A Birthday Card Adventure With An Old Muker, 28 & 29 August 2020

Let’s be honest about this; Janie and I are not doing anything much that might be described as adventurous at the moment. This pandemic era is not that sort of era. We’re doing a lot of charity stuff. We’re keeping fit. We’re in good spirits. But we are not indulging in adventure.

This time of year, John White and I often get together for our birthdays; mine the day before his. Last year, for example, we all did this…

…but this year, it was my birthday card that had all the excitement.

John phoned me on the morning of my birthday. I hadn’t twigged it before, but he and Mandy had taken the opportunity to have a short break up in Yorkshire. John informed me that he had sent me a birthday card but he didn’t know when it would arrive and that it might be somewhat distressed-looking, having been involved in a road traffic incident.

John explained that he had stopped for fuel somewhere around Muker and put his mobile phone and my card on the roof of the car, making a careful mental note not to drive off before retrieving the phone & card…

…then he got distracted…

…then John drove off…

Excitement on the B6270 between Muker and Gunnerside; well shy of Crackpot

…until he heard a few “boomp” noises from the roof of the car and realised what must have happened. Apparently an expletive or two were the next couple of noises to be heard in the vicinity.

“worse than the door”

Meanwhile I was sitting in the flat, concentrating on John’s every word, my thoughts not wandering at all, thinking to myself that the punchline of the story must include the retrieval of the phone, because John was calling me from said phone…

…and the card didn’t look too shabby either

…and the card seemed to be minimally dishevelled; assuming the card before me was the original card from the story.

John continued…

…we drove back down the road towards Muker and as good fortune would have it, there was my phone in the middle of the road, undamaged…

…but no sign of your card…

…until we went a bit further back down the road and there was your card – also pretty much undamaged. It might have some tyre marks on the envelope though.

I told John that the card looked absolutely fine and that it had arrived a day in advance of my birthday, which is pretty good going given the adventure it had been through. I reported that the card was in good spirits and recuperating well at home.

I like to one-up John’s stories, so I thought I had better tell him the adventure of his birthday card, which I had posted that very morning.

I explained that I had gone to the local shop, chosen a card, returned home to sign the card, blown the dust off the little see-through-plastic bag which holds my assortment of postage stamps for just this sort of occasion, afixed an appropriate stamp and taken the card down to the post box at the end of my street, from whence it should have, by that time, been collected.

Your card should arrive at your house on the morning of your birthday, I said, but it seems that you won’t be there to receive it.

John explained that they would get home on the afternoon of his birthday. He also volunteered the opinion that the Yorkshire card story was a tad more exciting than the Notting Hill card story. I felt obliged, on this one occasion, to concede.

Anyway, John & Mandy’s drive home the next afternoon provided an excellent opportunity for Mandy, John, Janie and me to have a four-way catch-up chat and share a bit of the birthdays, albeit at a social distance.

A Reel Good Evening With John White, 21 January 2020

The reel thing

John and I had planned to go out for dinner on this particular evening, but then, a couple of weeks before the due date, John e-mailed me to ask if I still had a reel-to-reel tape recorder, as he and Pippa had uncovered a couple of reel-to-reel tapes when clearing his late parent’s house.

I said yes.

I didn’t say that my machines (by the end I had two by way of insurance/back-up) were in storage in the City.

Anyway, I trolleyed my Sony TC-377 back to Clanricarde and established that it more-or-less worked. So I suggested to John that we dine at mine instead and do some archaeology on his tapes.

I played a poor game of real tennis ahead of our reel evening, followed by a bizarre incident in Waitrose, in which, because I was given an unannounced/unlabelled bargain offer giving me an unexpected £6.50 off my basket of goods, I had failed to reach the magic £50 tally which meant that I could be fined some huge amount (£20? £60? Can’t remember) for parking in the absence of jobsworth at the till letting common sense apply.

It took me a good 15 minutes to get the “Balsamicgate” incident resolved, by which time I feared being late for John except that…

…John had, in the meantime, texted me to say that he couldn’t get near a tube and would be late.

