A Birthday Treat For… Someone, Vito’s Restaurant, 29 August 2009

We visited mum on that Saturday afternoon and then took her to one of her favourite Italian restaurants, Vito’s, on Northcote Road.

This will have been, in theory, mum’s birthday treat to me.

In practice, Janie will have driven to Streatham, done mum’s feet (there are copious notes about that in Janie’s diary) and then we’d have chauffeured mum to Vito’s.

There, the waiters will have fawned over mum in their classic style (Janie deliberately malapropises that description to “fornicating waiters”) while mum will no doubt have proudly told the waiters that she was treating us to an evening out for my birthday.

We’re somehow getting by without treats like this now that mum has gone.

We went to Vito’s quite a lot with mum in those days. She had her favourite places and it was a lot easier to take her to one of those. We went again 1 November, I can see in the diary.

Still, the food at Vito’s was always satisfactory and that style of service certainly pleased people like my mum. Unfortunately, that generation of customer has been dying out for some years and Vito’s itself has bitten the dust, at some point in the second half of the teeny decade, I presume.

Oh well.

Middlesex v Gloucestershire Day One at Lord’s, MTWD Report, 27 August 2009

This was clearly one of those days when I had expected/hoped for more cricket time than I actually got.

But I was the MTWD match reporter, so I did my bit – click here.

Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Middlesex till we die – Tomorrow Belongs To M(iddl)e

Turns out it was a fairly prescient report; not so in the matter of Adam London, but Messrs Robson, Malan and Compton certainly formed a nucleus for Middlesex’s improvement and success, following the dog days of the late noughties.

Middlesex v Lancashire, Lord’s, 26 August 2009

Following my marking days at Lord’s earlier in the month, this was judgement day.

But it was also the day of the Pro40 day/night match between Middlesex and Lancashire, so Janie and I arranged to meet Charlie and Chris at Lord’s.

The best laid plans…but the weather had other ideas.

I wrote a report on this one for King Cricket – click here. Lavender, Escamillo Escapillo and Stentor Baritone all make their inaugural appearances in this report, which got some fun comments too.

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Middlesex v Lancashire Pro 40 match report

We made the most of it and still had an enjoyable evening of sorts.

Le Cirque Invisible, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 22 August 2009

We went to see Le Cirque Invisible with Anthea and Mitchell.

Here is the Official London Theatre blurb about the show.

I recall a beautiful summer evening, enjoying drinks on the SBC terrace etc. I recall that the others liked the show more than I did. Of course it is clever and skillful, but I fins acrobatic/gymnastic performance only does so much for me.

Lyn Gardner in The Guardian didn’t like it.

Here’s a good snippet which gives you a reasonable idea:

I can’t for the life of me recall what we did afterwards. Janie and I both thought, at first, perhaps we went to Hix, but I’m now pretty sure that was another time, after we four went to a dance thing at the Barbican. Perhaps we decided not to eat afterwards on this occasion or just ate light on the South Bank.

Middlesex v Essex, Lord’s, 11 to 14 August 2009

I spent a fair bit of time at Lord’s days 1, 2 and 4 for this match.

Days 1 & 2 I was marking Payroll Giving Awards applications; I was chairing those awards back then. My habit was to take the file down to Lord’s – find a relatively quiet spot and do the marking in the open air.

Day 4 (the Friday) I was supposed to have meetings in the middle of the day, but I think they got shifted to/combined with my Thursday meetings.

I don’t recall a great deal about the cricket, other than Middlesex making a very generous declaration on Day 4 (I think we were a bit desperate for wins at that stage of the season), which Essex gobbled up with relative ease. I recall that Fletch was fuming about the declaration when I ran into him towards the end of the match.

suddenlossofdignity.com by Zawe Ashton, James Graham, Joel Horwood, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Michelle Terry, Bush Theatre, 8 August 2009

I don’t remember a great deal about this one, so perhaps it wasn’t the hilarious romp the Bush production resource suggests that it must have been.

Interesting list of young playwrights collaborated on the piece, though; James Graham in particular having shot to playwright stardom relatively quickly since.

I don’t remember hating it – but I do recall that curates egg feeling about it. “Sounded better as an idea than it turned out to be as a play” was probably Daisy’s verdict.

 

 

Kent v Middlesex County Championship Day 3, Canterbury, 7 August 2009

I was the guest of Mark and Geoffrey Yeandle at Canterbury that day. We had a very enjoyable day – Canterbury is a charming place to watch county cricket.

I wrote up the day for MTWD:

Kent Knackered At Nackington Road – MTWD report – click here.

Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Middlesex till we die – KENT KNACKERED AT NACKINGTON ROAD

And if you really want to know what happened, statistically speaking, here is the scorecard from that match – click here.

 

Animal Spirits or Canterbury Tails, MTWD Match Report, 5 August 2009

It seems we couldn’t find an MTWD match reporter for Day One of the Kent v Middlesex match at Canterbury, so I “sent Hippity” to do the best he could:

Animal Spirits or Canterbury Tails – click here.

Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Middlesex till we die – Animal Spirits or Canterbury Tails

I actually went to the game myself on the Friday (Day 3) and reported on it, so you can get a more conventional report and find out what happened by clicking here.