Bassoons; junk food Olympics; Whitechapel

Went to another free lunchtime concert in the OU’s St Michael’s Church last week, by bassoon quartet 'Reed Rage'. They played a number of pieces, most of which I wasn’t familiar with, and gave a very slick performance all round. And a marvellous instrument. One of their number played a contrabassoon during some of the pieces, which is certainly big and bass-y. Here's a chap from the LSO apparently giving a contrabassoon lesson.

Caffe Quattro, York Road

Went up to London with Ray on Saturday, as he had an invitation to attend a GamesMaker recruitment day for the 2012 Olympics and wanted to make the most of the train ticket. He had apparently applied some time ago and thought nothing had come of it, but evidently they’re selecting around 100,000 Games Makers in a selection process that’s taken the best part of a year. We had a good coffee and bacon sandwich at Caffe Quattro near Waterloo station, a café I discovered a year or so ago, and then trekked out to the ExCeL, where I read my book for the hour or so he was inside.

When we reconvened afterwards he appeared to be having a moral crisis as to whether his conscience would allow him to assist with the Olympics, if chosen, due to the prominence at the recruitment session of Cadbury ('the Official Treat Provider of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games') and free buckets of Heroes. Not sure what the decision will be on that one.

After leaving the ExCeL we made our way back to the Whitechapel area and found ourselves on Brick Lane, where we spent quite a while looking for a lunch spot given that Ray had said he didn’t fancy an Indian. By the time we had walked past about 50 curry houses, he had cracked and said he’d be OK with one, so we lunched at Sheba, apparently the Queen of Brick Lane Curries. After lunch we went to visit the Whitechapel Gallery. A large room on the ground floor contained the usual incomprehensible installation, but one of the rooms upstairs was given over to some memorabilia and photographs from the Mark Rothko exhibition (his British premiere) there in 1961, which was more interesting.

On Sunday morning I furiously glossed the areas of wood I’d primed the previous weekend. Have vowed not to use any more gloss paint – it’s sticky and it stinks.