrived even - unlike most of the big contractors of my younger days, which have vanished inside a series of mergers and consolidations. Or just vanished.

But an example which suggests that Gemini has an uncertain grip on our past conversations. He tries, unlike, for example, his stable mate Google Images, but he is not yet very good at it. Just as well that I keep some records myself which provide another way in.

But he is very good at generating plausible sounding waffle, which, at the very least, would do very well to fuel my side of the conversation in a saloon bar or a golf club. Power me through an interview?

From where I associate to a chap from my distant past in the Department of Employment, who was keen on chess. He was on an interview board and tried a candidate out on that, a candidate who had unwittingly mentioned the game, getting a whole lot of waffle in response. He marked the interviewee down for making up what he did not know, which I thought was rather unfair. It is expecting a lot of a candidate to answer a question at interview with 'I've got no idea'. He might reasonably reason that what is wanted is for him to do just that, to make up what he does not know. To be able to waffle on the hoof, as it were. They want to see if he can do it.

Back at Oxford Circus, down unto the tube for the usual long walk at Victoria to Cardinal Place, having been misled - once again - by the poor quality signage.

Then wet, cold and windy by the time we got back to Epsom.

PS 1: the tailpiece of one of the bass viols was decorated, something I do not recall seeing in the violin family. This can be seen at reference 6. 

PS 2: Gemini does pretty well on the tiles. Must quicker, I would imagine, that it would have been with old-style search.

PS 3: he also does well on the funny clothes shop in Wimpole Street mentioned above, demonstrating on the way that he has access to both Google Maps and Companies House. A long-established shop which specialises in selling odds and ends of high fashion, somewhat discounted from the regular price. A business model not unlike that of T.K. Maxx with its odds and ends of clothes - or Wetherspoons with its odds and ends of beer. At least, that is how they started out. But unlike Wetherspoons, it hides behind a shifting web of shell entities.

PS 4: I have yet to bother with the words at reference 4, even though they are in English. But I dare say I will take a look at them - I used to like using a parallel text with Schubert's 'Auf dem Wasser zu singen' (D774) - although not at a live concert. The snap above being lifted from Wikipedia.

I wonder if the early music team, who can be pedantic about using early instruments, get excited about whether to use the original text or a modern transcription?  At reference 4 at least, you get the latter.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/05/viols.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/sebastiani.html.

Reference 3: https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/the-german-community-in-london-during-the-19th-century/.

Reference 4: https://youtu.be/jkRrzAo9Wl4. Flow my tears.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lachrimae,_or_Seaven_Teares.

Reference 6: https://youtu.be/zA792An8oC8. Lachrimae. A rather harsh and mushed sound on my Envy laptop, but it does serve to give the idea.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/bennewtiz.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/trouts.html.

Reference 9: https://studiopdp.com/blog/oxford-streets-sleeping-giant-awakens.

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/first-wigmore.html.

Reference 11: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/wellingtonia-136.html.

Reference 12: https://www.visionarch.co.uk/articles/new-project-wells-house.

Reference 13: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wates_Group.

Reference 14: https://www.wates.co.uk/.

Reference 15: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/06/vivaldi.html.

Reference 16: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/incense.html.

Reference 17: https://nedkahn.com/. The tiler they used at Debenhams. Looks like a man with a serious track record.

Group search key: 20260329, aisk.

Touching

Yesterday morning, when making space for a new arrival in the extension book shelves, I almost culled my elderly copy of reference 1, snapped above. But, instead, I started to read it again.

Just over 500 pages of text, organised into 32 page signatures, tied together with four strands of brown string. Originally from Jaico Books, but no trace in the archives and I have no idea now where I got it from, other than that it was not new and was priced £1.50, so after decimalisation in 1971.

The bit that caught my eye this morning, very near the beginning on page 9, was about the two roads, one on each side of the river which he lived near as a child.

One road was not paved, and was covered with a thick layer of dust in the dry season, while the other was paved with crushed brick. Chaudhuri was not keen on this last as you had to wear shoes - perhaps sandals - if you did not want to cut your feet and he preferred the tactile sensation of his bare feet in the thick dust of the other road. And puzzling out the impressions left by others, both two-legged and four-legged.

From where I associated to our figurative use of the words 'touched' and 'touching'. Are these figurative uses rooted in our childhood, in our infancy, when touching and feeling were relatively much more important than they would be when older?

