I recall very little about this two-day visit. Perhaps it was the excitement of the Olympic summer that made this match pale, because looking at the scorecard the match was an absolute cracker:
I can’t even work out who joined me on the Friday; I think Janie came with me both days in the end. I can only find one e-mail, to Ian Theodoreson, quite late in the day, explaining that I had clean forgotten to sort out this match in all the excitement. He had to decline.
I recall arranging to meet Heinrich Groenewald and perhaps one or two others from his entourage during intervals, so I guess they had sorted themselves out with tickets way ahead. I know Janie was with me for those gatherings, which is one of the reasons I’m coming round to the idea that she joined me for both days that time.
I vaguely recall sitting in the Edrich Upper (or perhaps the Compton Upper) with Janie for this match. I think this might have been one of the occasions we had our ears bent by a pair of former Reuters journalists, who told us exactly the same old stories the second time as they had a year or two earlier, without twigging that we had sat next to them and heard their stories before. But whether this match was the first time or the second time we endured that pair I cannot recall. I think the second time…
But what a match (the 2012 one). Bitterly disappointing for England that they couldn’t quite turn things round and level the series, but on balance I think South Africa were the stronger side (just) at that time.
Yup, I blame the London 2012 Olympics for suppressing most of my memory of this one; unusually blank for me, this.
I don’t normally go for adaptations of my favourite novels, but something told me this would be well worth seeing and also that Janie would like it. I was right on both counts. It was probably down to the fact that Simon Stephens was adapting it and also the stellar-looking cast and creatives boasted.
It was a fabulous evening of theatre. This adaptation deserved the plaudits it received in the press and the many transfers and re-runs that have followed.
From our point of view, this was a cracking night at the theatre. It was also darned close to the 20th anniversary of our very first date, in August 1992, which happened to be at the Cottesloe. There’s cute for you.
Strolling and snapping in the park before the hockey
Janie and I were fortunate (or skilled) enough to get three sets of tickets in our Olympic Games application; badminton, tennis and hockey. We were thrilled with that. Add to it a day at the Paralympic games a few weeks later and that makes four really memorable days.
Our day at the Olympic Park to see women’s hockey was our only opportunity to see the park itself, so we needed no further invitation than the suggestion in the spectator guide that we ensure we arrive at the park plenty early. We indeed wanted a good amount of time to take in the atmosphere and enjoy a whole day.
We timed our journey and arrival to be outside any rush hours (business or Olympic) but early enough for a good stroll around the park before our afternoon of hockey started (at lunchtime).
Security, the stewarding, the atmosphere around the park was all wonderful, as was widely reported at the time. We’d had great experiences at Wembley Arena (badminton) and Wimbledon (tennis) by then, so expected nothing less. But all of that character together with the sheer size and scale of the park was something to behold and remember.
It was the second match, between South Korea and Belgium, that was especially memorable. Directly behind us, between the matches, had arrived a large contingent of Korean Buddhist monks. Had this been a cricket match in, say, the Eric Hollies Stand at Edgbaston, I would be talking about a bunch of beer-swilling Brummies in fancy dress, looking vaguely like monks.
But this was a sizeable posse of real Buddhist monks, with South Korean flags and prayer drums. As the game commenced they started to chant, “Dae Han Min Guk” very slowly and then beat out this phrase as five beats on their prayer drums.
Now there are several places where you can read about and see video of Korean soccer crowds making this chant rather rapidly – click here for but one (quite good) example – or alternatively try clicking here for a more percussive but less sporty outburst – but I cannot find examples anywhere of monks dispensing this chant and rhythm in a dignified, Buddhist stylee. So you’ll just have to take my word for it that the monks slow, profound version was an amazing, hypnotic sound.
So, naturally, Janie and I started joining in with the monks. Soon lots of people were joining in. Even children waving Belgian flags started joining in, only to meet reproach from their parents and then, in some cases, to ignore the reproach and continue to join in anyway. You get the idea.
We strolled a little more after the matches – we didn’t really want our day to end, but it was purposeful strolling really towards the best exit for our journey home. As was the way for just those few weeks of that summer, there was a friendly atmosphere amongst strangers on the tube home.