Chill…

…I texted him, while probably still shaking with heated rage at the Waitrose incident and still feeling that I was running late.

In the end, I had time to prepare a salad and get most of the food ready ahead of John’s arrival with his tapes…

…and what amazing tapes they turned out to be.

There’s John’s parents encouraging a very little John to speak, on a tape labelled December 1963 which we think must refer to the date of that historic recording, together with John’s dad playing the piano and practising a speech to his Cuprinol colleagues around Christmas 1964.

John was a bit disparaging about his dad’s piano playing abilities, but I actually think that he plays very well for an amateur. I bet John’s dad was better at playing the piano than Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould or Daniel Barenboim would have been at managing Cuprinol’s Services Division or selling bottles of Cuprinol Timber Treatment. Here’s a whole load more of dad on the piano (c 30 minutes of the next clip, plus 15 minutes from a radio light entertainment programme):

Image “borrowed” from Sixties City.net – click the pick for a link to that super site and more about Alan “Fluff” Freeman – I’m sure the Sixties City folk won’t mind…or if they do, they’ll request its removal from this piece..

The most interesting material for the general reader are some extracts from very early broadcasts of Pick Of The Pops. The one below, which has been dated as 14 Janaury 1962, was only the second ever Sunday broadcast of that show and seemingly a rarity – a recording thought lost.

Here is another, short Pick Of the Pops snippet, probably early March 1962, including the introduction to the programme. Just the first three minutes, after which is other pop music, perhaps from that programme but probably from a variety of programmes:

One more Pick Of The Pops recording, from late January or early February 1963, by which time John’s dad was editing out Alan “Fluff” Freeman’s voice:

For some reason, John’s dad also recorded a BBC television programme about freemasonry:

There is some more family-oriented material. Here is a three minute snippet of John and other kids, perhaps a party in the mid 1960s, followed by a poor six minute recording of John’s dad having a French lesson:

There is a lot of light entertainment material, much of which is not so well recorded:

But sandwiched between those last two light entertainment blocks is a truly surprising find, which I only myself uncovered a few days after John’s visit, while I was ripping the content of both tapes into digital form.

I have not yet had a chance to discuss this element with John, so I don’t feel entirely comfortable reveling this to the entire world at the same time as I reveal it to John and his family.

But the fact of the matter is, that John’s dad clearly continued to nurture an interest in modern music for longer than John knew about or even suspected. There is a 36 minute section which must date from the early 1970s which I can only describe as “rock”. Some would even describe some of it as “prog rock”. No-one could deny that some of it is even “glam rock”.

My guess is that John’s dad probably wasn’t a clandestine apron-wearing, breast-baring member of the Freemasons, despite the BBC recording about that subject. But we cannot possibly deny his dad’s clandestine rock phase. It’s unmistakably there on one of the channels of the big tape, buried between 50 minutes of light entertainment lounge music and a further 10 minutes of same. Now you know, John, now you know.

Did the way Marc Bolan flipped his hip always make John’s dad weak?

Joking apart, it was a lovely evening in many ways. John was clearly moved to hear this family audio material, probably for the first time ever and certainly for the first time consciously as an adult.

It reminded me so much of some of my own family trove of such material, only some of which has so far found its way to Ogblog:

Dinner At Kitty Fisher’s With John And Mandy, 28 August 2019

Not content with the excitement of witnessing Simon Jacobs Live Gig at the Notting Hill Arts Club the night before:

Janie and I had another big night out the next day; a double-birthday celebration with John and Mandy at Kitty Fisher’s.

Janie likes restaurants where you can see the kitchens
Nibbly starters

John and Mandy had enjoyed a day out in London ahead of our dinner, so were able to tell us about that and about the kids.

We don’t have to tell them any of our news, obviously, because it is all there to be seen on Ogblog. Yet still we did tell them our news too.

Meaty main courses and crispy potatoes that aren’t chips, apparently

The food was excellent, the service lively and unpretentious. We really liked this place.