From where I further associated to making bread, to handling that rather odd material called dough. Of taking the bread through from a dry powder to the finished product. Which is reasonably time consuming, so I dare say I am deriving some tactile satisfaction from the activity. Satisfaction which is quite lost when you buy the factory product in a plastic bag. Somewhat lost when you buy a better product loose. Today being, as it happens, being the day of batch No.772, a batch which turned out very well indeed.

PS 1: all present and correct at reference 3, even if the author page is sorted by first name, rather than by the more usual second name. Some programmer saving himself a few minutes work? Or is this the form in India?

PS 2: I failed to find the address given for Jaico Books in gmaps, although I did get as far as a busy and likely looking Mahatma Gandhi Road, with this address probably more or less opposite the imposing buildings of Mumbai University, no doubt Bombay University at the time that they were built.

PS 3: I feel sure that at some point I had at least one other book by Chaudhuri. I don't recall seeing it recently and it was probably culled a long time ago, but I shall have another look.

PS 4: I have just learned from a correspondent that the tulips by the rectangular lily pond at Wisley, a place where we often indulge in a bit of bench life, tulips which were only just coming up about a month ago, were in full form today. As was the queue to get in after getting off the A3. But then, it was Easter Monday and the weather was spot on. See reference 4.

References

Reference 1: The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhuri.- 1951. My copy from the second impression from Jaico Books of 1966. Written when the author was about half way through his long life.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirad_C._Chaudhuri.

Reference 3: https://www.jaicobooks.com/.

Reference 4: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/pitcher-plant.html.

Shoulder

A little before the Easter break, the turn of shoulder of lamb came round again, with a fair sized one being sourced from Ben the Butcher in Upper High Street. A butcher who, on this occasion, was selling a good deal of dressed and sauced meat for barbecues. As was the butcher in Ashtead village the last time we passed - although to his credit he was also selling white puddings from Slomers on the last two occasions we passed him. But I do not see barbecue as a good sign.

This shoulder weighed in at 2.7kg or very nearly 6lbs. I was a little surprised at it costing something over £20 a kilo, the sort of money I associate with fore rib of beef. Maybe just before Easter is a dear time for sheep.

Settled on reference 2 as the appropriate precedent and put the shoulder into the oven at 160°C at 14:55, aiming for around 18:00. Snapped here at around 17:50.

Odd how different it looks 20 minutes later. Maybe some trick of the light. There is a strip light in the kitchen: maybe that is different in some significant way from the energy saving bulbs in the dining room. On the other hand, maybe the kitchen light was off and sunlight was coming in from the west facing window. The dining room tends to be rather dark, so the light was probably on. The windows, such as they are, face south. All sorts of permutations.

While the shoulder was on the go, veggie stock was in preparation, with my having kicked that off rather earlier, at 14:00. Parsnip, carrot, celery, some greens, a couple of sprouts, an odd mushroom and some left over mashed potato. Passed through the blender in due course, yielding a rather thicker stock, more a thick soup, than is my custom. But roux'd up in the usual way.

On the plate. Gravy visible upper right: I take my gravy more with the rice than with the meat.

Towards the end of the first sitting.

Took some cold for lunch, possibly in sandwiches, the following day, before heading off to the hospital for a blood test, and then onto Ashtead to pick up the Proctor noticed at reference 3 from the picture framer at reference 4. 

The cold light of the kitchen again, in the snap above?

And a very good job she had done too. Now hanging under 'Olympia': quite a difference considering that the Proctor is only sixty years later than the Manet.

I think we acquired the red mackerel line when we were living in Norwich, several hundred yards of the stuff, for flying dustbin bag kites, all the thing for a while. Very impressive how well, how high, they would fly - once one got the length and weight of the tail right. One could also use fertilizer bags. The line has served in various capacities since and I still have a little left on the reel. Hanging under the roof of the garage, naturally.

Note also the thumb drum hanging down upper centre. We even heard one being played once, in a two man mime version of Hamlet. See reference 5 - which reminds me that it was not mime at all. Just foreign language, in part or in whole.

Back from Ashtead to more cold meat, but starting off with what was left of the gravy served as soup. Rather good.

Not much left after this; down to snacking. That said, in the event, I think we got a third day out of it. More left on the bones than one might have thought.

PS 1: some children's bricks were cleared out today, on their way to a charity collection bag. I was a little sorry to see them go, some of them having been with us for more than fifty years and seen good service in that time. We wondered how many parents of today would bother with such things. Straight into the skip! But one has to move on.

