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.

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!

Dinner At Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai With John & Mandy White, 23 June 2023

The plan was for me, John, Janie and Mandy to meet up with Pady Jalali, the latter visiting from the USA, for an evening meal. John, Pady and I were three of the four Keele Students’ Union sabbaticals in 1984/85.

Pady Jalali when I last visited her in the USA…a few years ago

But plans sometimes go awry and Pady had to postpone her visit to England due to injury.

Still, Janie and I had gone to all of that trouble to research a suitable restaurant…

…and we very much enjoy getting together with John & Mandy anyway…

…so the evening went ahead.

What a great place Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai turns out to be. Great food, fabulous service and excellent ambiance. Just what we like.

This is the Trip Advisor link to Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai.

Janie captures us preparing to insert crab into mangalore buns

John has a sneaky glug of wine while the rest of us admire the enormous dosa

Pontificating Nicaragua or discussing the bill? You, dear reader, may decide.

We took loads of photographs of one meal. I have more photos from this one meal than I have from the whole of my time at Keele. C’est la vie.

Here and below is a link to all the photos.

We hope Pady will be able to reschedule her visit in the not too distant future, which will give us an excuse/opportunity to do something like this again soon.

Blooming Heck I Was Out A Lot That Week, 23 to 26 May 2023

Thanks to David Wellbrook for the above picture of me, him & Rohan Candappa

Tuesday 23 May – Brasserie Zédel With Wellbrook & Candappa

I’ve known Rohan Candappa & David Wellbrook for very nearly 50 years now. Rohan is very good at keeping in touch and occasionally just saying, “let’s meet” and/or “there’s something I want to chat through with you fellas”.

We responded to the call. David booked Brasserie Zédel, a favourite place of his. As it happens, I had wanted to try the place for some time, ever since I discovered that my grandfather, Lew Marcus, worked there for decades as a barber in the Regent Palace Hotel, rising to the giddy heights of manager I am told:

Lew’s older brother Max no doubt played music there on occasions, although David de Groot’s Piccadilly Hotel Orchestra was his main gig.

The interior is like an Art Deco fantasy. Here’s a link to someone else’s photo of the glitz.

Anyway, we were there to chew the fat, catch up and the like. I think I have persuaded Rohan and David to provide some “Fifty Years Ago” reflections on the opening overs of our Alleyn’s School career, as I remember so little about the very early days and didn’t start my diary until January 1974.

Rohan wanted to discuss his thoughts on positive proposals following his extensive fundraising around mental health, not least reframing the language used around that subject.

It became a little difficult to have profound conversation once the jazz trio got started. With two of them sporting flat caps, I thought they might name themselves “Jazz & Dave”.

Always good to catch up with those two. Good food & drink at that place too.

Wednesday 24 May – Kapara With John White

My turn to choose, John’s turn to pay. I Googled for new restaurants that are getting rave reviews and soon landed on Kapara, ironically located just across the way from the slightly crazy Manette Street Shule where my father’s family hung out in the 1920s.

The service was sweet and attentive (apart from one lad who kept approaching our table with other table’s dishes) and the food excellent.

They are big on small plates there, which made the tasting menu a sensible way to try the place out.

This is a link to a similar set menu to the one we ate. Ours had bream rather than snapper and didn’t have the soup.

Always great to catch up with John – it had been a while so we had a bit of catching up to do. But we shall be seeing each other again within the month, along with “the girls” and Pady. Part of our catching up comprised planning that gathering.

Thursday 25 May – Lord’s For Sunrisers v South East Stars & Middlesex v Surrey, With Janie

Cullen Bowls To The Curran Brothers

Our plan, which more or less worked, was to get to Lord’s around 15:00 and watch as much of the double-header as took our fancy. The weather smiled on us, for sure, so we took root in Janie’s favourite place, the pavilion sun deck.

In truth, the afternoon women’s game, between the Sunrisers and South East Stars, was somewhat of a damp squib, both in terms of the cricket and also the atmosphere…or lack thereof. Midweek afternoon games work great when youngsters are off school. In term time, the timing virtually guaranteed a tiny crowd before the evening.

