The Phone Call by Nashmash, Royal National Theatre, 27 February 2024

“I can’t talk now, darling, I’m performing at the National”

Yes, this was the night that I and several others from Threadmash performed at the National Theatre.

Threadmash Begets NashMash

Threadmash is one of Rohan Candappa’s bright ideas. We have been meeting on and off for five years now, writing short pieces to order and then performing them to each other (and occasionally also to invitees). Here is a link to my write up of the first event, which includes my first Threadmash piece:

The idea needed to morph into ThreadZoomMash during the pandemic and now seems to have retained the capital M for mash. If you are a real glutton for this sort of thing, this link here is a tag for all of the ThreadMash pieces on Ogblog, which will include this one.

Anyway…

…Rohan decided to try the National Theatre foyer bars as a venue this time around – cunningly timed with two quite long plays at the Olivier and Lyttelton both starting at 19:30. That gave us ample time to perform in the relative quiet between the start of the plays and the intervals.

The relative quiet was rather noisily broken by the bar staff hoovering up around us, very early in the reading of Geraldine’s piece, but we’ll put that temporary disturbance aside. The venue worked.

And we can all honestly claim now that we have performed at The National Theatre.

Rohan threaded our pieces together, as is his way. In this instance, with the topic “The Phone Call”, Rohan’s thread covered Alexander Graham Bell‘s innovation, the practical telephone. Also the contribution of the lesser known but colourful Florentine, Antonio Meucci, who largely invented that communication method before Bell, but was too polite to patent the critically novel elements of the technology he had discovered.

Geraldine’s piece came first. A charming throwback to 1973, Geraldine recounted her mother’s almost infeasibly regular long-distance calls to Geraldine (who had escaped to New York). Geraldine’s mum persistently tried, in vain, to persuade her daughter to return to “Hicksville” and resume the “normal” life into which Geraldine had, to her mother’s perception, been born.

Rohan then reminded us all that Alexander Graham Bell’s first phone call was to an employee who awaited his call…

Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you

…starting the mighty tradition of bosses using such devices to issue instructions to underlings.

Rohan was rather sniffy about my ability to follow a simple instruction – i.e. to write a story about a phone call. I cannot imagine what Rohan’s beef might have been.

The Phone Call by Ian Harris

We don’t go out so much anymore. Not since the pandemic. It’s not a fear of infection or anything like that.  It’s just that we have got out of the habit.  It now takes something especially interesting or unusual to lure us back to the theatre or concert hall. 

One such interesting concert caught our eyes recently – a concert of African chamber music at the Wigmore Hall, led by Tunde Jegede, who is both a virtuoso kora player and a classically-trained cellist. The kora is a large West-African 21-stringed plucking instrument, sometimes described as a cross between a lute and a harp. 

Janie and I like the Wigmore Hall. It is one of the few remaining public spaces where we still normally bring down the average age of the audience quite significantly. But we soon saw, on arrival at the Wigmore Hall for the kora concert, that this audience was different. Only sparsely populated with “the usual suspects”, the average age of the audience was, horror of horrors, below ours.

The front row still had a comfortingly senior look. Next to Janie was a beaming, white-haired woman you might have got from central casting had you requested “a left-over hippy”.  The woman was very friendly and chatty – clearly not part of the regular front row mafia. Familiar with the kora – she had spent time in West Africa when younger – she was a fan of Tunde Jegede’s playing but had not previously managed to see him play live. She was, as the young folk say, super-excited.

The first half of the concert was truly magical. Tunde had brought with him a posse of chamber musicians from Lagos, together with a wonderful percussionist. We were transported by the music, not least the entrancing sound of Tunde’s kora-playing. 

During the interval, our friendly neighbour said that she was delighted with the live music experience and thrilled that we had enjoyed it. She recommended and wrote down the names of a couple of Tunde’s albums for us to follow up, which we did. 

I wondered what those silky-sounding kora strings are made of. Our otherwise-expert neighbour didn’t know. More or less at that moment, Tunde came on to the stage to rearrange the setting for the second half of the concert. As he was standing, with his kora, about three yards away from me, it seemed only polite to ask him about the strings.  

I was expecting the answer to be something along the lines of, “skin from an antelope’s anus or a sitatunga’s scrotum“. But instead, Tunde simply said, “Nylon”. “Just Nylon”, I asked, hoping for more enlightenment. “Just Nylon”, said Tunde, gently.

The second half of the concert was also good but less to our taste. Tunde didn’t play his kora – instead he demonstrated his skills as a cellist. The fusion theme was retained, as the pieces were arrangements of traditional African music, but to us the real magic had been the kora.

I tried to work out the common theme in Tunde’s unusual choice of devices for his multi-instrumentalism.  I concluded that Tunde likes making music while holding his instrument between his legs.

525 WORDS

I smiled to myself as I hit the save button and e-mailed my piece to Rohan Candappa for review.

Ninety minutes later, my iPhone buzzed.

It was Rohan.

“Ian, old chap”, said Rohan. “A charming vignette, but it has nothing to do with the subject and title – The Phone Call”. 

“I beg to differ”, I said.  “The piece is absolutely about The Phone Call”.  The introductory story about the kora concert is a MacGuffin. The main story is about the phone call.

