pumpkinstrokemarrow

Two visits to St. Lukes, this week and last, to hear Elisbeth Leonskaja, a pianist from Georgia who now lives in Austria and of whom I had not previously heard. She does exist on the Internet but does not appear to boast her own web site, although she does rate an entry in Wikipedia. Six Beethoven sonatas in all: Op. 13, Op. 14 No. 1, Op.110, Op. 49 No. 2, Op. 109 and Op.111. Plus a substantial, well known but unidentified encore at the end of the first concert.

Tremendous stuff for an enthusiastic if fairly grey audience, with the first concert slightly marred by what sounded like a bit of feedback from the Radio 3 microphones and distinguished by tone from the Steinway which reminded me of its descent from the harpsicord. A tone that I did not hear at the second concert.

She passes the baton to Barry Douglas for next week's Op. 106, a Belfast boy who does have a web site at http://www.barry-douglas.com/ and whom I last heard a couple of months ago or so. All in all a very good series in a very good hall. And cheap: under half the going rate for the likes of the South Bank or the Wigmore Hall.

The day being further distinguished by my inaugural visit to a Barclay Bike. Started off well by registering myself on their computer, but then got confused by the rather odd rules which apply if you want to take more than one bike out on one account. Sent them an email via the 'contact us' tab and was agreeably surprised to be called back within a few hours, this on a Saturday afternoon, by a pleasant and helpful lady who sorted me out. So I was then in possession of a fully activated small plastic key (membership number about 5.25m), the sort of thing one might conveniently hang off one's key ring. Plus a map of London showing one where all the docking stations were.

Hop off the train at Waterloo, this at around 1100, well after the rush hour, to find the Waterloo dock bereft of bikes, apart from one broken one. Stroll across the road to Stamford Street where there were indeed bikes and I made my first withdrawal. Bicycle clips on and stately down Stamford Street. The bike was solid and sensible; entirely fit for purpose if not the sort of thing one would want to do any serious riding on. Left at Blackfriars Bridge, up Farringdon Eoad, right at Clerkenwell Road and so on to Old Street, which I reached in about 25 minutes, a journey time which I was able to confirm with the Barclay Bike Computer this morning.

After the concert, withdrew another bike and trundled west to Tottenham Court Road, docking in Soho Square. Fun to be cycling in London again after a lot of years - where I found that that there have been a lot of cycle - if not car - friendly changes in the interval, but that I had forgotten how often you have to stop for lights - a detail which plenty of younger cyclists did not much bother with. All in all, a good thing, so why didn't Livingstone do it? It is just the sort of attention grabbing wheeze that he likes. I note in passing that the fare structure seems to be closely based on that for the Parisian Vélib - not free at all, despite its name - and I look forward to happy hours revisiting bits of London that I used to know.

Celebrated with a couple of jars of a light if quite decent pint called Exeter something from the Leicester Square Wetherspoons, while admiring the building inside which (badly illustrated) I had two wisdom teeth extracted some 35 years previous. The operation was started by a student, finished by the prof. and the building is now a hotel. Leicester Square was being noisely dug up, I think to celebrate the Olympics, with paving slabs being replaced by what looked like slabs of sawn granite, about 4 inches thick. Never seen such thick slabs before. Nothing too good for the aficionados of the athletic sports.

The only bad note of the day was discovering in the tube station that my Oyster Card no longer worked and I had to stump up what seemed like the enormous sum of £4 for a ticket. The Oyster Card Computer alleges this morning that I only have £1.45 credit, a sum which I do not remember at all, but is now not checkable. It also tells me that the arrangements for online top up are not very irregular traveller friendly.

PS: shin stew now scraped and downed in two sittings with slightly stale bread. An excellent way to dispose of same.