A reasonable number of member stalwarts (MCC and MCCC) turned up for both matches, but there was almost no atmosphere for the women’s match, which is a shame.

There was a decent (but not full) crowd for the Middlesex v Surrey fixture.

Anyway, we were enjoying ourselves. But the Surrey score batting first seemed high and the chill of the evening was starting to tell, so we decided to go home and watch the almost inevitable ending of the match on TV.

You probably don’t want to see the scorecards but here they are anyway:

Sunrisers v South East Stars

Middlesex v Surrey

Friday 26 May – Dedanists v Jesters At The Queen’s Club

I was delighted to be selected again to represent The Dedanists in this absolutely crucial real tennis fixture with The Jesters.

If anyone from Alleyn’s School is still reading at this juncture, you might be interested to know that the very first Jesters fixture was in late 1928 – a Rugby Fives match between the nascent Jesters and Alleyn Old Boys.

Actually, in truth, this is one of those fixtures where half the people playing are members of both clubs and half the time it’s hard to work out who is representing which club. Indeed on this occasion I found myself (together with Simon Cripps) playing for the Dedanists but playing against our team captain, Martin Village, who paired up with Anton Eisdell.

I’m glad to say I managed to maintain a winning streak in the matter of match play in Dedanists fixtures at Queen’s, having recently lost my Lowenthal Trophy crown there to, amongst others, Mr Eisdell. The piece linked here and below also describes this Jesters fixture from last year.

It was a thoroughly delightful afternoon and evening – my first (but hopefully not last) opportunity to partner Simon Cripps – who kept getting me out of trouble and who in truth was the key to our success as a pair. Also an opportunity to meet and chat with lots of delightful and interesting people.

It also gave me the opportunity to check up on the progress of the seats I have booked for me and Janie to enjoy the Wednesday of Queen’s this year.

Ah yes, coming on nicely.

A Bratish Evening With John White: The Umbrella Workshop & BRAT Restaurant, 21 February 2021

It was John’s turn to choose and my turn to pay. We had arranged the date some weeks before, so when the Sunday came around and I still hadn’t received joining instructions from John, I wondered – by SMS in John’s direction – whether the evening was still on.

Leave it with me…

…said John, followed not all that long after by a message that read:

Brat.

A bit harsh on my character, I thought. I was only trying, politely, to confirm the arrangements.

But John didn’t mean “brat” as an assessment of my character, he meant BRAT Restaurant in Shoreditch, a high-class Basque food place.

John’s follow up messages clarified the arrangements and suggested that we meet an hour before the restaurant booking, as he had secured a cocktail booking at The Umbrella Workshop, an interesting cross between a shop, a tastings venue and a bar, hidden away in an old workshop alley not far from BRAT.

The Umbrella Project

Here’s John trying to look like a serious cocktail drinker in The Umbrella Workshop

I’m hopeless with pre-meal drinks these days, so I went for a soft version

Superb cocktails, both the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic ones. I’d quite like to try the alcoholic cocktails there, perhaps one day after taking some food without any other form of alcohol.

I did taste John’s cocktail – an exotic and really quite amazing variation on an old fashioned. This place really does, seriously do cocktails. It is very small and very friendly. Further, if you like ska, rock steady and reggae, then the play list will be for you.

The bar: super-well stacked with stuff

Highly recommended. You have to book – it’s technically a tasting venue so you can only enter by pre-arrangement. Click here for their website – multiple venues.

BRAT

Then on to BRAT. Super place, located above the Smoking Goat. Here is a link to the sample menu, which is similar to the menu we saw on our evening there.

The place is renowned for its large sharing turbot dish, but we eschewed that one in favour of trying several different things. The helpful waitress recommended four starters and two mains plus sides to share, which was spot on.

We started with:

  • Fresh Chorizo
  • Spider Crab Toast
  • Young Leeks, Walnut & Fresh Cheese
  • Velvet Crab Soup

I cannot eat walnuts, but John really fancied the leek & walnut dish. Soup doesn’t share easily, so we agreed to go for two sharing options plus a bespoke starter each.