On learning that it was a double birthday, the restaurant managed a mercifully low key way of helping us to celebrate:

John and Mandy very kindly bought me a small gift while enjoying their day out earlier in the day – we don’t normally do presents – requesting photographs of the celebratory footwear.

We’d all really enjoyed our evening, as evidenced (if evidence were needed) by the exchange of messages the next day.

Meanwhile, Janie and I took great pleasure in taking and posing (respectively) for those photos early the next morning:

“Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…”
“Sock Long Marianne…”

An Evening With John White, Including Dinner At Yauatcha, 5 June 2019

The original idea had been to meet up at Lord’s late afternoon and venture on for food from there. But I had mixed up the dates and thought that this was Day Three of a match but it was in fact Day Four, so that idea was never likely to have worked.

In any case, John’s commitments ran a bit later than originally planned so we ended up gathering at my place early evening, which enabled me to torture John with my latest musical mash-ups and masterpieces, while John caught up with his e-mails.

It was John’s turn to choose and he chose, unusually, a repeat visit this time – to Yauatcha, which he remembered fondly from our previous visit:

Gosh, nearly 10 years ago.

We also got our “intense disappointment with politics/Brexit” conversation out of the way at my place before dinner, so as not to put ourselves and each other off our food.

Downstairs at Yauatcha this time – for the first time. I think on balance we decided that upstairs works better for us at Yauatcha. Quieter and more airy.

But the food remains absolutely superb – well remembered, John.

Unusually for us, we plugged for a set menu, not least because those seemed to have such an interesting and varied selection of dim sum, it would have been hard to better those choices by calling from the card.

We went for the supreme set – click here to see all the menus.

The presentation is beautiful, especially the dim sum course, but for some reason we both neglected to take “food porn” pictures at that juncture.

So I have borrowed a couple of pictures from the Yauatcha site, guessing that, as long as the pictures are credited and linked to their site, the Yauatcha folk won’t mind:

Yauatcha Shui Mai
Yauatcha So (Puffs)

For some reason, when I did decide to take a couple of photos, John decided that he wanted to look wacky and insisted on maintaining a crazed expression. I can report that John was stone cold sober on this particular evening, as he is trying to get fit for some sort of marathon cycle thingie.

You’d be mistaken in thinking that John doesn’t get out much

Those main dishes were:

黑菌花腩骨
Truffle pork belly rib

老乾媽雙鮮
Stir-fry pepper chilli seafood with asparagus

白菜苗
Baby pak choi

豆角蛋炒飯
Egg fried rice with long bean

So there.

John and I discussed, amongst many other things, our days writing for the Keele student newspaper, Concourse, not least because Dave Lee (seasoned Concourse journalist and one-time editor) had recently got in touch with me about that. Dave is pulling together a charity book about the Keele gigs of that era etc. John’s diaries might help Dave to fill gaps that mine can’t fill.

Watch this space.

Amusingly, John related that he had found several old copies of Concourse when clearing his parents’ house, all of which had his masterpieces carefully cut from them…but the file in which he must have meticulously preserved his own ouvre is lost for all time.

Anyway, as always it was a very enjoyable evening with John, which flew by all too quickly. Roll on the next one.

A Superb Evening At Mere Restaurant With John And Mandy, 16 March 2019

In many ways this evening had been long in the planning. Janie and I spotted Mere as a suitable place to dine with John & Mandy last summer, but in the end we opted for Dinner In Noddyland:

Then, a few months later, I chose it for a midweek get together with John:

So good was it, that John and I decided that we “owed it to the girls” to all four have a meal there once the opportunity arose. Now was that opportunity.

We met ahead of our booking time to have a drink in the lovely bar. Janie and I got there first and I ordered a bottle of the excellent Sancerre that John and I had tried at Mere the first time around.

Once John and Mandy arrived, we chatted a fair bit about Manchester and Lydia’s professional debut in Rags, of course, which I had witnessed just a few days earlier:

We also discussed many other things, not least John and Mandy’s other daughter, Bella, who looks set to go to Manchester to study – does Bella not know about the inclement weather in Manchester?

