Breaking The World Record For Coin Catching With Paul Deacon, Woodfield Avenue, 30 December 1974

In 2004 I was honoured to have formed part of a team, as a NewsRevue writer, that really did win a Guinness World Record – explained and illustrated in the piece linked here and below:

Ultimate Love and Happy Tories, Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 3 March 2017

But I had clearly forgotten that, 30 years previously, I was involved in another world record feat. The reference in the diary dated 30 December 1974 clearly reads:

Paul Deacon came for day – we broke world coin catching record.

Ok, so perhaps that record was not independently authenticated and certified. Perhaps the world coin catching record is not quite so prestigious as longest running live comedy show.

But a world record IS a world record and we broke it.

We went on to spoof the event in a rather childishly silly (even by our standards) recording we made in April 1977, by which time coin catching had become known as coin tossing, it seems:

Execution Scenes, Coin Tossers And Miscellaneous Silliness Recorded With Paul Deacon, 12 April 1977

I have no recollection of the rules of coin catching and how the world record was established. The 1977 recording might contain some clues, but only to the extent that “rules” and “establishment” probably played a very small part indeed. I’ll guess that the coin was tossed in a conventional “start of a match” stylee and then caught (or not),

More importantly, this diary entry is the first mention of Paul Deacon in my diaries and I actually think that day might well have been the very first time that the two of us got together during the school holidays to lark about.

In which case it was genuinely a milestone or seminal event, even if not genuinely a world record.

Postscript One

Paul Deacon has chimed in with some essential additional details:

Haha. I seem to recall I was good at stacking coins on the back of my elbow then catching them with a flick of the arm downwards. Also spinning a coin one handed. What a sad lad

Postscript Two

A link to this posting kicked off quite a controversy on the Alleyn’s 1970s Alumni Facebook Group. A veritable Coincatchgate.

For those readers who are members of that group, here is a link to that controversy.

Ongka’s Big Moka, Television Documentary, 11 December 1974

Koteka by Billga, CC BY-SA 3.0

My diary entry for 11 December 1974 includes the phrase:

Disappearing World. Ongka’s Big Moka. Rather amusing.

In October 2016, while pondering the idea of Ogblog but before I had started the project in earnest, I uncovered this diary entry and vaguely remembered the television programme to which it referred.

I Googled the programme name and read the Wikipedia entry, which, at that time, reported that the programme was first broadcast in 1976 – probably when it received its first US airing. A bit more Googling enabled me to confirm 11 December 1974 as the first airing date so I (in the form of Ged Ladd who is an occasional but keen Wikipedia editor) corrected the Wikipedia entry.

At the time of writing this (November 2018), I am delighted to note that the Wikipedia entry for Ongka’s Big Moka retains my fine detective and editing work. I was reminded of this whole matter by a visit to see the Oceania exhibition at the RA:

Klimt/Schiele and Oceania, Royal Academy, 16 November 2018

Anyway, since my October 2016 detective work, someone has, helpfully, uploaded the Ongka’s Big Moka film to YouTube:

It might have been this television documentary that sparked my lifelong interest in the tribes and cultures of Oceania.

I do also remember being inspired by the exhibits from the Pacific South Seas in the Horniman Museum, on an Alleyn’s School visit, probably around that time, but I do not recall which of those inspiring introductions, television or museum, came first.

Perhaps I’ll find a reference to the Alleyn’s visit somewhere in my diaries, but it might be pre-diaries or during one of my irritating diary-writing-intervals in those early years.

One of my old school pals might just help me to date that school visit, although I suspect there were plenty of such visits on field days “back then”, as the Horniman was such an easy place to visit from the school. So unless I did something memorable on that trip…

…I dread to think what memorable thing I might done, but my lifelong interest in that part of the world does include a fascination with koteka.

Still, I suspect that the date of my visit to the Horniman is either in my diaries or lost in the mists of time.

A Marathon Day Of Court Sport; Fives and Fridge Ball, 4 December 1974

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What a sporty day Wednesday 4 December 1974 must have been for me. Just in case you cannot read what the day’s entry says:

11th in chemistry.

Fives lost 15-3 to Wrightson & Weber, beat Mason & Candappa 15-7 and beat Pavasi & I Goodwin 15-3, 15-0.

Fridge ball 533.

Some of this perhaps needs explaining. “11th in chemistry” is and perhaps will remain a bit of a mystery. 11th in the year would be quite good; whereas 11th in the class more predictably mediocre in that subject. It’s not well explained in the diary; much like my answers in the chemistry test, no doubt.