For mains and sides, we had:

  • Brill ‘pil-pil’ with Cockles
  • John Dory
  • Smoked Potatoes;
  • Wood Roasted Greens.

All of the above dishes were amazingly good. John and I debated at length whether we thought the brill or the John Dory the better dish. Both were exquisite and quite different in style. The brill dish slightly spicy, the John Dory more citrus-tangy.

The headline photo shows John with the spider crab toast.

Here’s me attacking the velvet crab soup

We also shared a bottle of Basque wine: Gorrondona, Txakoli de Getaria, Pais Basco, Spain 2020. It complemented the food well.

Here’s the place: BRAT

We had a great evening. Well chosen John. BRAT.

Pass Time With Good Company, With “All Good Sports” For A Few Days, Mid October 2022

Rohan “Candy” Candappa & David Wellbrook

Violets & Fatt Pundit With Mark Ellicott, Simon Jacobs & John White, 17 October 2022

For some reason we were all being too grown up to take photos, but this was a special get together reuniting people who had all known each other at Keele for one reason or another.

I had re-engaged by e-mail with Mark Ellicott during the latter stages of the pandemic while writing my “Forty Years On” series, not least to compare notes over Princess Margaret debacles, a cricket match for which I got picked for the craziest of Ellicott-induced reasons and more recently some exchanges over playlists (or, as we used to call them, mix tapes) from 1982.

Mark Ellicott (right), next to Neil Baldwin of Marvellous fame, 2016

In particular the musical aspects intrigued Simon Jacobs, who wondered out loud to me why I hadn’t set up a get-together with Mark.

Simon, in 2019, trying to make a silk purse out of my (then) sow’s ear voice

Actually, John said something similar when I shared my Mark correspondence with him when we met up in the summer. I had no excuse, so I felt duty bound to act.

John questioning my judgement with his eyes and body language, August 2022

I booked a table at Fatt Pundit in Berwick Street and chose Violet’s as a suitable close-by bar for us to meet for a pre-dinner drink.

I played tennis at Lord’s – a draw at singles seeing as you were going to ask – before hot-footing it (via the flat) to Soho.

I arrived at Violet’s, grabbing a table – just inside but suitably quasi-open to the street – about five minutes before Simon arrived. From that vantage point, we observed Mark walk straight past us and then four or five minutes later he returned having got as confused as everyone else by the Berwick Street door-numbering. John arrived fashionably but not ridiculously last.

We had a good chat and a drink at Violet’s before heading a block or two up the road to Fatt Pundit, where the food was excellent and the chat got even better.

A few comedy moments with the sweet waitress whose high-pitched voice is possibly in a register that none of us, given our advancing years, could hear. But the menu was pretty-much self-explanatory, so a mixture of sign language, reading the menu and common sense allowed us to order a cracking good meal.

It was a really enjoyable four-way catch up.

Goldmine With Rohan Candappa & David Wellbrook, 18 October 2022

This gathering was originally conceived in Soho when Rohan and I met for dim sum a couple of months ago:

It was basically a “barbeque meats challenge” based on my assertion that the Queensway specialists therein, especially Goldmine, are better than those in Chinatown.

It turned into a small-scale Alleyn’s School alum thing. David Wellbrook, being Wellbrook, needed to join in the challenge, not least because Queensway is an alma mater of his where he attended the University of Romance (his wife used to live there when they were courting).

We tucked into plenty of barbeque meats, diverting briefly at the start and end of the lunchtime feast for some dim sum, just in the interests of science.

At school Rohan Candappa was always known as Candy, so it was with great mirth and merriment that David spotted “Candy World” across the street.

Rohan Candappa’s world

After lunch, we retreated to my flat where I showed the lads my centennial family relic, on what was, after all, its century day.

Hamsters v Dedanists At Hampton Court Palace, 20 October 2022

Almost everything that needs to be said about this match is contained in my match report on the Dedanists web site – here…or perhaps best to read it from the scrape here, scraped before the current piece drops down the running order.

For those who don’t like to click and/or who don’t want all the tennis detail – here is an extract:

“It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall,” said your intrepid reporter to Carl Snitcher, having braved the 3.5 mile high-pass journey from Notting to Primrose Hill in just over 35 minutes.