We all decided we wanted to try the tasting menu; so we did. Three of us (all bar Mandy) also went for the wine pairings.

John And Mandy taking it all in, as the sommelier explains the first of the wine pairings
Here’s all the stuff we tasted, in words.

Janie took the pictures, which explains why she appears in none of them. Take my word for it, Janie was also listening attentively, smiling a lot and enjoying the tastes, smells and the chat.

Leeks & Truffle
Attentive listening
Cornish Cod
Was I describing Hitler’s cohones at this juncture? Something like that.
Scallop
Mandy sniffs the interesting Youngblood Grenache served with the scallop
Rose Veal
We really do look like a couple of pseudo-connoisseurs in this picture
White Port to go with the cheese
Cheese (mine mercifully without the candied walnut)
Am I unconvinced by the final wine or just running out of steam?
Apple
Chocoholics delight

This Ogblog piece makes it look as though we did an awful lot of eating and drinking, which we did. But the portion sizes were such that we did not feel stuffed or sloshed at the end of the meal, just very happy.

We all four know how lucky we are to be able to eat in a place as good as Mere and to be able to enjoy the company of such good friends. It was a truly memorable and wonderful evening.

Or, to summarise in one word using John’s favourite adjective back in the mid 1980s:

Tremendous.

Have We Both Gone Off Our Trolley?: Dinner At Otto’s With John White, 21 February 2019

Despite John’s insistence that his choice last time of the vegetarian haute cuisine restaurant Vanilla Black did not mean that he had gone soft on me…

…I decided to test the hypothesis by, this time, choosing an exceptionally carnivorous place; Otto’s on the Grays Inn Road.

So have we both gone off our trolley? No of course we haven’t, but what I have learnt is that, subsequent to me choosing the place, Otto’s has been shortlisted for a prestigious international restaurant award: World Restaurant Trolley Of the Year 2019.

Still, while not off our trollies, neither were we on the wagon. Indeed, John messaged me while I was still slaving away at the office over some silly numerical issues, already long-since forgotten, to let me know that I’d find him in Ye Olde Mitre rather than his office, when I picked him up on my way to Otto’s.

So there in The Mitre I found him and there I declined a pre-dinner drink; partly to keep my intake within reasonable bounds and partly because I was a bit later than intended and we really did need to set off in the next 10 minutes or so for our booking. The burghers of Ye Olde Mitre and the beadles of Ely Place might, if they notice such matters, have observed that this was the second time in a row that I declined to drink when entering that wonderful hostelry to join the yeomen of BACTA. Mind you, the place was heaving with people, so I doubt if anyone, other than John’s colleagues, noticed my abstinence.

We had a good chat along the way to the restaurant – John’s mum died just a few weeks ago and the funeral had been just a couple of days before our gathering – getting the funereal discussion out of the way before dinner.

Once at Otto’s, John was in an unusually “appy” mood – i.e. using his smart phone apps a lot.

Here’s John learning all there is to know about the rather splendid Burgundian wine we drank together…

…while this picture, of John’s Tournados, was taken by John and zapped off in mid meal – John’s way of making his carnivorous daughter, Bella, envious as hell at the sight of our meal.

Yes, John was clearly keen to show that he had not gone soft on me and was making an excellent Tournados-sized fist of such proof.

I also went for a very meaty option; the special of the day pork chop with mash, spinach and mushrooms. All cooked to perfection.

We both had started with lobster bisque – a classic starter served deliciously well.

I didn’t have room for a desert, but John, still demonstrating his robust dining credentials, went for a “death by chocolate” type thing which he (in collusion with the charming waiting staff) insisted that I try:

It would have been rude for me to decline the offer in the circumstances

When the pair at the next table – very senior gentlemen, so similar looking I took them to be twins – got up to leave, John got all “appy” again with their bottle of Margaux. I tried to capture that moment but was too late and John signally refused to repeat his research with a photo-opportunity-pose:

John completing his Margaux research at some distance from our neighbours’ bottle

It is always such a pleasure to have dinner with John – catching up on each other’s news over a good meal.