PS 2: the Ovalhouse of reference 5 seems to have been rebranded as the Brixtonhouse of reference 6. Haven't got to the bottom of that one yet.

References

Reference 1: https://slomersltd.co.uk/. We get rings rather than sticks, which are all that I can see here.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/sheep-shoulder-day.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolley-967.html.

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

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/replication.html.

Reference 6: https://brixtonhouse.co.uk/.

Group search key: 20260325.

Berlin

[the restored frontage of the New Synagogue of Berlin. The building behind was more or less destroyed in an air raid. See reference 5. I don't think we have anything like it in this country, but I associated this morning to the synagogue we once visited in Florence, for which see references 6 and 7]

I have now finished my first pass of 'Berlin', the near 500 page paperback book at reference 1, first noticed at reference 2. An author I first noticed at reference 3 and who makes it to a rather thin Wikipedia entry at reference 4.

I got a bit lost in a welter of names and places in the first part of the story, but things got better as we moved into the 17th century and the Hohenzollerns moved on from being Electors or Brandenburg to being Kings in, later of, Prussia.

Getty seem to want rather a lot of money for a proper version of the helpful image above.

That in Wikipedia at reference 8 is a good deal more complicated, as can be seen from the extract above, although in the original, an SVG file, you can pan around, which helps. I am reminded today how close the German Royal House was to our own.

But White-Spunner is a good writer, and after a while I got going properly. That said, I think I would liked a more expensively produced version of the book, with lots of pictures and maps in the right places, maps possibly as pull-outs in the old style, not much seen now. I suppose I could have read the book at my computer and called the pictures and maps up from there - but I did not bother to do that. Maybe if I ever get to a second reading.

Not least because he seems to be keen on buildings, so pictures at the right places would have been helpful. As things are, one would need to know Berlin to get the best out of his book. In the way, say, that I do know central London.

An odd city, with no simple reason for it being what it is, where it is. Not an obvious location for a capital, in the way of London or Paris. But very much a melting pot, having taken in many waves of immigrants over the years. Many from parts further east - both the European east and what we call the Middle East. Also, at least in the past, an industrial city in which conditions for many of the workers and their families were pretty grim: the lefty tendencies which so vexed the Nazis were no accident.

I close with two snippets.

First, he tells us (on page 341) that the Russians lost 300,000 men, killed and wounded, in the final, 12 day assault on Berlin. They were very keen to get there before we did, but one wonders how many lives - both Russian and German - would had been saved had they taken things a bit more slowly, just tightening the noose until the Germans surrendered. They were not going to go anywhere.

Second, he tells us that currywurst has been a popular dish in Berlin since elements of the British Army, with its strong links to India and matters Indian, were stationed there. It seems that a lot of curry powder found its way into the food served to our army at that time and the habit caught on.

A good find. As good value as the rather grander book I started with in Taunton (reference 3) near twenty years ago. It has earned its place among my small collection of books about Germans and Germany, some of which are noticed at reference 9.

[Another image from Getty: '... Emperor Karl I of Austria visiting Kaiser Wilhelm II at Army headquarters, World War I, 1917. Both Emperors salute the guard of honor. A photograph from Der Grosse Krieg in Bildern. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)'. As a solder, White-Spunner is rather scathing about the silly helmets]

PS: me at Portland Museum, sent in by a correspondent. I was quite startled by how much I look like my memory of my father.

References

Reference 1: Berlin - Barney White-Spunner - 2020.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/second-outing.html.

Reference 3: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2008/08/further-geeking.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_White-Spunner. A graduate of Eton and the Guards: the right stuff. I learn little of his background or private life: maybe he prefers to keep that private.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Synagogue_(Berlin).

Reference 6: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2008/10/culinary-matters-reprised.html.

Reference 7: https://www.jewishflorence.it/?lang=en.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hohenzollern.

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/breslau-drain-covers.html.

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.

PS 3: 20260629: a late correction of the date stamp from June to March. Also unusual, in that I do not ordinarily make corrections more than a few days after postings.

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.

Reference 12: https://www.bitesizedbritain.co.uk/in-fact-the-building-has-a-surprising-secret11/.

Group search key: 20260322, aisk.

Wellingtonia (137)

Snapped just before we got to the Blandford turning, heading south around the Salisbury ring road.

Orange spot lower right in the snap above. Cathedral upper left - with a very good view at one point, probably from the roundabout below. I am not sure that I ever knew about all the waterworks shown by gmaps, the famous Constable picture notwithstanding. A picture which I am sure I saw at the time of reference 2, but which is properly reproduced below, lifted from reference 3. 