“There’s a bad moon on the rise,” agreed Carl, gnomically.

We arrived at a rain-soaked Hampton Court Palace in the nick of time; just as well, as your intemporal reporter was playing in the first rubber. Some might argue that our arrival was actually “worse than two”, but a more substantial discrepancy soon revealed itself; the marker’s sheet was showing a lesser handicap for the Dedanists than the sheet that James McDermott & I had been sent.

In order to avoid a major diplomatic incident, James & I acquiesced to the lesser handicap, yet still somehow contrived to win our rubber, albeit narrowly…

McDermott hitting, me watching

On finally staggering away from the court, your incognizant reporter picked up a message that the Prime Minister had resigned. “That’s the second Liz whose expiration has been announced while I was on the real tennis court in the space of six weeks”, I mused, having been informed of the late Queen’s demise by Tony Friend while I was on the Lord’s court.

I thought I might be the tidings-bringer this time, only to discover that most of the group had learnt the demise of Liz Truss some 45 minutes earlier.

Anyway, this was no time to ponder the fate of shambolic politicians – it was time to tuck into the pies before they too were to become a footnote in history. A positive footnote in the case of the pies of course – once again a delicious choice of
• Chicken Ham & Leek;
• Steak & Ale.

Bread and cheese (yes please) and two species of yummy desert that self-discipline allowed me to avoid, along with the jolly wines on offer…

Pictures by Tony Friend

There’s no better way to lift the spirits on a gloomy, worrisome day than a day of pastance with Dedanists and Hamsters. Symbolically, as the nation’s political shenanigans moved on to its new phase, the heavy clouds and rain of the morning had lifted to reveal a gorgeously bright, sunny evening as we all left.

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen”, said Carl, gnomically, as I dropped him home.

“Pass time with good company”, I replied.

A Short “Birthday Break” With John & Mandy White At Whatley Manor, 24 to 26 August 2022

Invited into the kitchen at Whatley Manor

For several months prior, we had eagerly awaited our joint birthday celebration trip. We had long since abandoned the idea of having a party for the joint 60th, deciding instead to celebrate, as we have done several times before, as a group of four.

Prequel: Dinner With John At Dai Chi, Soho, 11 August 2022

Every great epic movie or three has at least one prequel these days. In any case, John and I felt that we are so out of practice with fine dining, we simply owed it to ourselves and to the girls to have a rehearsal in London earlier in the month.

John eager for his grub at Dai Chi

Hence an evening at Dai Chi. I think John had seen this super review in the Guardian (or similar), as it was his turn to choose.

That miso aubergine and gooseberry dish was to die for…or to Dai Chi for I should say.

It was all so good

A very enjoyable evening indeed. Or, as we put it to the girls solemnly, “we had indeed done our boot camp training to prepare for the culinary trials to come later in the month”.

The First Afternoon & Evening At Whatley Manor, 24 August 2022

Whatley’s up, doc?

The girls had done a magnificent job of conspiring ahead of this trip. John and I knew that something…some things…were on their planning boards, but felt we owed it to them and to ourselves to just go with the flow.

As it turned out, the first “event” for me and John was a “surprise” visit to the spa, where we enjoyed a glass of wine in a hot tub prior to full body massages.

The hot tub had so many buttons and knobs it took us most of the half hour to work out how to operate the thing. Once we had sunk our glasses of wine and soaked in the tub for that much time, we were both a bit dazed and confused. John almost forgot his glasses and I almost forgot my flip-flops. Considering that neither of us had more than one or two incidentals about our person, that was a pretty high forgetfulness rate.

The massages were excellent (the place has a top notch spa) which got both of us into thoroughly relaxed mode.

But I was not so relaxed as simply to buy the idea that Whatley Manor is a 17th century building, as one of the receptionists had suggested. In fact the building is mostly 19th century and the “mock Tudor” extension is 20th century. Worse yet, the place was originally called Twatley Manor. Hats off to the marketing folk who thought that Whatley Manor would sell better as a name.

it’s a lovely manor, whatever it’s called and whenever it was built

John and I enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine after our massages while the girls were too polite to come and find us, but soon we were reunited and got ready for the “easy-peasy” Grey’s Brasserie meal we had arranged for the first night.