Otto’s was an excellent venue for such an evening. While I wouldn’t want to eat French classic style food all the time, we do it all so rarely now (there’s so much choice in London),so it’s easy to forget why that classic style is so enduring. When it is done well (as it is at Otto’s) it is a very, very enjoyable dining experience.

But if only we had known about the World Restaurant Trolley Of the Year Award nomination, we surely would have chosen at least one trolleyish thing at the place…

…I guess that might mean we’ll simply have to go back there some day.

Vegetarian Dinner With John White At Vanilla Black, 3 December 2018

Yes, you’ve seen it written here in black and white; we dined in a vegetarian restaurant, Vanilla Black, suggested by John White.

I hope you’re not going soft on me, John…

…I said, when John’s suggestion came in. But John insisted that this Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant was quite exceptional; he had tried the place recently with one of his daughters, Lydia.

It’s a slippery slope, this…

…said Janie when I told her. Janie is not a great one for vegetarian food – indeed it was she who went a little crazy in Japan after one meal in the vegetarian monastery retreat of her own choosing on Mount Koya:

Next it will be veganism and after that John will become an even fussier eater than Kim.

John and I discussed those possibilities early in the evening and concluded that my concerns (and especially Janie’s) were ill-founded. We should have had that early discussion in the Seven Stars pub nearby, but I was a little late and John was running even later, so we agreed that I would abandon the (to be honest, over-crowded) pub and we’d meet in the restaurant. 

This enabled John, although he had been running later than me, to get to the restaurant first. We texted each other with some bants while I was walking and when I arrived at Vanilla Black, John was texting away, presumably in my direction. I suggested that we might stop doing “the youngster  thing” (sitting in restaurants playing with our phones rather than talking), but John wondered whether conversation by text while face-to-face might be fun. (No.)

Here is a link to a sample of the excellent menu. 

Here is a scrape of the actual menus that were around at that time.

We started with (see photo above):

  • Carrot Broth, Coffee Shortbread and Carrot Cake – Pickled Walnuts and Spiced Carrot Purée (John )
  • Edamame Bean Ice Cream, Sesame Cracker and Nasturtium – Crispy Soy Sauce, Pean and Edamame Bean Salsa (Me)

Then we progressed to:

  • Celeriac Profiteroles, Dill and Raisins – Vanilla Roasted Celeriac and Pickled Red Cabbage (John)
  • Fried Shiitake, Pine Nut Purée and Crispy Enoki – Marsala and Pine Salt (me)

Then we found room for deserts too:

  • Gianduja Chocolate Brownie and Roasted Hazelnut Ice Cream – Tiger Nut Milk, Salted Chocolate and Nutella Powder (John)
  • Banana Ice Cream, Whipped Toffee and Banana Biscuit – Vanilla Cream and Toffee (Me)

All of the food was genuinely delicious and we both agreed that we were having an excellent meal.

We tried a rather interesting wine from the excellent wine list, which went well with our food, although the staff said that most punters are not brave enough to try it: ORANGE WINE ZERO-GMT, MULLER THURGAU. John and I were sufficiently brave and were rewarded for our bravery.

As usual, we discussed many subjects, ranging from personal, work, through the ghastly domestic politics to international affairs. When the topical subjects of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang and the Chinese Social Credit System came up over dessert, John said that it reminded him of the fate of Citizen Smith. I paused for a moment and suggested,

I think you mean Winston Smith from 1984, Citizen Smith was the Freedom For Tooting fellow.


We had a bit of a laugh about that and I promised to milk the joke on Ogblog.

