Wine Tasting, Comedy, & Art: Francis of Assisi

Yesterday, I was back with The Hideout: Horror Sci-Fi Club London, for wine tasting followed by comedy (hmm..) in La Pizzica restaurant. Sounded interesting..

Drat, but that's a long way from me. Nearly an hour, even if I took the Tube - I didn't really have time to eat beforehand, but figured, well, it's in a restaurant, I shouldn't starve! The District Line did its usual thing of, well, being delayed - for no apparent reason. I eventually made it to the restaurant at about 5.15 - the meet & greet was supposed to start at 5. The restaurant, as I entered, was completely empty, apart from the maitre d' - who, upon seeing my confusion, directed me to the private room downstairs, where, sure enough, they checked my name off a list.

Not a single person I recognised, not a single person who identified themselves as from the Meetup group. Happily, I wasn't the first there - there was a jolly group of Italian ladies, who got even jollier as the wine went down, and were very sociable all evening: otherwise, I'd have had a pretty lonely time. The nice man who was pouring the wine gave each of us a glass, into which each wine was poured in succession - there were 13 wines in all, starting with six white, then a rosé, then six red. I basically determined to try them all - although I was kind of dubious about the reds, not being a great drinker of red wine. But we'd also been given order forms (a 10% discount if you ordered on the night), and one lady pointed out to me that the last two reds cost £79 and £85 per bottle, respectively! And as she said, how often are you actually going to get the opportunity to try that kind of wine..?

So, off we went. I guess the nice man responsible for the pouring has seen all this before - the women concentrating on the whites (and asking for refills), the people like myself, determined to try everything, regardless. He still gave the spiel for each (in English for me, Italian for the others) - all about the soil, the region, the aromas, the "notes".. yeah right, just pour..

It was quite fun, really! and even though we only got a little at a time, by the time I'd gotten to #13, I was feeling the effects. The two expensive wines were, I'm happy to say, very nice - were they memorable enough to merit the price? I don't think so - but to each their own. In common with most, I liked the very first wine I'd tried. And, predictably, the rosé was my least favourite - I'm not a fan at all. But wow, I'm still feeling the after-effects, over 24 hours later, of all those reds - I'm not used to red, as I say, and it did leave a distinctive taste. Nothing stood out, I'm afraid, as it has done for me at previous wine tastings - ah well, I never did intend to buy anything!

Some people ordered food, which was brought downstairs - I dunno, it kind of seemed like too much effort for me. I had some of the nibbles that were provided, to accompany the wine - but basically hadn't eaten by the time the comedy started. I took a seat early, making sure to be well away from the stage - two Italian comedians, the second turned out to be a guy who'd mingled during the wine tasting, and was quite friendly! To be fair, he was also much better than the other guy. Sorry, other guy! I don't remember the name of either. They were both stood at the foot of the stairs as we made our way out - and oh dear, the guy I'd chatted to earlier wanted reassurance that I'd enjoyed it! Now, it's not that I didn't - it's more that I was in desperate need of the loo, so rather distracted..

Could I find the loo? Dunno why I didn't just ask, but I kind of had enough of talking to Italians at that point.. anyway, I considered eating there, but didn't fancy it; I think my tummy might have been a bit upset by all that red wine. And really, the last thing I felt like was more wine (with dinner) to go on top! I headed back to the station, desperately seeking a pub on the way whose toilets I could use - finally lighted on The Golden Lion. Where, I noted, every booth had its own tv screen, for the sports.. how handy, if you're into that! Well, never has a toilet been more welcome. As for food, I was in time to shop on the way home, and settled on a sandwich. Despite me getting home early, by the time I'd done the film list, it was too late to blog - given that, for the moment, we have early morning status meetings at work, what with deadlines looming.

Today, I was thinking of film (which meant I had no idea) - but London Social & Cultural Meetups, whom I haven't been with in so long, went to the National Gallery, to see an exhibition of art related to St. Francis of Assisi! I wasn't going to go with them, given that the group was to include that mad lady that I've been avoiding - but when I looked yesterday, she'd cancelled! for whatever reason. So I was now free to go. They do advise booking a (free) ticket, and although we were supposed to meet in the Sainsbury Wing, it seems that entrance is closed for renovations..

Again, I skived off work early - needed to, if I wanted to eat beforehand! I was thinking The Chandos - and was delighted, upon entering the dining room, to discover it nearly empty! Then I saw the sign on the bar - "Kitchen on break". Perhaps that was why it was empty - although, as someone later remarked, the train strike could have had something to do with it.. Anyway, I hied across the lane to Prezzo, where I was well fed - for my main this time, I had spaghetti, and they asked me whether I'd like a spoon. "Eh, no.." Well, when it came, my pasta was very hot. And I had to put my hand to my mouth. And I think one of the servers saw this, and proactively decided to bring me a spoon, thinking that was the issue.. the spoon went back unused. Just sayin'. Still loving their pay-at-the-table QR codes, though! They save so much time..