John went for steak & fat-frittes

Mandy & I both went for the pork. Mandy’s plate colour-co-ordinated with her rose wine

Janie went for the duck – it was all delicious grub, oh yes it was

In honour of my mate Philip The Bold, Duke of Burgundy, we treated ourselves to a bottle of Domaine Faiveley Mercurey La Framboisière 2019 that first night and jolly gluggable it was too.

John had begged Mandy not to arrange cake and “happy birthday singing” in a public place – thank goodness – so Mandy & Janie had conspired to arrange cake and an opportunity for “happy birthday singing” in a private place – in the living room mezzanine of John & Mandy’s suite:

Did we ask for this?

So symbolic – 60 illuminated by two candles

The cake was seriously yummy death by chocolate.

Day Two – During The Day, 25 August 2022

Blowing out my own candle

The chocolate cake desert had perhaps been overkill, as we had each been given a mini chocolate cake and candle which Janie and I enjoyed as a pre-breakfast treat the next morning.

Breakfast was of course excellent – we went full English that first morning – then we realised that the scheduled good weather for our trip was being interrupted by a couple of hours of drizzle and rain. I suggested that we defer our scheduled walk until that was over – about 12:30.

We walked from the hotel – across Easton Grey bridge (over the Avon) around to Foxley and then on to Malmesbury. I’ll let the photos tell the tale of this charming walk.

Easton Grey Bridge
Checking the cricket score from Old Trafford, not weather or directions
The local moofia came over to greet us
Then the Foxley longhorns let us know what they thought too
Foxley Church
John can see an excellent long cut back to the manor – Mandy and I talk him out of it.
A brush with an emu at a farm just outside Malmesbury
Alpaca and hen at the same farm
Outskirts of Malmesbury
The Old Bell Hotel, Malmesbury, possibly the oldest in England
Refreshments in the Old Bell

Then a wander around Malmesbury Abbey

We wandered around the town, thought about walking home, then called for a cab when we realised that we wanted to be fit and awake for our big dinner tonight.

The Big Dinner At Whatley Manor, 25 August 2022

Drinks before dinner

We won’t talk about John’s “poking himself between the eyes” incident before he came down to dinner, because that would be unkind, especially as he didn’t even need to confess to it given that his specs covered the tiny gash. I tried the concussion test on John, which he failed, but we concluded that he’d fail it under any circumstances, so that was OK.

After drinks in the lounge, head chef Ricki Weston (above) invited us into the kitchen for our first few nibbles and a chat.

Is that all?

John & I listening intently to the descriptions of the first two nibbles

Janie wandered deeper into the kitchen with her camera-phone

Then we sat down at table for the rest of the nibbles and the main dishes. At this juncture, it was out with the camera phones big time. We weren’t going to eat the hell out of this feast – oh no – we were going to photograph the hell out of it.

We also drank well. John treated himself to a glass of 2018 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru ‘Les Petits Clos’, Jean-Noel Gagnard, honouring my mate Philip The Bold to a greater extent than I might choose. Janie and I tried 2018 Rielsing Kabinett ‘Abtsberg’, Maximin Grunhaus as our white. Then the three of us who were not, like Mandy, sticking with Provencal rose, shared a bottle of Catalan wine – 2016 Priorat ‘Martinet Bru’, Mas Martinet.

We all staggered back to our rooms after a wonderful evening.

The Morning After And Home, 26 August 2022

We’d had a wonderful time. We were all suffering a little the next morning, having become unaccustomed to long evenings of eating and drinking.

We mostly went a bit lighter on breakfast, although John still went for bacon and black pudding, claiming it to be lighter than my cereal and yoghurt!

After breakfast and check out, we met up in the grounds and strolled around those before heading home.

OK, so birthdays are meaningless milestones of decay…

…but there’s nothing meaningless about enduring friendships. We’d had such a great time – it was so special to spend that much prime time celebrating the birthdays with close friends.