I imagine a couple of scenarios in which we switch the characters around. For example, a comedic version of 1984 in which Big Brother’s thought police spy on Wofie (Citizen) Smith only to discover how hapless he is so they decide to leave him alone:

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Citizen_smith.jpg – based on the same fair use rationale as Wikipedia

Alternatively, a dystopian version of Citizen Smith, in which Winston’s parochial attempts to liberate Tooting from the clutches of Wandsworth Council inexorably lead to Winston Smith’s torture and incarceration in the dreaded Room 101, in which dire situation comedies from the 1970s and 1980s are shown on a loop until the victim breaks down and submits to the authorities.

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Winston_Smith.jpg – based on the same fair use rationale as Wikipedia

John obviously thought my ideas for milking his slip of the tongue were very funny, as he laughingly gestured that he thought I should milk the joke with at least four scenarios:

So, I think it is safe to say that John has not gone soft on me after all. 

In fact, the more observant reader (who drills into the menu) might notice that it was me who ate an entirely vegan meal that evening – not by vegan design but simply because the dishes I chose all happened to be vegan.

Even Janie seems to be somewhat of a convert after I showed her the pictures and described the dishes – I can hear her on the telephone as I write telling Kim that she thinks Vanilla Black might be a good place for them to go.

As always, it was great to catch up with John regardless of the food and drink- although we do try (and mostly succeed) in also having great food and drink too. This Vanilla Black and John White evening was great in all of those respects.

A Mere Evening With John White, Ahead Of John’s Regeneration The Very Next Day, 15 October 2018

The headline is a misnomer pun, because no evening with John is ever mere. I spent an evening with John at Mere Restaurant.

All the grub is tremendously well presented and tastes at least as good as it looks…perhaps better

Janie and I had spotted this place when we thought we’d eat out for John and Mandy’s most recent London visit, which ended up being dinner in Noddyland…

Dinner In Noddyland With John And Mandy, 29 June 2018

…although Mere was in any case fully booked at the weekend many weeks ahead of time. But I had more luck at relatively short notice for a Monday evening with John.

Both of us are really glad that I recalled liking the look of Mere and booked it. The food, service, presentation, everything was top notch. John and I agreed that this was one of the very best meals we’ve had in London.

What did we eat? – I hear you cry.

  • John started with Pumpkin: Pumpkin Filled Agnolotti, Mixed Mushrooms, Marmite Emulsion
  • I started with Octopus: A la Plancha’, Caper & Raisin Dressing, Potato, Piperade
  • John progressed to Cornish Cod: Black Curry, Pickled Celery, Hazelnut Dukka, Lovage Sauce
  • I progressed to Pigeon: Roast Breast, Braised Leg, Lardo, Girolles, Pedro Ximenez Sauce
  • The above was all washed down with a well-chosen bottle of Sancerre – one with more oak and fruitiness than I would normally associate with Sancerre and spot on for the diverse dishes – thank you Mr Sommelier.
  • After a suitably long pause to chat, mull the world’s problems and finish the wine, we moved on to
  • …in John’s case Cheese: Selection of Four Artisan Cheeses , Fresh Figs & Jam, Seeded Cracker
  • In my case Hokey Pokey: Manjari Cremeux, Salted Toffee, Honeycomb Ice Cream, L&P Gel
  • The sommelier also did us proud with drinks to accompany our afters; in John’s case a white port, in my case an intriguing sherry that went surprisingly well with a chocolate desert.

You can see menus and things through this link.

There was an element of skittishness to our mood. I questioned (between ourselves) whether the much lauded Samoan chocolate came from Western Samoa or Eastern Samoa.

John’s view was that there is no such place as Eastern Samoa. Technically now, of course, there is no such place as Western Samoa either. Obviously I was trying to distinguish between the two main islands of Samoa, the more westerly Savai’i and the more easterly (and more populous) Upolu. Answer from John there came none.

John added to his self-confessed spacial challenges by confessing that he keeps a little chart of the cricket fielding positions at hand when he listens to cricket on the radio, as he finds the names of the leg-side fielding positions confusing.

By Py0alb – in powerpoint, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27694084

To be honest, I was pretty impressed that John is now taking that much interest in the cricket. Who knew? I’d better get him to a match again soon enough. But I digress.