This was a really super day. When we were applying for tickets, Janie and I debated long and hard about which tennis slot to attempt. I favoured No. 1 Court, as I thought it would improve our chance of success. But Janie’s theory was that she was only interested in Centre Court, as it is the only covered court and she wanted to be assured of play if we did secure tickets.
Thus we applied for quarter finals day on centre court – thus we were successful in our application.
Janie took responsibility for the sumptuous picnic and I planned the journey. We set off good and early to avoid the worst of the crowds and take in some atmosphere on arrival. I guess it was a strange mix of regular Wimbledon and London 2012 atmosphere for this tournament – but that’s “strange in a good way”.
We were treated to four quarter-finals; two women’s singles and two men’s singles:
the first match we saw was Victoria Azarenka beating Angelique Kerber, the last match of the day we saw Maria Sharapova beat Kim Clijsters – click here for women’s singles details;
between those matches, in the men’s singles, we saw Roger Federer beat John Isner and then Novak Djokovic beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – click here for the men’s singles details.
It was a fabulous day of tennis.
A rather strange American man was sitting next to us, who kept saying “that’s amazing…that’s incredible” whenever one of the players won a point with a good shot or when there was a good rally…which really was quite often. It turned out that the man is a huge tennis fan and goes a lot, so he shouldn’t be quite so continuously astounded by good play in my view, but there you are.
Janie realised that she had a real taste for Wimbledon, so picked up instructions for applying for forms in the Wimbledon ballot, which she has done each year since 2012 with (at the time of writing, in 2016) remarkable success, getting good No. 1 Court tickets two years out of those four. A small but significant Olympic legacy for us.
This was the first of our four Olympic/Paralympic visits and it was very early in the games, so we were very excited ahead of this event. In truth, we were excited ahead of each of our visits.
Although it was an evening event, it was a Monday so we made a long weekend of it, taking the day off. We played tennis in the morning and goodness knows what we did with the rest of the day – I don’t think we faffed around most of the day planning our evening – maybe we did.
We set off good and early to be sure of avoiding the rush hour and no crush at the Arena, but we needn’t have worried about that; the journey to the event was very straightforward.
In truth, badminton is not the most watchable sport I have ever seen. There were three matches being played simultaneously and/but we (all spectators) had a much better view of one match than the other two. This can be a bit confusing and the crowd roar from those close to another table is a bit off-putting to the spectators – goodness knows how the players concentrate – presumably they are used to it.
The following evening, there was a big hoo-ha about womens doubles pairs not giving of there all, which is covered in the above link and which the BBC reported here. That controversy gave us a fair bit of “we were there the night before the scandal” talking point kudos.
Badminton is a hugely skillful game and I’m glad we went to see it. But in truth, sitting indoors (it was clammy) and with several matches going on at the same time, it is not hugely compelling, so I wouldn’t do this one again.
And by gosh Wembley Arena looks tired now – it had been a while since my last visit. Better for gigs than for sports, I’d say. I planned a clever route home to avoid most of the crowds, which worked pretty well.
In retrospect, I’m glad we went to this event first, as we enjoyed it, but for sure our Olympic experience got better after this. We might have been a bit disappointed by this event had we been to Wimbledon and/or the Olympic Park first.
…this evening at the theatre seemed remarkably sedate and incident free.
We are fans of Joe Penhall’s writing – in particular we thought Blue/Orange was a cracking good play. This one, with a stellar cast at the Royal Court, sounded intriguing.
The conceit of the play is the idea that there is a new procedure that enables the man, rather than the woman, to carry a baby through pregnancy and birth.
Below you can see the trailer:
The idea does have lots of room for comedy, but in truth we found it rather obvious comedy and thought the piece was a little underwhelming.
It was well received by the audience our night, not least my friend John from the gym who was sitting near us.
This was an unusual visit to Richmond and the Orange Tree Theatre in many ways.
For a start, unusually, it was on a Friday. Following one or two “close shaves” after work on Friday evenings, Janie and I normally eschewed places like Richmond for theatre on a Friday.
But this was an interesting looking play on a short run, we had already arranged a theatre visit for the Saturday, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to take the afternoon off, visit mum at Nightingale that Friday afternoon and drive on to Richmond. Janie arranged to go to Richmond by cab and kindly volunteered to drive back to the house after dinner.