“Well”, said Rohan, “I did consider e-mailing you, but then…”

“…never explain”, I interrupted. “You and I have collaborated on and off for over 50 years now, Rohan. Many things don’t need to be said.”

I pressed the “end call” button.

AKA “The Phone Call”

Returning To NashMash

It seemed that everyone else was able to understand and obey a simple instruction from Rohan…even Jan.

Strangely, Jan, like Geraldine, had set her story in 1973. Without conferring. The central conceit of Jan’s story, which revolved around an uprooted little girl whose family had recently moved to a different town, was a troubling phone call aimed at one or both parents, inadvertently picked up by the little girl.

Similarly strange was the structural similarity between Jan’s and Julie’s story, which was also about a troubling phone call picked up by someone other than the intended recipient of the call. Julie’s was not set in a particular bygone year, but the details within the story suggested 1970s as well.

David’s story was about a character who bought a vintage GPO rotary telephone through the internet and, as a result, got a phone call more than he had bargained for.

All of The Phone Call stories were charming, thought-provoking and enjoyable to hear. It was also very pleasing to spend time with the ThreadMash gang again, even though we were a somewhat depleted group on this occasion.

Sadly, Kay, who was going to join us, was unable to attend due to the recent death of her mother. Yet Kay made a charming contribution to the collection of stories by e-mail a couple of days later:

“Here is my belated contribution to “The Call”. In the endless process of clearing out my mum’s house, we found the tin in which I used to save my phone money when I was a kid. Like many others, I was expected to pay for my calls!”

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and my goodness that picture of Kay’s is worth at least that many. But Rohan had instructed us to limit our stories to a maximum of 800 words. Honestly, some people can’t comply with the simplest of instructions from the ThreadMaster.

A Black & White Evening With Jilly, John & Mandy (But Not Annalisa) At The Punch Room & Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai, 16 February 2024

Jilly, Mandy, John, Janie & Me, in The Punch Room

Long in the planning, unfortunately Annalisa got her weeks mixed up, but the rest of us found our way to the appointed places at the appointed time.

John is keen on cocktail bars these days and was keen to try the Punch Room in the Edition Hotel, which is suitably close to our chosen restaurant, Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai. Ogblog fanatics might recall that John, Mandy, Janie and I went to Pahli Hill relatively recently…

…and so taken with it were we, that we all agreed it would be a suitable venue for this slightly larger gathering. Which it was.

But first the Punch Room, which had a really good early evening ambiance – good music but not too loud – other trendy people, but not too many and not too loud. Interesting cocktails list. Nice waiting staff.

“Cheers!“, says Janie

A cheery smile from Jilly, who said that she hadn’t seen John & Mandy for some decades

Strangely, I realised a week or so ago that this weekend is the fortieth anniversary of Jilly’s visit to Keele in February 1984:

Mandy also looks cheery, while John is seriously choosing cocktails

Did somebody say British Gas?

The waiter took a lot of pictures of us (see headline example). We realised that the gathering included two whites, a black and (in maiden name terms) a browning. I thought we should go for a sepia version of the group photo in recognition of this colour palette.

We all go back so many years…

Then a five or six minute stroll through Fitzrovia to the restaurant, Pahli Hill . When you book, they say that you cannot dictate where you would like to sit, but I requested downstairs, where we had previously enjoyed the ambiance before and they e-mailed back to say that they would be able to comply with that request as ours was an early evening booking. John has been back there himself upstairs since our previous visit and concurs that upstairs has less atmosphere to his taste, so I’m especially glad I did that.

No pictures of Janie in the restaurant, sadly, as she took the following photos, while the rest of us focussed on eating and drinking.

As with our previous visit to Pahli Hill, by the time we’d finished with small plates and grills, we had no space for big plates, although we did find space for desserts.

It was a really lovely evening. Great food and drink, but most importantly very enjoyable company.

After The Lord Mayor’s Show Comes…The Lord Mayor’s Banquet, Guildhall, 13 November 2023

And there was me, into my 7th decade, thinking, until now, that something else comes after The Lord Mayor’s Show.

But then, in early October, I was “perfectly astounded”, to quote Charles Pooter, to receive the following invitation:

Unaccustomed as I am to attending white tie events, this meant a trip to the costume hire shop, Buckleigh Of London in my case, together with Daisy who acted as my sartorial advisor.

“Yup, that’ll do for the do

A month later, off I trotted to the Z/Yen office, with my whistle and flute in a specially designed suiter, where I changed out of mufti. No I am not a natural in the matter of costume changes.

The last time I had dined at the Guildhall I had initiated a brawl there.

Fortunately, it seems that nobody minded.

The Lord Mayor’s Banquet is far more formal than that – no singing, no dancing, just food, drink and speeches.

The reception ahead of dinner was a great opportunity for me to catch up with several old friends and also to speak with Michael’s family, not least his mum, Katherine, whom I missed at The Lord Mayor’s Show. I also spoke with a few new people (new to me, that is).