This group was to meet at the Fourth Plinth of Trafalgar Square. And yay, we did! We hung on a few minutes for latecomers, then headed into the gallery - sure enough, we'd intended to go in via the Sainsbury wing, but were now redirected to the Portico entrance - basically, the main one, facing the square. She had tickets for us all, and I had my own - the guy at the entrance asked whether we had tickets, then waved us in without looking! We had to ask directions inside, but lo, we made it in the end, arranging to meet a couple of hours later, in the cafe near the entrance.

I've had a kind of fascination with Francis of Assisi ever since watching Brother Son, Sister Moon on the tv, when I was a lot younger than now.. Directed by Zeffirelli, and with Alec Guinness as the pope, it was made in 1972, and has a very 60s feel to it. He was quite the fellow, divesting himself of his wealth, living in poverty and interested in nature.. very ahead of his time, for the early 13th century! And very in tune with the late 60s.. but you can see it in the art throughout the ages, presented at the exhibition, too: there's a kind of otherworldliness to him.

And it seems as though that film I remembered was pretty much on the money - yes, he did come from a wealthy family, and yes, he did strip off his clothes in the town square, and return them to his father - someone painted that, too!

Even the title of the film (and the song of the same name) come from a song of his, the Canticle of the Sun! And I was intrigued by a painting, not including him, but inspired by his love of animals - depicting a wolf that lived among the people:

And yes, he did inspire Clare, who founded the Poor Clares:

And gee, I even got to watch a bit of that film! They show clips from four films about him, on loop on a screen:

I loved the series of pictures, depicting beggars - very simple, very powerful:

In fact, I could say the same about the whole exhibition..

Simple messages are often the most powerful - and Francis has always meant more to me than the armies of religious tat I grew up with. I recommend this exhibition - runs until the 30th of July. Striking.

Afterwards, we searched for a pub that was quiet enough to hear ourselves talk.. we ended up in All Bar One, which was mainly empty! Again, probably the strike.. a couple of people ordered food. I saw they offer a carafe of sauvignon blanc, and had that - except it came in two small carafes, with two glasses! Huh - I managed to carry the carafes, and one glass, down to the table - I left the second glass where it was. And we had a nice time, chatting - despite the racheting up of the volume of the music, about 8.30! Never mind, it was good to be back with this group again. Apologies for the delay in the blog - I'm flathunting again, with something of a tight deadline, which tends to be distracting..

Tomorrow, I should have been on a walk with Laurence Summers and the 45+ Not Grumpy Old Londoners - cancelled because of the strike, bah humbug. Still, I really need a lie-in.. later, I'm even busier than usual.. First, I booked with Up in the Cheap Seats for the matinée of Leaves of Glass, at the Park Theatre.

And then I have to dash across London.. you see, Mandy, who runs London Herstory Guided Walks, has now started a new Meetup group, Buddies on a Budget in London (BOABIL). And lo, if she isn't taking a group to an outdoor Eurovision party! First, she suggested Battersea - but (free) tickets for that went really fast, with only three of us having managed to book. So we've now switched venue, and are going to Between the Bridges, complete with drag acts! You don't have to pay, but if you buy a ticket, it comes with a free drink.. and this, apart from, as she says, being likely to be more fun, also has the advantage of starting an hour later. Which is handy for me, rushing across town as I'll be.. Both advertised by Eventbrite, and now, Between the Bridges is sold out too.. Has street food, so I don't have to eat en route, phew!

On Sunday - I missed it somehow, but Barrie, also with the 45+s, has a walk along Caledonian Road! Also advertised on TAC, as usual, so I booked there - it being cheaper. I'll have change for him, after today!

On Monday - tan-ta-ra, film again! Looking like Le Otto Montagne (The Eight Mountains), at my local cinema - as are most things, frankly! Set in the Italian Alps, this is the story of childhood friends who grow apart as they grow up. Continuing the Italian theme.. Certainly, the scenery promises to be lovely!

On Tuesday, back with Over 40 Living the Life - I got the last ticket to this rescheduled dinner at Greenwich Yacht Club!

On Wednesday, back with BOABIL - she's introducing us to the Floating Pocket Park, in Paddington! where they have free things in summer - on Wednesday, it's a free concert.

On Thursday, another film - this, however, is a private screening, organised by The London Palestinian Rights Meetup Group, in association with the Bethlehem Cultural Festival! Showing at the Prince Charles is Farha, the dramatisation of the life of a young Palestinian girl in 1948 - just at the start of the Nakba.. includes a Q+A afterwards with the director. Tickets from Eventbrite again. And then I'm back to Ireland for the weekend..

