pumpkinstrokemarrow

Our first metropolitan concert after the break this week, one Pieter Wispelwey (from the Netherlands) doing two of Bach's cello suites at St. Luke's. Nearly full house, including a sprinkling of young people who looked to be interested in the fingering, maybe from the nearby Guildhall School of Music. Nicely introduced by a lady who I think introduced herself as the director of the St. Luke's operation; did her business with neither gushing nor feeble wit. Cello suites - numbers 3 & 6 - very good, admirably suited to the venue and occasionally reminding me of the bagpipes, in that he managed a melody on top of a drone. Not bad for an instrument out of which you are doing well to get two nearby notes at once. While according to some chap at the Guardian, culled from the Internet, the third was love and the sixth was transcendence. Well maybe. But I am not sure that I would be good for all six of them in two sittings on one day, as recently offered at the Wigmore Hall. It was sold out though, so there must be plenty of people out there with more stamina than I.

Disdaining all the food of diversity on offer from stalls, having rather lost my taste for spice, such as it was, had taken elevenses at the Market Caff in Whitecross Street. Tea and bacon sandwich, as usual.

Lunch at the nearby Wetherspoon's was the usual good value and served with impressive speed. 7 out of 10 for the DT. All present and correct but a touch shabby and with a curious smell.

All followed up by BH leading us down an alley, on a whim, to Saint Bartholomew the Great, truly an architectural gem which neither she nor I had ever come across before, tucked up next to what was left of the meat market and St Bartholomew's Hospital. Also quite near the 'Hand and Shears', a pub in which I worked for a spell many years ago. Run at that time by a Czech tankist who washed up here after the second war, with a taste for food, drink and Švejk. My knowledge of the last of these three, if not the first two, stood me in good stead. Two sorts of Courage bitter for sale at that time, both very good - but don't seem to see too much of either these days. Does Courage still exist as anything more than a brand name?

Saint Bartholomew got off to an unusual start by being the first church which I have come across, which was not a cathedral, ancient monument or Westminster Abbey but which charged an entrance fee (of £4). Not that I have any objection; I visit the places as a tourist rather than as one of the faithful and it is entirely reasonably that I should contribute to the cost of keeping them up. It turned out to be a seriously old church with quite large chunks dating from the time of King Henry I. As far as I can recall, the only Norman piers in London, excepting perhaps the Tower of London. Unusual apsed east end. One monument to a local hair merchant (one wonders what sort of hair. A by product of the butchery or the hairdressing business?) and another to the founder of Emmanuel College at Cambridge. All tastefully restored. A church which looked to be of a musical high church persuasion, something which we might have sampled one day had it been a bit more handy to Epsom.

Outside there was a tablet marking the quartering of the Scottish traitor, William Wallace. A punishment perhaps well suited to its location next to the shambles. I think the tablet said rebel, but I also think you have to be a traitor to earn a quartering.

Home to be irritated on the way by union leaders for the civil servants moaning that the proposed changes to their pension arrangements mean that they will have to do more work for less pension. What on earth do they expect? I for one would not get too upset if it was decided to cut my civil service pension by say, 5%, to help with the national debit - but I can see that one would need some tapering arrangement so that those who had been among the lower paid get off lighter than those who had been among the higher paid. (For the avoidance of doubt, I fell between these two stools). And then there are the people who bang on about the quality of public services but are bang off when it comes to paying their share in the form of taxes. From which we can only suppose that a substantial proportion of our population are indeed arithmetically challenged, as alleged by the DT. Either that, selfish or greedy.

PS: the answer to the Courage question is no.