The seats are the same type as fitted to the FGW sets. It's worth remembering that refurbishment of the First Class seats by FGW a few years previously was excellent (if you like leather seats). I assume they have been re-covered in this latest refurbishment.

They blended their New World guitar and drum with their Old World counterparts — an oud and a goatskin-covered drum called a darbukah — to create what critics called ethnic-pop.

to scant someone in provisions; to scant ourselves in the use of necessaries

Only upon this quiet there broke quarter-hourly the chimes of the Church of the Sorbonne, completing, at the hour, a bar of music.