Then the dinner. I was sitting with an interesting collection of people – opposite me and to my right Tim and Sandi, who had been at school with Michael. Tim I had met before, at Michael and Elisabeth’s wedding. Also on that “to my right” side was Father Bill (Michael’s former maths teacher), Robert Pay and Susan Steele. To my left, people I hadn’t met before but all charming: Judith Pleasance, Philip Palumbo, Philip Woodhouse and Clare Felton. We found many and varied interesting topics to discuss over dinner, only some of which are on the unwritten “safe to discuss at formal dinners” list. Edgy.

This is what we ate and drank.

The cast list of speech makers comprised The Lord Mayor & The Prime Minister (between Course Two and Course Three), then The Archbishop Of Canterbury and The Lord Chancellor after dinner.

You can watch a vid of the speechifying if you wish:

Michael mostly laid out his agenda for his mayoral year, which you can read/skim about here. He included a joke, which, while I paraphrase, goes a bit like this:

Into a bar walks an American economist, an Irish writer, an English accountant and an Italian scientist. The barman says, “good evening Michael, what are you having?”

Rishi Sunak, as is the custom for The Lord Mayor’s Banquet, spoke about foreign affairs, the crises in Gaza and Ukraine being his main focus. Rishi understandably didn’t crack any jokes. I’m not sure jokes would be Rishi’s strongest suit even in more jovial times.

After the two “afters” courses, The Archbishop of Canterbury was entertaining, with an interesting mixture of a serious, pious, skittish and downright malcontented points.

I have actually met Archbishop Justin several times, including an audience 10 years ago…

…which is far more than I can say about the other speakers…apart from Michael, of course, with whom I have worked for nearly 35 years.

Last but not least was The Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, who was also in somewhat skittish mood. He picked up on Michael’s joke, and pondered about a bloke who had so many different things on his CV. Again I paraphrase:

Economist, scientist, accountant, writer…I thought, “this fellow doesn’t seem able to hold down a job”.

My first thought was to heckle:

…but that’s the whole point of Z/Yen – it’s a place where you can work while you decide what you want to be when you grow up…

…but I thought better of it. A brawl one visit, a heckle the next…I might gain an unwanted, though perhaps warranted, reputation at The Guildhall as a bit of a subversive.

Then it occurred to me that The Lord Chancellor, with all due respect to him, was hardly one to talk about holding on to a job. He has already “Chalked up” his fifth job since the start of the pandemic – indeed he seemed relieved that he wasn’t moved to a sixth job in three years in the cabinet reshuffle that had taken up much of Rishi’s day earlier.

In truth, I think the best joke of the evening was my own, albeit an inadvertent one. Immediately after the formalities ended, I chatted again with the Mainelli clan. Michael’s sister, Molly, asked me what I thought of the evening. I paraphrase our chat.

MOLLY: So what did you think of it all.

ME: A lovely evening, lovely.

MOLLY: What did you think about the fruitcake at the end?

ME: Do you mean the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Lord Chancellor?

MOLLY: You’re so naughty. You know I meant the cheese and fruitcake…

The thing is, I hadn’t experienced that cheese course, as it was walnut-based and I had reported ahead of time my nut allergy. For the final course, the caterers had kindly provided me with a “mushrooms on toast” savoury. So I hadn’t registered that the cheese savoury had been served with fruitcake and really imagined that Molly had found one of the closing speeches a bit left-field.

Mercifully, I don’t think anyone other than Molly heard my faux pas. Equally mercifully, I didn’t burst into song when the savoury was served…

…although that John Shuttleworth classic always pops into my head on the rare occasions I attend a dinner that reverts to savoury at the end.

After enjoying a few minutes catching up with friends and (Michael’s) family in the Old Library, I returned to the office to change back into mufti and get home before I risked causing any more trouble.

Pomp Given The Circumstances: Mansion House & The Lord Mayor’s Show, 11 November 2023

Michael Mainelli takes his hat off to us

In truth, the pomp and circumstance of The Lord Mayor’s Show is not really “our thing” – neither Janie nor I had ever been before, nor had either of us even watched the show on TV.

But in these circumstances, with Michael being the incoming Lord Mayor and all, it seemed only polite to accept the invitation to see the show as a guest of The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress at the Mansion House.

Michael and I have only worked together for 35 years, ever since I was recruited by others as canon fodder against Michael in the late 1980s – but that’s another story…

as is the story of us starting Z/Yen together – Part Three of that story linked here and below.

But returning to November 2023, before the show, I wanted to show Janie the Z/Yen office at 1 King William Street, just around the corner from Mansion House, as Janie had not yet seen that “new” office. Nor had she seen the oft-mentioned roof terrace. It was also an excuse to make sure we would be on time, while still able to take some warm sanctuary indoors before the Mansion House opened its doors. At least half the Z/Yen team had taken a similar precaution.

Janie loves a roof terrace: 1 King William Street does not disappoint in that regard

Then Janie and I popped around the corner to the Mansion House. I suppose I’ll be popping around that corner a few times in the coming year. Following pre-show refreshments, in which we did not partake, Janie and I were stewarded to our pavement seats right at the front, underneath The Lord Mayor’s viewing position, next to Michael’s brother Kelly. I don’t think we’d seen each other since Michael’s shrieval ceremonies four years ago:

Janie, despite her stated lack of interest in pomp and circumstance, was irritated with herself for forgetting her phone and therefore being without a camera. I allowed her to use mine, on the proviso that she didn’t use up all my film. Janie, cognisant that phone cameras don’t use up film (she knows a thing or two, that lass), proceeded to take about 300 pictures, only 20% of which were fully deserving of the bin.