Museum of the Home & Carols by Candlelight

Last Sunday, I was vaguely thinking of heading to see Carnaby Street's Christmas lights.. but then London Social & Cultural Meetups were off to the Museum of the Home, followed by carols by candlelight at Westminster Chapel. So I booked for that.

Really had to drag myself out of bed, after the night before.. The fastest way to the Museum of the Home was to take the Tube to Old Street, and walk from there - so that's what I did. On what turned out to be a really foggy day! I messaged them when I got there - but, as I was to discover, they were already inside. So, when I hadn't got a response after a couple of minutes, I headed in too - still no sign. The receptionist told me which way to go - so off I went! The tour starts downstairs - with a whole heap of photographs of contemporary dwellings. Each room is dedicated to a different theme, but all aim to give an idea of what people's homes are like, and what they were like in the past.

This cabinet has a secret compartment, guarded by the knight at the centre - the piece was commissioned by a wealthy lady for her husband, in the 1930s:

Like Saturday, I primarily photographed what I found interesting:

such as this ration card for furniture!

A feminist version of a Peter and Jane book:

Unfortunately, I had no mobile reception downstairs, so missed the group trying to get a hold of me! I did finally catch up to them at what turned out to be the end of the ground floor exhibit - they'd come in the wrong way, so by that stage, I'd actually seen more of the exhibit than they had! Bless 'em, they hung around for all that time, not wanting to miss me.. Hallelujah to catch them at last!

Back on the ground floor, there was an interesting exhibit on home tech:

That's an Amstrad, just like my first computer! And beside it is an Alexa, which we could only get to answer very particular questions..

After that, the ground floor exhibit is mostly reconstructions of period rooms, with explanations. So here, we have an olden times Midwinter feast:

The sitting room of a family, just returned from a frost fair:

A Hanukkah feast for a 17th century Sephardic Jewish family (no menorah, though!) - note the preponderance of fried food, which is deliberate, apparently, being representative of the Miracle of the Oil:

This family is prepping boxes for the servants - for Boxing Day!

And we got some idea of the attitudes of yesteryear!

And here's a 12th night feast:

Continuing to the other part of the ground floor exhibit, we saw recreations of living rooms through the ages. Quite an interesting museum - although someone remarked that seeing the older items, which she remembered from years ago, just made her feel old! We also noted that there were no displays of bathrooms or kitchens.. but on the plus side, the interactive exhibits give the kids plenty to do! and the adults would enjoy some, too. They've put a lot of work into those. This museum is free - worth a look, if you're in the area. Unfortunately, the cafe is closed indefinitely..

So we headed down the main road till we found somewhere that looked ok for a drink - stopped into a place called Zeleha. Where I got a cold drink - would have gone for hot chocolate, but my tummy was still feeling sensitive, so I decided not to risk it. Good soundtrack there.

When they threw us out at 4, we wended our way slowly to the carol service - got the Tube to Leicester Square and walked from there. Only to realise.. oops, we'd mistaken the time it was to start! It had already started, so we hurried along there. Not that I think we really missed much - this was one of those religious services that include carols, as opposed to an actual carol concert. Religion lite, happily.

Question - why are carols generally pitched so high? Hurts my throat! Question #2 - why did the organist increase the volume for each verse of Hark the Herald Angels Sing? By the last verse, we couldn't hear anything else! It was nice, though, in general - and we got chocolates on the way in!

They were serving free mulled wine and mince pies afterwards - but neither is something I'm keen on. Anyway, for that evening, CT advertised tickets for Love Factually - a kind of rewriting of one of the relationships in that classic Christmas romcom, Love Actually. Sadly, all their tickets were gone - but I got a full-price ticket from the venue. It sounded good. Showing at 2Northdown. I was hungry though, so reasoned, if I left now, I'd have time to eat in O' Neill's beforehand! If they had room..

For once, they did, and I was well fed. While I was inside though..

Whereupon, I made the executive decision to skip the comedy show - it was too damn cold, I'd been to enough today, and nobody was waiting to meet me there. Plus, I had other stuff to do. So, I went straight home from there. In what was, by now, a winter wonderland:

Glad I stayed in, frankly. Still, I didn't get a chance to blog - the film list had to be redone. For more on that - and ongoing - see the next instalment!

The Wallace Collection, Maughan Library, Christmas by the River Market, & The Lucas Arms

Last Saturday - well hallelujah, Bucket List London finally scheduled something I wanted to go to, at a time I could make! He was off to see the Wallace Collection that morning - and so was I. I woke in OK time - made my way down there on a bright, fresh morning. We'd arranged to meet at 10, but he messaged to say he was running a bit late - as it turned out, the place only opens at 10! So we were gathered in a crowd outside. Well done to the third person in the group for correctly identifying me - we were glad to get in from the cold, and made our way to the Great Gallery, where he'd said to meet.