We also discussed some serious subjects, such as the dire state of UK politics. We wondered whether occasional fine dining detracted from our left-leaning credentials. We thought it probably didn’t, but agreed a pact along MAD lines not to denounce each other. John then told me that he was to give evidence to a House of Lords select committee the next day, on the regeneration of seaside towns.

I’m an old hand at such appearances of course, having done two on Brexit in the past couple of years:

The Lords, Then Lord’s, Plus A Coincidental Segue Between The Two, 1 February 2018

I got some intriguing notices for my second appearance – click here for those.

But I’m digressing again.

John’s appearance can be seen through this link or the embedded vid below starting at 16:11:53:

I must admit that my mind wandered skittishly a few times as I watched – the regeneration of seaside towns is not at the forefront of my interests/concerns at the moment – other than naturally taking an interest in a good pal’s work – so the following questions and answers passed through my mind:

  • Does John show any signs of a tremendous but slightly over-indulgent evening meal the night before? No;
  • Should John’s evidence session be re-titled “Peers On Piers”? Yes – unquestionably;
  • When the chap from the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions and the chap from the National Piers Society meet, is that pier-to-pier networking? Yes – what else?;
  • When the Lords form a select committee on the regeneration of seaside towns, have they done so as a last resort? I’m afraid so, yes;
  • Are there other good puns about this topic that I can’t think up right now? Let the court of public opinion – i.e. the Ogblog readership, decide.

Anyway, we’ll quite possibly be returning to Mere one day – especially when the girls read about what they have missed. A Mere tremendous evening.

Dinner In Noddyland With John And Mandy, 29 June 2018

We usually plan a bit of an uptown happening when John and Mandy come in to London to see us, e.g. last year’s birthday dinner at the Chelsea Physic Garden:

Birthday Dinner With John and Mandy At Chelsea Physic Garden, 29 August 2017

In fact, Janie and I were talking through a few ideas during the spring, but events intervened somewhat. John’s mum has been in hospital since April – indeed John had to cancel one of our midweek dinners because of that crisis – so Janie wondered whether they would prefer simply to come to Noddyland for dinner this time; making timings (and even the possibility of a last minute need to cancel) less of a stress.

John and Mandy jumped at the idea.

We reckoned that these two had not tasted Janie’s signature fillet of beef with wasabi mayonnaise, so we opted for that. My job…

…apart from making sure during the event that the beef is cooked to near perfect timing such that lovers of rare and well cooked beef alike get their wishes…

…was simply to get to the Ealing-ish part of town early enough to procure/collect the ordered joint of beef and then get to Noddyland in good time. Normally no problem on a Friday but one or two work matters tried hard to slow my departure from Cityland that afternoon.

But I managed to break free and get to Hook & Cleaver in reasonable time, where Jack sorted me out good & proper with a choice cut.

You don’t mess with these Hook & Cleaver Guys

The weather was set glorious, as it had been for several weeks, which made the dinner at Noddyland idea all the more suitable. We were able to spend most of the evening out of doors, retiring to the dining room only for the main course – which really was a magnificent joint of beef – and afters. The dessert comprised summer berries with some papaya mixed in, the health benefits of which John expounded upon with glee.

The earlier part of the evening was not only blessed with exceptionally good weather, but also with delicious breaded prawn tempura from Atari-Ya up the road together with some tasty wines. No-one was drinking all that much – John & Mandy needed to drive home that night in the circumstances and in any event on a hot evening quality rather than quantity was the order of the day.

It was a lovely opportunity simply to catch up with good friends, relax for an evening and enjoy good food and wine together in the homeliest of home environments. We can do something trendy and/or exciting up town next time…if we so choose.

Dinner In Clerkenwell With John White At The Modern Pantry, 22 February 2018

It was John’s turn to chose and mine to pay – John almost apologised for booking a place we’d been to before; The Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell. That place needed no apology for a revisit – I remembered it being excellent.

A couple of years ago, we tried the newer Finsbury Square Modern Pantry – click here or below – and we had agreed that Clerkenwell was far more interesting and to our taste.

The Modern Pantry – Finsbury Square with John White, 31 March 2016

John suggested that we meet at Ye Olde Mitre, as he had some vital business to conduct in there ahead of our evening. This idea also seemed like no hardship.

I had a very interesting audience with Nathan Myhrvold that afternoon, before getting some bits and pieces done at the office and then joining John in The Mitre.

John’s vital business seemed, to me, to be a few beers and a chat with some friendly colleagues, at least one of whom I had met before. Actually I had a feeling I’d met both before at one time or another.

Vital business concluded, John and I then strolled from Hatton Garden to Clerkenwell proper for our dinner.

Here is a link to The Modern Pantry website.

Here is what we ate:

  • Smoked burrata, roast romanesco, pomegranate molasses roast red onion & kaniwa salad, roast apricot relish, seed crisp bread – John’s starter
  • Cornish brown crab rarebit, yuzu guacamole, shichimi – my starter
  • Lime leaf & red chilli marinated chicken breast, braised rainbow chard, crispy salsify, black garlic & ginger dressing – John’s main
  • Red wine & star anise braised ox cheek, truffled celeriac puree, mange tout, runner bean & turnip salad, lemongrass & Aleppo
    chilli dressing – my main.

We talked about all sorts of things, like we do. I should write up the highlights…

…or should I? That would be predictable almost to the point of being dull. I’m always writing up the highlights. This time, here are the lowlights.

John informed me that he would be going to see Leyton Orient play in the  FA Trophy that Saturday. When I playfully quipped that, like him, Janie and I had nothing better to do that day, John informed me that it was only £10 a ticket and that Janie and I would be most welcome at Orient.

I explained that Janie feels cold at Lord’s in June and that she is probably, if such is possible, even more averse to football than I am.

John and I then hatched a small practical joke along the lines that I really wanted to go to this football match…which, as I suspected, didn’t work very well, as Janie knows only too well that I’d be hard to persuade to the football even for a very big match on a very warm day.

I then announced that it was the 40th anniversary of my being in the school play, Andorra, the very next day:

Andorra, 23, 24 & 25 February 1978

John and I then swapped school play stories for a while. John had played Private Hurst in Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance at school. John especially remembered finding the scenes between Hurst and Annie very difficult for his (then) shy nature:

Fair use image from stage play uploaded for a non-profit, educational purpose – for source & more details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sparky_and_Annie.jpg

I think Hurst would be the deep-set eyes geezer watching on from behind in the above image – that Hurst bears more than a passing resemblance to John, as it happens.

When I got home, I read the play for the first time in decades. I reckon John’s shyness in the liaison scenes would have worked fine. My reading of the Hurst character is that he projects himself as a soldier who is/has been a womaniser, but the character is in the zone for his mission during the play, with no interest in the attentions of poor Annie.

Not exactly the Stanislavki or Lee Strasberg way to achieve the desired effect, but as long as the young woman was showing the requisite enthusiasm, I should imagine that John’s lack of electric response would have made those scenes worked better than John imagined.

Perhaps John is now planning to reprise his role as Private Hurst using “the method”; that might explain him conducting his vital business in traditional taverns like Ye Olde Mitre.

However, the later scene which, as John described it, went as wrong as any scene in any school play could possibly go wrong, was so amusing a story I laughed long and loud. I felt bound to insist that John write it up as a guest piece for Ogblog and now feel bound to pre-announce it.

No rush John, no pressure.

Anyway, once again we’d had an excellent meal at the Modern Pantry. The food we think is outstanding. Perhaps the service was a notch below the level I remembered from the first time, but that might have been caused by as little as being as little as “one down” on staff, which can happen to the best of places.

If you like TripAdvisor links – click here for The Modern Pantry.

As always, it was fun to catch up with John – even on a bitterly cold February evening…

…I didn’t envy John’s journey home…

…nor his impending afternoon at the Leyton O’s.