If you want to see all the pictures – trigger warning – there are more than 250 of them – the Flickr link here and below takes you to all of them:

Liberty Redux: Dinner At Zahter With John White, 10 February 2022

So many events postponed and cancelled before Christmas. Then Janie and I spent the Christmas period doing Crisis and stuff. Then, just around the time I was supposed to start doing nice stuff again, towards the end of January, I went down with the mildest of mild doses of Covid, requiring me to isolate again and cancel out my social engagements.

I was really looking forward to seeing John for the evening. He had chosen a new restaurant that has had rave reviews: Zahter. It read and sounded wonderful. Here’s a link to the website.

But so used to cancelation had I become, that, around 16:30, rather than simply looking forward to spending the evening with John, I became convinced that John would call any second to cancel the evening.

But no cancelation call was forthcoming so I off I set to Foubert’s Place; a location I hadn’t visited in years…OK, I’ve barely visited any Central London locations in years…but in the matter of this location, many, many years.

Here is a scrape of the menu the night we went.

The service was excellent – explaining the menu – from which we chose a selection of cold and hot mezes to share, rather than choosing any main dishes.

We tried:

  • Atom – a chilli yoghurt dip – a bit spicy for my taste these days;
  • Fava – a broadbean based dip very much to my taste;
  • Karides Guvec – tiger prawns in garlic butter;
  • Manti – meatballs which they kindly did for us without the walnuts.

After, as advised by Jay Rayner in the Guardian (in cahoots with countless others), we tried the baklava and agreed it was the best we’d ever tasted.

Did John look happy?

Did John look happy?

Smashing meal, it was.

A quick look at the Liberty clock on the way home, although it sadly was not an appropriate time to see the movement of the moving bits, unless we were willing to wait around for quarter of an hour or so…which we were not.

A super evening.

Taking A Liberty

Back To Life, Back To Reality… Almost, November 2021

Thanks to Giles Stogdon for the above photo.

At the beginning of November, life seemed to be almost getting back to normal. Lots of real tennis in convivial circumstances for a start,

Thursday 4 November 2021 – MCC Real Tennis Skills Night

For my sins, I have inherited, from John (“Johnny”) Whiting, the role of “match manager” for the popular skills nights at Lord’s. A few years ago, on hearing John and the professionals discussing the amount of organising the event needs on the night, I made the schoolboy error of offering to help next time. John saw the offer of help as an opportunity to step down; frankly, Johnny had done it for so many years, who can blame him?

Fortunately for me, Johnny had left comprehensive instructions and spreadsheets rendering the event almost fool-proof, as long as there are a couple of pros who know what they are doing to make the event run smoothly on the court, which, of course, it did.

My review of the event can be found on the MCC website through this link.

Alternatively, if anything ever goes awry with the MCC site link, a scrape of the report can be found here.

Naturally, skills night is as much an exercise in conviviality as it is an exercise in tennis court skills.

However, the assembled throng did have to listen to me waffling on about prizes and the like:

Thanks again to Giles Stogdon for this photo

A Week Of Tennis & Dining Out 6 to 12 November 2021

Quite a week. Janie and I went to Simon Jacobs place for dinner on 6th, where he cooked a delicious soup followed by chicken & mushroom pie. Lots of chat about music and that sort of thing. No photos on this occasion but there are photos from our previous visit, before lockdown 2.0:

I played a fair bit of tennis that week, not least a ridiculous 24 hours during which I played an hour of real tennis singles on the Tuesday evening, two hours of modern tennis on the Wednesday morning (part singles, part doubles), then a match, representing MCC against Middlesex University on the Wednesday, which ended up being another two-and-a-half hours of doubles. No wonder I served a couple of double-faults at the end of my second rubber on the Wednesday evening. Again, no photos from the match this time, but here’s a report with pictures and videos from the most recent equivalent home fixture – a couple of years ago:

On Thursday 11th, I went to the office for the first time (other than for a team meeting) in more than 18 months. Then I met up with Johnboy – initially in “Ye [sic] Old Mitre” (it really should read “þe Old Mitre”, you know) and then on to Chettinad Restaurant (my choice), as I thought a high-quality Indian meal would be a good way for us to “get back on the bike” of dining out. The food was very good.