It was just before the start of the 2012 London Olympics and I recall that there were lots of “cops out and running about” in London at that time. I had a police escort almost all the way from Clapham to Richmond station – I was pretty sure that cop car had decided to follow me personally when it followed me, after the south circular, along my idiosyncratic route into Richmond.
I even recall mentioning the following to Janie when she got to the Orange Tree. We decided that the whole force was on visibility alert for the Olympics with not too much real policing to do.
Janie and I had dinner at Don Fernandos, then went and retrieved Nobby from the Richmond Station car park.
Janie, with Nobby, at his last resting place a couple of years later, not Richmond Station
Janie hadn’t driven Nobby for a while, so started out a bit slowly/cautiously, sensibly reacquainting herself with the feel of that car.
Very soon after we set off I realised that we were being followed by police again – a different car/pairing of officers. This police car pulled Janie over on the north side of Kew Bridge.
“Why have you stopped me?” asked Janie, wondering what she might have done wrong.
“You were driving suspiciously slowly and cautiously”, said the male officer.
“I don’t drive this car all that often,” said Janie, “so naturally I was being cautious at first…I am insured to drive this car”, said Janie.
“We know that, Miss…Wormlington?” said the female officer.
Janie was then questioned as to where we were coming from and going to, then the male officer asked her if she had been drinking.
“I had one small glass of wine with my food”, said Janie, which was absolutely true.
The policeman then breathalysed Janie, pursuing a line of statements and half-questions which indicated, to me, that he was pretty much “expecting” to see a positive test.
While we were waiting, Janie tried to break the ice with the two of them by telling them about the play we had just seen. The female officer seemed interested and relatively friendly, the male officer merely seemed to be preparing himself to read Janie her rights, explaining what the different indications on the breathalyser would mean.
After what seemed like ages, the male officer announced the result of the test; it indicated that Janie had some alcohol in her breath but it was below the warning line and some way below the legal limit.
The policeman couldn’t disguise his obvious disappointment as he announced the result. He then “warned” Janie to be careful on the rest of her way home, because, if she was in fact over the limit but had merely “got lucky” because of the timing of her test, she might get stopped again and might register a positive breathalyser test later.
Janie restated the fact that she had taken a little more than half a glass of wine with her dinner more than an hour ago.
I couldn’t resist asking the officer why he was warning her, if her breathalyser was below the warning line.
The male officer then explained to me, in very convoluted terms, that he wasn’t officially warning Janie, because her reading was below the official warning level, but he was informally warning her that if she was in fact over the limit she should nevertheless not drive.
It seemed to me, on that basis, that the lines between “over the limit – you’re nicked”, “warning zone – you are dangerously close to the limit” and “below the limit – be on your way” were…to that particular policeman…to say the least…mottled.
We treated the Mainelli family to this concert. Xenia was learning the harp at school at that time.
In any case, it looked like a lovely concert, which indeed it was.
Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for this concert. For some reason the on-line resource says that the first piece was a Handel arrangement – I’m pretty sure it was the Concerto in D minor by Allesandro Marcello, as stated in the programme.
We met and ate in the Wigmore Hall restaurant before the performance – I think possibly taking desert/coffee/drinks at our table during the interval as well.
To get a feel for what this concert sounded like, here is a video of Xavier de Maistre performing Recuerdos de la Alhambra, by Francisco Tárrega, which I recall was a bit of a highlight at our concert.
I think everyone in our party had a jolly good time – the eating, drinking, chatting and of course the music.
This seemed like a wonderful idea – improvised music to please lovers of jazz and contemporary music, after the Evelyn Glennie concert, in the bar/restaurant.
It didn’t attract much of a crowd if I remember correctly.
We enjoyed our cold compilations and some wine…
…more than we enjoyed the music, which we found surprisingly bland – not jazzy in the way we thought it might be.
We’re all for the Wigmore Hall experimenting and the late night format is one of the more interesting experiments, although they are still struggling to find a formula that works.
But we have booked two more Wigmore Lates this year (as I write in 2018), both of which look right up our street, so we really hope the idea will find its feet eventually.
Anyway, below is the running order for the concert we heard on 22 June 2012:
