Sunday, October 23, 2011
Chiesa Italiana di Dan Pietro
On Thursday back to St. Lukes to hear a new-to-us Shai Wosner play a couple of Beethoven piano sonatas; Op. 2 No. 3 and Op 7. Very good they were too.
We thought we would try the canteen in the crypt, having been tempted by an advertisement for hunters' stew, which I had thought should be a moderately spicy confection of sauerkraut and pork. Otherwise known as bigos. We get there to find that what they call hunters' stew was a very dark brown beef stew, seemingly involving spinach or similar, served with rice. I was not all that keen on it and it certainly was not what I was expecting. Wine was OK though, as was the general ambience.
Our meal was rounded off by being interviewed by someone about how we found the concert. I suppose she was from the LSO although she actually lived in Cork and spent the odd weeks in London. Presumably some kind of freelance. Notwithstanding, she had a very natty little tape recorder, about the same size as a mobile phone but with a miniature microphone sticking out of the end. We learned that the playwright call Synge (see October 11th) whom one might of thought was called singe was actually called sing. She had to do him at school: he might have been a prot. but at least he was not a brit. But I failed by not being able to remember how I came across St. Luke's concerts in the first place. Not as if we go to their other place at the Barbican very often; can't remember when we last did.
Thus fortified we proceeded west towards Holborn, coming across St. Peter's Italian Church (http://www.italianchurch.org.uk/). A place with a modest doorway onto the Clerkenwell Road but with a very grand interior, apparently the first Catholic church purpose built on basilican lines in England. A lot of polychrome statuary and a lot of expensive stone & plaster work inside. They could afford to publish a fancy guide book and trust you to put something suitable in the box - there being no marked price. But it all seemed a bit cold to me and looked better in its pictures than it did in real life. Perhaps it would be OK when the place was full of true believers. Of which I do not suppose there are as many living in the immediate area as there were. All moved out to the suburbs to staff up the better class of pizza joints. Maybe assimilated even.
But back to more prosaic duties today, having wandered down the garden to find that something, probably a rat hunting fox, had broken into the front of our compost bin. Or perhaps the rats had to make a serious effort to break out before they were cooked underneath the blanket of dried leaves I had thoughtfully provided for them. Luckily, three old deal shelves from north London made a neat repair. In fact, a rather better job now than the original. Even went to the bother of oiling the second hand No. 10 screws to help them on their way down. Hopefully nothing now will either break in or break out. Topped up the dried leaves just to be sure that things are nice and warm inside. Maybe even to the point of getting a bit of spontaneous combustion, preferably the smouldering white rather than the flaming red sort. That should keep the rodents out.
# posted by Jim @ 9:47 AM 