This is another of those incredible collections, with far too much in it - you could easily spend days going through it. As usual, I oriented myself by portraits of royals that I recognised. Here, for example, we have a young Queen Victoria, on the other side of the door, a very flattering portrait of her uncle, George IV, and over the door, his dad, George III!

We shortcut the trip through the house, and headed for the Great Gallery - which we discovered was upstairs, at the back:

And in due course, as promised, our organiser joined us. So we spent some considerable time going through the house - seriously, never mind the day, you could spend a few days here if you wanted to do it properly! And oh look - George IV again:

With such a wealth of things to look at, I restricted myself to snapping pictures of art I found interesting. For example, the beautiful blue here:

The house in general is gorgeous:

I also took pictures of paintings I'd seen before:

One room was dedicated to depictions of Venice, which took me back:

As we continued our tour of the house, we noticed some recurring themes. For example, a lot of paintings had mythical subjects (generally with naked women, which might have been the reason to paint them). This is from Inferno, with text from the poem inscribed on the frame:

Oh, and they seemed very keen on hunting - lots of pictures of dead animals:

Finally, we visited the armoury - which has the only complete set of horse armour, as I recall! Anyway, this looked impressive - seems they also consulted on the film The Lost King, about the discovery of the burial place of Richard III. There's a small exhibition about that, too.

So yes, yet another of the spectacular collections that are free to view around London! Many thanks to our organiser for bringing this to our attention - lovely to see him again too, it's been too long.

In the afternoon - London Social & Cultural Meetups planned a bevy of Christmassy stuff! They were off for afternoon tea first - we were headed to the Garden at the Lane (at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane). And she discovered that she had a clash for lunch, so, mercifully, I got a bit of a break in between events to have my own lunch! and do some things that needed doing. And out I schlepped again to meet the others. Unfortunately, traffic was bad, and my bus a bit delayed.. I was slightly late, and the others were there when I arrived. It's a gorgeous venue:

Sadly - in common with so many places - they wouldn't let our organiser book in advance, and when we got there, it was full. So, we continued to the Knights Templar pub, where we'd been planning to go later anyway - passing, on the way, that interesting upside-down globe on Portugal Street:

We also took a brief detour to see some other interesting sights on the way:

..including where the lawyers get their gear! (This being the part of town for them):

The pub, sadly, was also packed - large as it was. So we gave up on that, and headed straight for King's College Maughan Library, for an exhibition of old manuscripts, which had been the next thing on our list. It's in a converted chapel, with gorgeous stained glass windows:

and a couple of elaborate tombs:

Some of the manuscripts are gorgeous, with medieval woodcut illustrations:

and there are fascinating works relating to John Snow's reform of London's water system, and Edward Jenner's development of the smallpox vaccine! This interesting exhibition runs to the 12th of March. On our way to and from the exhibition, we did notice some interesting doors to the study rooms - the mind boggles:

And finally, we hit the Christmas markets! All part of the Southbank Winter Festival. First was to be the Southbank Christmas Market, where they sell white mulled wine.. but although she confirmed the presence of that, our organiser wasn't so keen on the rest of the market, and suggested we go straight to the Christmas by the River Market. Which is what we did, stopping at Hay's Galleria on the way:

We were on the hunt for white mulled wine, but the only place serving mulled wine at all was the bar - frankly, I didn't fancy their chances of having it, and I don't do red. So I gave up.

The others went off in search of food that wasn't exorbitantly priced - me, although I was hungry, I passed, and bade them farewell - it'd been a fun afternoon.

I had to leave, because that evening - I bravely scheduled another meeting of the Rarely Seen. It was my last weekend in London before Christmas, you see. Well, Ivan and my first boss in London confirmed! while the one person who came the last two times was busy, for once. I booked The Lucas Arms - O' Neill's wasn't taking bookings for that day. Deposit payable, refundable with cancellation up to 72 hours beforehand. I just had time to shop beforehand - and wouldn't you know it, they both showed up! Excellent - and what's more, they got on like a house on fire. We were also right in the middle of the football crowd, and excellently positioned to watch the match - which suited them more than me. We were excellently fed too, of course. The night finished early for me, when the poitín I'd brought as a Christmas present for Ivan got shared around.. I can't mix, and was in need of my bed rapidly from then. The others, apparently, finished the bottle, and made a late way home. A busy day, a terrific end - looking forward to doing that again.

Of course, I was too wrecked to blog, that night.. see the next instalment for details of last Sunday and ongoing..