It had been a really long while since John and I had met up for a simple restaurant meal – our last few gatherings had either been at homes, the four of us or the four of us at homes. This Yauatcha meal might have been the previous one:

Then on the Friday I was evicted from this year’s MCC singles tournament for feeble-handicappers in the Round of 16. I don’t think I’ll try tournament singles again. I love playing singles more than doubles on a friendly basis but doubles makes more sense at my level for matches and tournaments.

Tennis At All Sorts Of Levels, Performances Of Various Kinds & A Bit Of A Boost, 15 to 29 November 2021

On 15 November I spent a very jolly afternoon at The Queen’s Club watching real tennis played by real players; The British Open 2021.

I saw Neil Mackenzie take on Matthieu Sarlangue, then Zac Eadle challenge Nick Howell, then finally (and most excitingly, a five setter) Edmund Kay against Darren Long. Here is a link to the draw/results on the T&RA website. If by any chance that link doesn’t work, I have scraped the file to here.

I spent much of the afternoon & evening with my friend/adversary Graham Findlay with whom, by chance, I was due to battle with myself that very Thursday. I was thus able to reciprocate the coffee and cake Graham kindly treated me to at Queen’s with a light bite in The Lord’s Tavern after our battle on the Thursday, before I went home to perform my latest ThreadMash piece – click here or below.

Janie and I had an afternoon of adventure on the Friday, having our Covid vaccinations boosted (we don’t get out much these days – all such matters need noting).

Picture actually from first vax

Most people reported a sore arm and aches. We both got the aches but strangely my arm did not feel at all sore at the vaccination site and I was able to play lawners lefty-righty all weekend.

A quieter week followed. I continued to play some doubles in partnership with Andrew Hinds, in preparation for our R16 match – this we did Tuesday 16th and Monday 22 November.

Janie and I were due to see Lydia White…

… star in Little Women at The Park Theatre on the Thursday, but sadly our performance needed to be cancelled due to cast illness (not Lydia) that day, so we’ll miss the run now.

On Monday 29th, Andrew Hinds (depicted wooden-spoon-wielding, left, in the photo below) and I won a place in the quarter finals of the feeble-handicappers’ doubles tournament.

With thanks to Tony Friend for this photo From skills night

Due to competitor/court availability (or lack thereof) before the seasonal break, that means that we shall still be in the 2021/22 tournament into the New Year – the equivalent of getting to week two of a grand slam lawn tennis tournament – but in a very slightly less-elevated way.

The Hundred Finals Day At Lord’s & “A Hundred Weeks Later” With John & Mandy In Noddyland, 21 & 22 August 2021

The Hundred Finals, Saturday 21 August 2021

Janie and I played tennis at 8:00, enabling us to get ready and set off in a leisurely style for the inaugural finals day of The Hundred tournament.

No difficulty finding suitable parking spaces ahead of the women’s final, both for Dumbo on a street nearby and for our backsides in the Warner Stand.

Ahead of taking our seats, we ran into Alfred & Sunita, tennis friends of ours from Boston Manor. They were invitees in the President’s Box, which made our Members and Friends privileges feel positively like slumming it.

Slumming it in The Warner Stand, with no Champagne Charlies behind us today
My double-selfie skills are coming on…

Janie in particular got snap-happy during the warm ups.

Are the cricketers below practicing for cricket or Morris dancing, I wonder, on reviewing the pictures:

Morris Dancing…Or Possibly They Can Boogie.

Throughout the tournament (this was my fourth visit to Lord’s to see The Hundred) I had relished the opportunity to help choose the walk-on music for various players, despite the fact that most of the choices were between three songs I had not heard before by three artistes I’d not heard of before. In truth, I think the “join in the fun…you choose” appy stuff might be aimed at a demographic other than mine.

But I was delighted that the first “choice of three” I was offered on finals day, as Fran Wilson’s walk-on music, included two songs and three artistes I recognised:

  • Yes Sir, I Can Boogie – GBX Feat. Baccara
  • By Your Side – Calvin Harris Feat. Tom Grennan
  • One Kiss – Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa

I voted for the third of those choices, but the consensus narrowly went for the first choice – a song from 1977 which I recall finding old-fashioned even at that time. I recall my mum liking the Baccara record. Mum would be in her hundredth year this year, were she still alive. Perhaps she would have embraced this aspect of The Hundred.

