Exclusive Company

While waiting for our booking for an intimidatingly expensive afternoon tea in celebration of Ms Formerly Aldgate's birthday the other week, we found ourselves on our wanderings outside St George's, Hanover Square, amid the boutiques and art galleries of the thoroughfares south of Oxford Street. A friend of mine used to come here for midweek mass when he worked in London, along with - at that time, anyway - usually north of a hundred other people. There is a wonderful aroma of varnish and dark oak: this is a sort of deep-hued Madeira among churches. Ms Aldgate remarked on the painting behind the altar, but this didn't strike me as particularly unusual: what caught my eye more was the names of churchwardens painted around the galleries, not something I've seen elsewhere. At a rough estimate, three-quarters of the names bore noble titles or knighthoods. I didn't feel compelled to put 50p in the donations box.