No, it is the fives and the fridge ball that caught my eye for further exposition.

Four Sets Of Fives 

I have already written up a bit about fives – in a piece about a so-called uneventful day the following June – click here. But if you cannot be bothered to click, you should simply be aware that, at Alleyn’s, we played Rugby Fives and you should also be aware that Alan Cooke became my regular doubles partner, so I’m sure those doubles matches were teamed with him.

Looks as though Cookie and I warmed up as the afternoon went on; perhaps this was a breakthrough afternoon for our nascent doubles pairing. Earlier references to fives in my diary seem to be singles games.

Apologies to David Pavesi – firstly for the surprising mis-spelling of his name, as we knew each other well from primary school as well as at Alleyn’s. But also apologies to him and Ian “Milk” Goodwin for the drubbing. Why we played a second set against those two after a convincing first set I really cannot imagine. Perhaps they requested another chance. Perhaps we four wanted to play some more and everyone else had disappeared.

Fridge Ball

I suppose I do need to explain the magnificent and extraordinary sport of fridge ball, just in case the reader is unfamiliar with the game.

I realise at the time of writing (2016) that fridge ball has rather a lot in common with my current passion, the ancient game of real tennis – click here for one of my pieces and links on that game. 

In short, fridge ball is to table tennis what real tennis is to modern (lawn) tennis, but instead of a medieval courtyard, which is the theatre of play for real tennis, the theatre of play for fridge ball is a modern kitchen. Fridge ball is played with a ping-pong bat and a ping-pong ball.

Sadly, there are no photographs of the 3 Woodfield Avenue, London, SW16 fridge ball court as it looked in 1974, but there is a photograph of the court from 2012, when the house was being refurbished in preparation for letting – see below.

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In front of the visible wall (to the left of the picture) stood a large 1960’s-style fridge-freezer; the surface against which the ball has to be hit. The floor surface back then was linoleum of a rather insipid hue. In the photograph you can actually see a layer of blue glue awaiting some fancy modern flooring substance, the suitability of which for fridge ball was not even tested.

The game, simply, is to hit the ball against the fridge door as many times as possible, ideally getting some interesting bouncy business off the floor and/or the jauntily angled pantry door (shown open in the photo but naturally closed for play) and/or the panel doors below the sink,and/or divider doors (just out of shot at the bottom of the photo, which at the time had helpfully unobtrusive recess slots rather than potentially rally-ruining handles).

If the ball is accidentally hit to the left of the fridge (to the kitchen entrance), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit to the the right of the fridge (an entrance that leads to a little laundry area and side door to the house), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit above the fridge, gawd help you because the ball will probably get stuck behind the fridge and is the devil’s own job to retrieve. Needless to say the rally is over but also, almost certainly, your enjoyment for the evening, as mum and dad take matters into their own hands to terminate the game at that juncture.

If you hit the ball hard enough for it to get some action off the back surface or the cooker, the ball is still in play but that is a dangerous tactic given the strange bounces you might get back there. Aficionados of real tennis might enjoy the idea of hitting the grill/grille – a winning shot in realers but merely part of the ongoing fun/difficulty in fridgers.

Where you can see drawers at the back of the court/right hand side of the photograph, in my day there was a recess under a surface there and a stool kept in that space.  If the ball went into that recess it was out and the rally was over, making the back of the court even more treacherous than it would be today.

A second bounce does not necessarily terminate the point, although most second bounce situations tend to lead to the ball not bouncing at all and ending up dead, which thus ends the rally.

It really is a magnificent game, full of skill and playable as an addictive solo game, not entirely unlike the pinball addiction that subsequently grabbed me for some time. Indeed given the size of our family kitchen, it worked best as a solo game.

But here’s the thing.

Fridge ball 533.

Just think about that for a moment. A 533 stroke rally. That is a remarkable score.

I think there was also a playing condition that allowed for externalities (such as mum wanting to do the washing up or dad wanting a cup of tea), such that the player could catch the ball in the non-bat hand (not scoring a stroke for the catch, btw) and then continue the rally once the interruption was over. Frankly, I can’t imagine having had the run of the kitchen for long enough to score 533 without such a playing condition. Not on a midweek evening after playing four sets of fives at school.

What a marathon sporting day.

Does anyone reading this piece remember playing fridge ball with me or similar games in their own (or other people’s) homes? I’d love to hear all about it if you did.