Back with the Wellingtonia, BH was driving at the time and I was able to give the Wellingtonia my full attention. No doubt about it at all. But now, looking at the picture again and tracking another image down in Street View, I am not so sure: the branches seem to curl up at the ends in a very improper way. So the entry is bracketed and we now have two reasons to pay a proper visit to Salisbury. Perhaps a day trip by train, changing at Clapham Junction? The railway station only looks to be about a mile away from the candidate Wellingtonia, so it should be well within range. Picnic underneath?

There were lots of daffodils looking well here, and lots of primroses looking well elsewhere.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/wellingtonia-136.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/constable.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_Cathedral_from_the_Meadows.

Group search key: 20260401, wgc.

No.{41}

Spotted heading east along East Street in Epsom. A small red car with registration plate 'YI41 xxx'. Except that while I think 'YI' (letter) more likely than 'Y1' (number), I don't have enough information to use Carcheck and I certainly don't have a snap. So not even square brackets, just curly brackets.

I did see another No.40 shortly afterwards, but that does help in the present case. See reference 1 for the use of brackets.

They a day or so later, not having made any further progress on the numbers, the central part of the dashboard - this being our now fairly new VW Polo - turned red, which was rather alarming. Sufficiently alarming that my reactions regressed to my long sojourn with manual gearboxes.

I think the problem was that the chap behind me - this being a short and mobile queue at a junction - was too close and the collision detection system went onto red alert. Luckily it cleared of its own accord a few seconds later - and the car had not shut itself down.

A little earlier in the day, I had been amused by the sight of a whole lot of crew from a cruise liner piling out of the shuttle bus used to ferry the passengers from dockside to townside. Off for a no-doubt well earned spot of R&R, before the liner took off for the next leg of its voyage. I imagine that a hundred years ago that they would have had their own bus, or perhaps they would have been expected to walk.

I should add that the reason that I had been able to find the bus stop (in Rodwell in Weymouth) with so little fuss was that I took advantage of gmaps telling me where my telephone was located. Much more reliable than relying on street signs happening to be in view when you want one. A feature last noticed on the occasion of our visits to Harefield earlier in the year - for which see reference 3.

And even earlier, we had been puzzled by the presence of an expensively turned out lady from Mexico in the car park at Portland Bill. A lady who was, I am told, sporting diamonds, but who had also gone to the bother of getting the car park machine to talk to her in Spanish. Which rather confused BH when it came to her turn to pay - but she managed well enough for all that. But what on earth was the lady from Mexico doing there? Apart from probably waiting for a companion who had gone off to the shop or something.

PS 1: not so clever at finding public houses. Portland did not seem to go for them at all - maybe it was once an island of low-church teetotallers - it was, after all the home of a branch of the Penn family, one of whom was the Quaker who started Pennsylvania. But we eventually found the establishment snapped above, at the bottom of Chiswell, where we were able to take both Guinness and a decent warm beer. And park. And the bank of Chesil Beach behind. Presumably Chiswell, both the name of a road and of the eponymous hamlet or village, predated the beach. But it looked as if the trade from the docks across the road, for which it was probably built in the first place, had largely gone. As have the chimneys which must have been there once.

Turning to the old maps to be found at Scottish National Libraries, I find that things looked quite different in 1900 or so. The pub in question is close to the boundary between sheets, so just to the south of that above. But the masonic hall is still up and running, even if the railways are not. I didn't notice whether the line of naval hospitals was still to be seen.

While the pub appears to have started life as the 'New Hotel'. With the district and bay being called Chesilton rather than Chiswell.

Gemini was, once again, quite fulsome on the subject of the 'Little Ship'. Even more so when I told him about the name on the OS map and when he got onto Chesil Beach.

I might add that I have noticed of late that he has quite an eye, quite a penchant, for commercial and branding issues. Does this reflect there being an awful lot of material of that sort out on the Internet, the stuff on which he was trained? An avid reader of transcripts of programmes like the 'Hotel Inspector'?.

PS 2: an advertisement has just popped up in my gmail from people who want to rent me something like the boat snapped above. Maybe I will work out why they might have thought that I was worth a punt. Reference 4 suggests that I might be a bit out of my depth.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/no40.html.

Reference 2: https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/gb.

Reference 3: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/denham-grove.html.

Reference 4: https://www.anchor.yt/.

Group search key: registsk.