Once the game got underway, Janie and I competed to get pictures of the pyrotechnics that went off whenever a boundary was scored…

…or “the occasional central heating” as I called it. It was a slightly chilly Saturday afternoon, such that we quite enjoyed the bursts of warmth. On hot days such bursts can be unbearable.

I got my timing right for this one

The Women’s Final rather petered out, as a match, unfortunately. The women’s matches I had seen prior to the final had been close and exciting to watch.

Never mind. There was loads more entertainment lined up.

The men’s teams warmed up while the musical entertainment kept the crowd happy

Jax Jones was the live musical entertainment on finals day. Another artiste I had heard of – I saw him interviewed on one of the TV music channels a few years ago and was impressed by his diverse, global musical influences. Not to mention his dapper choices in headgear.

But until the day, I didn’t realise that Jax Jones was the artiste behind The Hundred’s theme tune, Feels, until he performed it:

The number that really got the crowd (including me and Janie) going was You Don’t Know Me, with its utterly infectious beat:

By this stage of proceedings I was feeling far too cool for school, so it came as no surprise to me that I recognised one of the choices for Chris Benjamin’s walk-on music; Incredible by M.Beat Feat. General Levy. Janie was suitably impressed. I was delighted that my choice was the chosen one.

Even more impressive was my timing to snap the pre match fireworks at the men’s match – we’d both managed to get to the cameras a little late for the women’s fireworks:

With all the music and pyrotechnics, you might be wondering whether there was any cricket involved. Yes there was. I should confirm that we did watch cricket that day.

Unfortunately, matters took a bit of a turn for the worse towards the end of the match. The absence of Champagne Charlies behind us meant that, instead, we had a Beer-swilling Bernard instead, who managed to kick over one of his beers, soaking Janie’s bag. Yes, she had taken a washable jobbie with her (based on previous experience) but “Bernard’s Beer-stream” succeeded in soaking the bag and seeping through to some of the contents in a mood-affecting manner.

Then my mood took a turn for the worse too, as the DJ, perhaps transfixed by the entertaining cricket match, or possibly on a toilet break, simply forgot to play Incredible when Chris Benjamin came out to bat. I should write to the Chief Executive of the MCC about this one. Relaxing the dress code – fair enough. But the DJ forgetting to play the chosen walk-on music is a breach of Lord’s etiquette and should be suitably sanctioned.

Here, to make up for the disappointment, is that Incredible track:

In truth, by the time Chris Benjamin was walking to the crease (without his walk-on music) it was becoming extremely unlikely that Birmingham might rise Phoenix-like from the hole they were in by that stage to pull off an incredible win. Here is a link to the scorecard.

Janie and I therefore took our leave of Lord’s a few minutes before the end of the match, to avoid the crowds.

We’d had a great afternoon and evening. The razzamatazz does feel like an update or reset to the short format; that should make it more appealing to the young and young at heart.

John & Mandy In Noddyland, Sunday 22 August 2021

In this crazy pandemic era, time flies by. Could it really be more than a hundred weeks since we last saw John & Mandy?

No dinner out this time – just a blissfully long afternoon/early evening in Noddyland to celebrate the joint birthdays – a week early this time as it happens.

Janie did her humus and pita bread starter thing as garden nibbles ahead of the meal.

The weather had been teasing us (pretty much all summer in truth) but even on the day there was the occasional threat of showers, including one shower just before John & Mandy arrived. But the weather smiled on us for a couple of hours enabling us to sit in the garden, chat, drink and nibble.

The showers returned just as we were preparing to come inside anyway.

Janie’s signature baked Alaskan salmon dish was the main, followed by a boozy summer pudding.

It was really lovely to see John and Mandy again post-lockdown. We had lots to chat about and somehow Zooms and phone calls can’t quite do the same job, however much of a decent substitute for the real thing they might be.

It shouldn’t be another hundred weeks until the next time.