The weather absolutely smiled on the City of London that day. We have had a rather relentlessly wet autumn in 2023, so all assembled thought we had struck very lucky…except for the (surprisingly sizeable) minority who were convinced that Michael Mainelli is able to control the weather and therefore the crisp but sunny day was by design.

Regardless of how or why the weather ended up so good, it did make for an especially photogenic show. As did the fact that there was an even broader international flavour to the parade than usual.

If you want to look at all of the pictures, click here or the link below, where all are now safely stored on my Flickr account:

If you would prefer a brief highlights skim through eye candy and a few choice words, then read and look on.

Evidence that I was there. Just one picture of me amongst the hundreds.

Xenia Mainelli (Michael & Elisabeth’s daughter) at the rear of this mounted troupe

Michael arrives

After the Armistice Day two-minute silence, the parade began. Here is a small sample of our (Janie’s) pictures.

Janie formed a surprising fondness for the giant effigies Gog & Magog

I was able to explain the true and fictional stories of Richard/Dick Whittington to Kelly and Joan seated next to me. I guess Michael and Elisabeth knew I’d have my uses sitting there.

Pageantry west meets pageantry east

Listen up! The late Mayor’s key charity, The Samaritans – Janie is one of their listeners.

Punjabi dancing well-timed for Diwali

Vic Reeves aka Jim Moir with his arty crowd

A Lord Mayor’s Show delegation from Lagos for the first time

“Oh goody. Chigley…” said Janie at this stage of the show

A Mongolian themed troupe, for theatrical reasons I believe

Janie loved the Hong Kong dragons perhaps as much as Gog & Magog

Michael’s partial to a puffin. The Institute of Couriers pandered to that preference

Alderfolk – the boys and girls on the bus

90 minutes later, the pageant was over, once Michael set off for The Royal Courts of Justice.

O farewell,
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife;
The royal banner, and all quality.

Then milling to get back inside the Mansion House, a light lunch and some socialising/chatting before setting off for home.

If you are keen to see the BBC broadcast of this event but don’t know where to find it – as long as you have found this piece within 11 months, you can see it by clicking here.

Or you can look at all of Janie’s 240 pictures by clicking here or below:

A Small Gathering Of Alleyn’s Chaps Who Started In The Class 1S Fifty Years Ago, 26 October 2023

Frankly, only Candappa could come up with an idea like this and see it through to implementation.

When I call my friend Rohan Candappa just “Candappa”, I am of course harking back to that time, 50 years ago, when we started secondary school and discovered that we all had surnames but none of us seemed to have first names.

Candappa – bellicose back then…

…merely cantankerous now: Rohan Candappa

But as usual, I am digressing.

The gathering was at The Young Vic, in commemoration of the first theatrical school trip of our young careers, with Mr Sandbrook himself, to see Scapino, in January 1974:

Rohan issued some specific instructions:

Dress code: Grey suits (too large ideally, but don’t worry, you’ll grow into it), black briefcases, and a slightly nervous smile. Oh, and make sure you’ve got some blotting paper in the briefcase.

I knew that I would be unable to comply fully with Rohan’s rules and also that I was no longer in a position to get my (late) mother to write a note of apology to Mr Sandbrook, our form teacher. I decided to commission ChatGPT to forge a note from my mum. It took four or five goes, as ChatGPT, unwilling to imagine itself in 1973 writing a note, was keen to use the phrase “1973 was a long time ago” as part of the excuse. Only when I advised it to use a “dog ate my homework” style of excuse did it muster the following:

Interesting use of a gender-neutral pronoun there. Not very 1973.

It was always only going to be a small group of us. In the end, only four of us met, as Dave French unfortunately was a bit poorly on the day. He did send an extensive note, which I shall quote from shortly.

The four of us who met were:

  • Candappa, Rohan
  • Goodwin, Ian
  • Maine, Myles
  • Harris, Ian (me).
Left to right, Me, Myles, Rohan, t’other Ian

We called the register – strangely while I was calling the register from my old 1974 diary, Dave French was sending me a message which included said register with some thoughts about the people, especially those who have sadly departed.

Dave French helpfully provided a legible list, when he wrote in to us:

Please raise a glass or three in my absence to:

Allott 

Athaide

Barrett

Burgess

Candappa – Candy

Carroll

Corrin

Dallaway 

Feeley

Foord – Dunkie

Forrest

Frearson

French – Frog

Goodwin – Milk

Handy

Harley

Hayes

Hollingshead – Mutt

Manhood 

Masson – Chimpy

Mayne

Moore

Ricketts 

Romain – Charlie

Sym

Stendall

🍻🍻🍻

One sobering thought was the realisation that at least four of our number have departed permanently. That’s at least as many departed as gathered that October evening. An attrition rate above 15% seems very high.

The memorial roll of honour is as follows:

  • Wayne Manhood – I have written an Ogblog piece – click here – including my own partly false memories of this one from the 1980s.
  • Jovito Athaide – as Dave French wrote: “I think it was in the early 1990s that I received a call from Jovito Athaide’s dad, letting me know he’d died suddenly from an undetected heart condition.” I think quite a few of us got this call – my parents probably told me about it without passing on my new number to Mr Athaide. I have an address and phone number for Jo in an old address book – I should imagine he made a point of collecting/exchanging them.
  • Dave Masson – Dave French writes: “I and a few others stayed very close to Dave Chimpy Masson for many years after school – very fond memories in the sixth form of going back to his house at 66 Woodwarde Road, 5 minutes from school, either at lunch or during free periods, to drink his home brew – made maths more tolerable in the afternoon. Devastatingly he and his mother-in-law died in a car crash in Namibia in 1995…his birthday, December 4th, is ingrained in my memory, and I always say “Hi” and raise a glass to him. Lovely guy”.
  • Paul Hayes – who died of cancer more recently, in 2017. He had many formal obituaries – e.g. the one linked here – as he was a high-profile media dude. We had our own Alleyn’s alums-style toast to him just a few weeks later.

Yet the four of us who gathered in October 2023 were able to park our melancholy, enjoy each other’s company enormously and share many reminiscences.

Rohan, being Rohan, brought a small collection of gifts for all of us who attended – a fountain pen, a piece of blotting paper and a notebook which he had craftily renamed G.W.B for general work book – gosh yes, I remember those.

Gifted, we were, all of us gifted.

Naturally, when I got home I wrote Rohan a thank you note in my GWB using my fountain pen and blotting paper.

I then scanned the note and e-mailed it to Rohan, which slightly spoiled the 1973 effect.

My favourite anecdote from 50 years ago was also one of Rohan’s. He recalled that, in one of our very first lessons with Mr Sandbrook, we were promised a princely sum of money – perhaps it was 10p – every time we spotted a spelling or grammatical mistake on the blackboard. Rohan recalls that it took him most of the year to realise that he was very unlikely indeed to hit pay dirt. Rather, Mr Sandbrook had duped him into paying attention to the spelling and grammar for best part of a year.

On the topic of Mr Sandbrook, I had exchanged e-mails with Rohan about the possibility of trying to track Ian Sandbrook down. Rohan said that he had tried to do that, but with only limited success. On the morning before our gathering, I decided to do a bit of detective work myself. I decided that an Ian Sandbrook who seemed to be highly active in the arts community of St Endellion, even since the days of teaching us, was still active there until very recently. The others agreed that the Endelienta bassoon reference clinched it, as we remembered Mr Sandbrook bringing his bassoon into the class room to show us.

What a rackett!

I decided to write to Mr Sandbrook via Endelienta and see what happens.

On 1 November, an e-mail arrived from “Ian” addressed to “Ian”…

…it took me a while to realise that Mr Sandbrook really had just written to me. He’d like to know how we got on when we met, so I’ll send him a link to this piece. Hopefully he will send through some thoughts and memories of his own, in addition to the thoughts he wrote in his first note. He might even grant me permission to share those thoughts with the Alleyn’s 1970s alums on Facebook, several dozen of whom tend to look at these postings, however long and rambling they might be. Even Mike Jones, formally of the masters common room, hangs out in the Alleyn’s 1970s Facebook group.

Oh, and by the way, there are no cash prizes for spotting my spelling and grammatical errors. I’m not falling for that one. But all subediting comments and corrections are gratefully received.

It’s Not All Black And White: Meet-Ups With Annalisa, Jilly Black & John White, Mid-October 2023

John-Boy Forking Madeleine In Jikoni

Annalisa Redux, Lunch At Antalya In Bloomsbury, 17 October 2023

As part of my Ogblog project, I am writing up events of 25, 40 & 50 years ago from old diaries and records. A few weeks ago I wrote up Annalisa’s wedding from 25 years ago…

…and thought I should make a concerted effort to reconnect with Annalisa. I was able to track down Charlotte, Annalisa’s sister, with relative ease. Charlotte put me back in touch with Annalisa, and the result of all that was a very pleasant, long lunch at Antalya Restaurant.

We had a fair bit of catching up to do, so many years having passed, yet in many ways it felt a bit like catching up after two or three months, not two or three decades, except that the news had a longer span, as it were.

Annalisa back then. Shorter hair now.

We’ve resolved to try not to leave it 25 years again. Given the entreaties from my other two mid-October gatherings (see below) that they would love to see Annalisa again, I suspect that we’ll find a way to make it a considerably shorter interval next time.

Jilly Black & The Peculiar Matter Of “Rachmaninov Pulling Nudes”, 20 October 2023

Peculiar Serge (Rachmaninov)

I have for some while been helping Jilly to digitise her family photographs from an assortment of different types of negative, transparency, printed pictures and the like. This occasional project hit the temporal buffers over the summer (not least because Jilly’s chosen days tended to end up as train strike days), so was in need of revival.

I more or less expect to receive a note from Jilly explaining why she will be arriving later than the appointed hour (never really a problem for me, given that we are working on this project at the flat), but on this occasion the WhatsApp message gave me pause for thought:

I had to clean an extremely dirty oven and have a coffee…[something about almond milk]…and some Rachmaninov pulling nudes at the same time

I read the message twice, concluded that Jilly must have taken leave of her senses and hunkered down with whatever it was that I was doing for another hour or so before her revised expected arrival time.

Just before Jilly arrived, another message:

OH NO! It was supposed to be “Rachmaninov Preludes”, NOT “pulling nudes”

A Beautiful Rachmaninov PRELUDE

As I kindly and considerately put it in my reply:

Ha ha. That’s going straight onto the blog at the next available opportunity.

Jilly blames the technology for that verbal mishap, which I must say seems, in truth, entirely reasonable. Annalisa will no doubt have a quiet chuckle to herself about that, as I had been banging on about how much more reliable these technologies have become in recent years…which they have…but when they get it wrong, oh boy can they get it wrong!

Anyway, as always, a very pleasant lunch and afternoon with Jilly, during which we not only digitised quite a lot of her non-standard family negatives but Jilly kindly helped me to identify the locations of my family pictures from Sicily nearly 50 years ago, as Jilly did some tour-guiding there “back in the day”.

Jilly’s Dad from a 120 (60×60) negative – possibly playing a Rachmaninov Prelude

John-Boy Forking Madeleine At The End Of A Fine Meal At Jikoni, 24 October 2023

Dinner with John is always long overdue, because if we were both in town more often and had more time on our hands our get togethers would be far more frequent.

Actually our previous gathering had been all four of us (including Janie and Mandy), which was supposed to have been five of us, but Pady Jalali had to cancel her visit.

It was John’s turn to choose and he chose really well with Jikoni. A really charming place with friendly staff and excellent grub.

We ate:

  • Burrata, Bitter Leaves & Figs (with Roasted Muscat Grapes, Pomegranate Dressing)
  • Wild Mushrooms on Toast (with Curry Hollandaise, Autumn Truffle)
  • Roasted Hake & Clams or Butternut Squash Moilee (with Coconut Chutney)
  • Kuku Paka, Sukuma Wiki (with Saffron Rice)
  • Paan Madeleines (see headline picture)

I hadn’t realised, but Bella (John & Mandy’s younger daughter) is really into cooking now, both as a hobby and latterly at work. John spotted the Jikoni cook books and decided to treat Bella to one of them.

Ravinder Bhogal (the chef/proprietor/author) took the trouble to chat with us and make a personalised dedication to Bella in the book, which I thought was a charming touch.

Ravinder Bhogal by Rahul Arora, CC BY 3.0

Lenny Henry was in the restaurant that night. John reminded me that we had seen him in person before, when he performed at one of our Keele Balls during our sabbatical year. I was able to claim a far more recent sighting – in May when Janie and I went to see Lenny Henry’s excellent one-man play, August In England.

As always with John, the evening flew by and on this occasion we found ourselves the last people in the restaurant. We realised once we spotted that the staff were oh-so-discreetly clearing up around us!

Gresham Society Visit To The Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court, 14 September 2023

The building “set back” with a turret in the above picture is the original Tudor-period covered tennis court at Hampton Court Palace, with several walls remaining, one of which is part of the current, Stuart-period covered court, which is on the site of the original uncovered court.

(Thanks to Janie for most of the pictures and all the videos)

Whose idea was it to have a real tennis-themed event at Hampton Court? As the event proved to be a great success, Tim Connell is claiming full responsibility for the idea. Meanwhile, I am claiming at least to have inspired the idea with my lockdown webinar, Tennis Around The Time Of Thomas Gresham, in 2020.

Full credit to Tim for the timing of the event – he insisted that we try to find a sweet spot between the summer holidays and the weather turning autumnal. A hostage to fortune, perhaps, but the timing worked brilliantly, as we were blessed with a sunny but not too hot afternoon for the event.

The good people at the Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court (RTCHC) were incredibly helpful in allowing us to hold the event and facilitating same, from the initial conversation I had about it with Lesley Ronaldson the previous autumn right through to the day itself. Thanks to all named below plus Nick Wood, the RTCHC Head Professional, without whose blessing none of this would have been possible.

The History Of The Court & Explaining The Game, David Best, Lesley Ronaldson & Jack Josephs

Yours truly introducing David Best

Lesley very kindly suggested that David Best, who wrote THE book on the history of the Royal Tennis Court, speak to our group on that topic. David even more kindly agreed to speak and also to join in our brief “exhibition” to demonstrate the game.

Lesley Ronaldson, a Real Tennis Hall of Famer in her own right, assisted David’s history talk…

…while Lesley also assisted Jack Joseph’s explanation of the game in all its facets

RTCHC’s junior professional, Jack Josephs, did most of the game explaining. Two years ago, when I first met Jack at Middlesex University’s court, he was a complete newbie!

Both Lesley and Jack talked a lot of balls…I mean, talked a lot ABOUT balls

After hearing about it, Gresham Society members and guests were invited to have a go. Surprisingly, many tried…

Unsurprisingly, few succeeded. It is a fiendishly difficult game, even for moderately talented regular enthusiasts. For neophytes it is even harder than that.

Basil’s first ever hit of a Real Tennis ball skimmed beautifully over the net. The second did not – Basil claims that it was poorly delivered.

Tim & Bobbie; “close but no cigar” in the matter of hitting the ball over the net

Janie’s technique looks wanting, but she landed chases with each of her goes

Then a short exhibition, during which David Best and I, ably assisted by a professional on each side – thank you Jack & thank you Scott Blaber – demonstrated through a short match how it should and shouldn’t be done. Lesley supplied the commentary, as did the players when at the service end.

Janie shot very little video of the exhibition match…”thank goodness” I hear many readers cry…but here is a short snippet to give you an idea:

If you want to see what the game looks like at the highest level, the following six minute reel of highlights shows the very top professionals at play:

Tea & Cake

Then, for the Gresham Society visitors and their guests it was time for tea and cake. In truth I hadn’t realised, when the RTCHC people said that they would lay on tea and cake, that “Lesley Ronaldson’s home made cake” is what they meant.

Had I known that, I wouldn’t have teased Lesley by e-mail a couple of days before with the words:

No pressure, but my wife, Janie, will be judging the whole event on her piece of cake. 

Former US Open Champions / World Championship Finalists are not deterred such entreaties. As we know, champions adjust and pressure is a privilege.

Lesley “pulled off a blinder” in the matter of the home made cakes, to such an extent that Janie was too busy enjoying the tea break to photograph same until most of the sweet delicacies had been well and truly devoured.

The weather was simply glorious at that stage of the afternoon, allowing the visitors to enjoy the wonderful tea and cakes in the garden – hence the barren look of the dining room in the above photo.

The visitors took some marshalling back into the dedans gallery for the final part of the visit, a performance symposium, led by yours truly, on the topic of “Hampton Court, Tennis, Gresham, Music & Drama”.

Click here or below for a link to the full transcript, which actually extends to something like 90-100 minutes if it was all used at the same event – we used about 60 minutes of the material.

The performance was ably supported by Jack Carter and Reuben Ard, tennis-playing music graduate / research students from Middlesex University Real Tennis Club and a couple of guest appearances from Tim and Pilar Connell. Also providing praiseworthy support were the visitors, most of whom sang along with the help of their scripts/song sheets. Click here for a pdf of those extracts.

I was particularly impressed that people sang along so well to “In Darkness Let Me Paint It Black” – see final embed below.

Janie got busy with the video app on her phone during the performances, so several highlights and lowlights were recorded. Below only the highlights as YouTube embeds.

I would recommend, if you were to choose only one highlight, Reuben Ard’s performance of William Byrd’s Earl of Salisbury Pavan, which was really quite magical performed in that wonderful setting on “electric virginals”:

Word is, most if not all of the visitors thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon at Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court. Thanks again to our hosts, who made us feel so welcome and steered the event to sweet success.

A Day At Radlett Watching One Day Cricket With “Pinner Pear Fran” & “Yorkshire Simon”, 22 August 2023

Betwixt some noisy and frenetic visits to Lord’s for “The Hundred”, a quiet day of relaxed, county cricket at Radlett, as Middlesex were playing Yorkshire in the one day cup (50 overs tournament).

Long in the planning, this one. Yorkshire Simon had been waiting a long time for any Yorkshire cricket to visit Middlesex, so as soon as this fixture was announced Simon wondered if we might be able to keep this date free.

Attempts to watch out-ground cricket with Fran and Simon have often ended up soggy affairs. The lowest (or at least wettest) ebb being at Uxbridge six years ago – click here or below:

Ironically, given how very wet late July and August turned out to be in 2023, this particular day at Radlett was glorious sunshine made pleasant by kind smatterings of high cloud.

To some extent it felt like “a gathering of the clan”, as well as a gathering with Fran, as Janie and I ran into so many of the Middlesex supporting stalwarts, some of whom we hadn’t seen for ages.

In truth the cricket match was somewhat of a donkey derby – the last match for the qualifying group with both Middlesex and Yorkshire long since out of contention. But as it happens Middlesex dominated the match and for once chased down a decent-looking total without fuss.

Yorkshire Simon feigns uninterest while Ged observes rare Middlesex dominance

After chatting for a while after stumps, we wended our way home while the squad and stalwarts decompressed at the end of an unsuccessful campaign but a successful day.

An Afternoon & Evening At Lord’s Watching The Hundred & The Rain With Colin “Olaf the Buddhist Viking” Stutt, 8 August 2023

Everything that needs to be said about a most enjoyable afternoon and evening at Lord’s with Colin is contained in the headline and my write up for the King Cricket website – click here or below:

In the unlikely event that misfortune ever befalls the King Cricket website, please click here for a scrape thereof.

Three And A Half Days At Lord’s For The Second Ashes Test, 29 June to 2 July 2023

Opposite the pavilion – it’s the Lord’s equivalent of our Heavy Rollers Edgbaston strategy, where we normally sit as far away from the Eric Hollies Stand as possible

Day Two: Thursday 29 June 2023

I had planned to spend the whole of Days Two and Three at Lord’s, before taking guests on Day Four. As it turned out, following the wonderful trip Janie and I took to Eastbourne earlier in the week, I had a few things to sort out on the Thursday morning and didn’t get to Lord’s until about 2:15, by which time England had started to make a better fist of the match.

More in hope than expectation, I asked the friendly stewards in the pavilion if there was anything going in there. “Not really”, they said, “there might be the odd seat at the Allen Stand end, but you’ll probably get a better seat in the members’ overflow area”. That area was located just beside the sightscreens at the Nursery end, being seats roughly the equivalent to pavilion terrace ones but on the other side.

That seemed like a good idea to me and off I went. The view I achieved is depicted in the headline picture. I made a mental note to head for a similar location the next day without bothering the pavilion stewards.

I also took a selfie.

I chatted a bit with the members around me. A youngish man (by MCC standards) was devouring a whippy ice cream (a 99) when I arrived and soon went off to get a double-whippy (is that one named a 198, my arithmetical mind wonders?). Soon after that, he decided to move elsewhere. During that short period, he shed his membership pass twice – the first time being saved by a kindly gentleman sitting behind him and the second time saved by me. Perhaps it was embarrassment that drove him away.

But others around me were also suitably into the cricket, informed and friendly, making for a pleasant afternoon/early evening.

England were doing well but perhaps I put the kybosh on the team by wandering around to the other side in search of a slightly different view and strategic placement for a swift exit before stumps, as wickets fell just as England seemed to be taking control.

Day Three: Friday 30 June 2023

I did indeed head to the same spot again for Day Three, where there were some different people with whom to share the pain. Mostly members, but a few refugees from public areas where, for one reason or another, they were unhappy with their environment.

A very pleasant visiting couple from Yorkshire shared thoughts about the differences between Lord’s and Headingley. I suspect they had a super time the following week when they went to the third test at their home ground.

The gentleman next to me was from Dorset – although I suspected not originally from there – so it came as a bit of a surprise when it transpired that the “Yorkshireman” turned out to be a Lancastrian by origin, as did the Dorset (yes, a person from Dorset is supposed to be known as “a Dorset”); indeed both from The Fylde with mutual friends from school. Only at Lord’s.

I moved on just before tea, hoping to meet up with Alistair Robson and others from the circle surrounding the Doctors Of Leamington.

Needless to say, the normally thriving Champagne Bar was dead quiet in the absence of tennis this year.

After failing to find Alistair about 10 minutes into the tea break, I thought I might find a seat in the pavilion for the final session, which indeed I did. A gentleman from “Death Row” had the good manners to announce that he was going home at tea time, so I took root on his seat, reducing the average age on that row by some significant amount, I shouldn’t wonder. It was nice to see some Ashes cricket from there without actually joining the death row cohort just yet.

Janie joined me at the flat for the later part of the evening and a Four Seasons Chinese meal, as we had both eaten sparsely earlier that day.

Day Four: Saturday 1 July 2023, With Janie, Ian Theodoreson and Sally

The Warner Stand Mezzanine

Last season’s visit to Lord’s with Ian and Sally for the ODI had proved a great success…

…so I was delighted when I learnt that there were some wheelchair access places still available for the Saturday, which was the day Janie was joining me and is a day that makes parking a whole lot easier in Ian and Sally’s…indeed everybody’s…circumstances.

Game on.

I was on picnic duty and had ordered bagels from Papa Joe (Haminados), which meant an early start and a pleasing constitutional before driving to Maida Vale for Lord’s.

Janie and I got to Lord’s a bit earlier than Ian and Sally, just to make sure the arrangements were in place, but we needn’t have worried. As one of the stewards on that level explained, “we never quite know exactly how many people are going to want to sit with each wheelchair guest, but we always find a way”.

Ian and Sally appeared to know more people there that day than we did, although we did run in to Alan and Alex Curtis.

The cricket was a mixture of enthralling and baffling at times; mostly the former.

Me and Ian enthralled. Sally resting her eyes ever so slightly.

As always with such occasions, the day flew by. England were in a poor position at the start of the day, then an improved one, then by the end of the day a poor one again. But England still had a chance.

Day Five: Sunday 2 July 2023

Ian Ward interviewing the wounded (Nathan) Lyon

At the end of Day two, I realised the game was likely to spill into the fifth day, so took the precaution of securing a guest seat for Janie, so we could see the end of the match.

We headed for the Lower Tavern (not to be confused with the Tavern Concourse, which was out of bounds to members). Very happy with our seats, we were.

Before the start of play, we chatted with Westy and Brigitte who were seated nearby. Also John Franklin (from Moreton) and his family.

A very different vibe to the crowd on Day Five. We had some younger people sitting around us, plus an older Bajan gentleman named Charles whose face I recognised but with whom I had not spoken before. We chatted with him quite a lot throughout the remainder of the match, as did the young fellows sitting next to him.

The young fellows, along with most of the crowd, were pretty vocal once Jonny Bairstow was out by a form of stumping that many, me included, consider an unsporting (albeit legitimate) mode of dismissal.

Then, once Ben Stokes unleashed an explosive (although in the event insufficient) attack with the bat, it all got very exciting. On one occasion, the young men behind us crashed into each other while leaping with joy, sending a small shower of wine our way, for which they didn’t stop apologising for the rest of the afternoon. They even wanted to pay our dry cleaning bill – an offer which we declined.

It doesn’t get much wetter…I mean better…than this

Once the foreseeable ending became inevitable, Janie and I made a polite exit to avoid the crush at the gate.

We’d had tremendous entertainment that day – indeed the whole match. So disappointing that England came off second best, but in truth England had performed second best on balance, for more of the match than the Aussies.

Here’s a link to the scorecard and all the Cricinfo resources.

A very memorable few days, that’s for sure.