It didn’t rain – indeed the weather was ideally pleasant. No new variant of Covid suddenly broke out to prohibit gatherings at the cricket matches. Neither sling nor arrow of outrageous fortune befell us to frustrate our simple purpose: Janie and I wanted to host Fran and Simon at Lord’s and show them the pavilion.
The idea of the four of us spending a day together at Lord’s had been under discussion for about five years, frustrated by various unfortunate circumstances along the lines of the above paragraph. Given the iffy weather so far this season, we did indeed feel blessed to wake up to a weather forecast that suggested dry and mild, which indeed it turned out to be.
Fran (she of Pinner pears) and Yorkshire Simon (he of crude courgettes) had both been to Lord’s many times, but not recently and not previously in the pavilion. We had previously spent time with them on several occasions at outgrounds, but not at Lord’s.
Simon, Fran & Me at Radlett in 2019Me, Simon and Simon’s courgette, Radlett 2021
Anyway…
…on their arrival, we showed Fran and Simon the upper sun deck of the pavilion – Janie’s favourite place – which both of them took to immediately, so the four of us basically took root up there.
At lunch we showed them around the pavilion and also showed them the real tennis court, where a couple of my friends were doing battle but didn’t seem all that delighted to be observed; occupational hazard of choosing the 13:00 tennis slot on a match day.
Fran and Simon had brought lunch with them, whereas Janie and I had a crazy craving for the Long Room baps and salad, which we indulged in early in the afternoon session. Janie also indulged in a slice of cake in the member’s lounge.
Sam Robson bowling filth just before teaJanie took this picture during tea, before going to the lounge for cake
It was really nice to see Fran and Simon again after quite some while. We did a fair bit of catching up, general chatting and even cricket-watching.
In short – we four had a lovely day. Middlesex didn’t.
I have subsequently re-met several of Geoffrey’s fellow team mates from that 1969 team, but not Geoffrey himself.
No matter. I was interested to hear what writer Jon Hotten had to say about writing this book with Geoffrey and was delighted to get the opportunity to do so at a book/supper club for MCC members, which allowed me also to bring Janie as a guest.
The event was held in the writing room (appropriately – also possibly my favourite room in the pavilion).
The Lord’s pitch looks astonishing at night. When Janie and I first looked, there was a fox meandering in that lit area, but it meandered away before Janie was able to photograph it:
If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket website, you can find read that piece here.
Nice grub and good company before the book talk:
Jon Hotten and Geoffrey Boycott have previously done their book launch talks as a double act, but Geoffrey was not available for this one. In some ways, that made it more interesting, because Jon was able to talk to us about the process of working with Geoffrey, whom he hadn’t met before being “interviewed” for the role of co-author on this project. I suspect that we’d have heard little from Jon had Geoffrey been there.
Jon Hotten seems like a gentle individual, who warmed to his subject/co-author while recognising that Geoffrey Boycott is a complicated character, loved by some and loathed by others. Jon’s talk was fascinating. The question and answer session also very interesting.
Brian Sharp presents the Mason Sharp Trophy To The A/B Category Winners at the end of the MCC weekend.
I played plenty of real tennis (and lawn come to that) in January, building up to the MCC Club Weekend, the last weekend of January, an event that I had either steered away from or had cruelly steered away from me until this year. I’m hooked on the idea of playing in it now, though – it was great fun.
MCC Tennis Chair, Guy Pemberton, applauds, as Graeme Marks presents
The Queen’s Club v The Dedanist’s Society At Queen’s, 3 February 2023
I have previously described the oddities of Dedanist’s Society matches, with many players being eligible for both teams and often not knowing who they are going to play for until the last minute.
But I broke yet more new ground in February 2023 in my role in the Queen’s Club match, “batting for the other side”, because I have, in theory, no right whatsoever to represent Queen’s.
…but I am not a member of Queen’s and not in truth eligible to represent. Further, there were several people listed who were members of both Queen’s and The Dedanist’s. But the timings and handicaps meant that it made sense for me (and one or two other people) to swap sides for this friendliest of friendly fixtures.
I partnered a really pleasant fellow in the first fixture of the day and we did well. I think we set the ball rolling for a Queen’s Club win, but it was hard to tell as we all kept having to look at the schedule to work out which pair was playing for which team.
I think it is fair to say that it REALLY didn’t matter. Nick Browne organised a really enjoyable afternoon and evening – the event was rounded off with a fine meal in the President’s Room – which, as usual, raised money for the Dedanist’s Society’s good causes as well as providing a really good time for us players/attendees.
This year’s event was no less exceptional, with fun and fabulous prizes on offer, ranging from a half-exploded can of Irn Brew (don’t ask) to a most valuable player award of $500,000,000. The winners got proper bottles of Pol Roger (other fizzy drinks are available) and chocolates. The wooden spoon has now been emblazoned in the form of the coveted Hinds Trophy.
Those who know me well from school etc. know that I am unaccustomed to being a sports team captain. I was more likely to be the chap waving his hand wildly at the captain saying, “me, me, me” in the hope of being spotted and picked. But Carl Snitcher, the MCC captain for this match, needed to be elsewhere and I got the call about 10 days before the match to step in and “lead”.
Leadership in this instance merely comprised turning up, badgering people into paying their match fees and shouting “come on MCC” at regular intervals during the match.
It was also still my role to play in the fourth rubber of this five rubber match, renewing my partnership with John Thirlwell, whom I hadn’t partnered since before the pandemic.
Thirlwell and Harris snapped in the dedans on a previous match evening
John and I tried to get back into practice together by playing singles against each other the week before (a superb, close bout) and a practice doubles as a pair the day before the MURTC fixture. But all that was to no avail in the matter of winning our rubber on the big night. Still, we made a close match of it and the fixture as a whole was won by the MCC, albeit by the narrowest of margins in the final rubber, to take the match 3-2.
Those interested enough can watch the entire match – all six hours of it – on the MCC Real Tennis YouTube channel through the link below. Compelling is not the word for this viewing.
As Walt Whitman put it, no doubt thinking of match managing a real tennis match, not Abe Lincoln or anything of that sort:
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won…
NewsRevue Inspired Comedy Singles: Chris Rowe v Ian Harris, 9 November 2022
Soon after taking up real tennis in 2016, I ran into Chris Stanton in the dedans gallery at Lord’s. I had known Chris from NewsRevue since 1992, when I started writing for that show and John Random chose one of my pieces for Chris Stanton to perform, making “Stanny” the first professional actor to perform my material on stage. That, together with the connection with fellow NewsRevue alum Chris Rowe, is explained in my Chris Stanton obituary piece click here or below:
Chris Rowe was a good friend of Stanny’s but a little before my time in NewsRevue…
Stanny & Rowy, 1991 NewsRevue Edinburgh Run
…as I understand it, Chris Rowe introduced Chris Stanton to real tennis at Lord’s, although they had rarely played together in recent years; indeed Chris Rowe had/has played hardly at all for several years.
When Chris Rowe and I communicated and eventually met after Stanny’s sad demise, we resolved that we really should have a game of tennis together.
Eventually that idea came to fruition this very day. It was to be Chris Rowe’s first proper game of singles for some considerable time, although he made sure to have a hit with one of the pros by way of preparation.
Despite Chris’s handicap on paper being far better than mine, the pros thought that, taking dormancy into account, we should play level and see what happens.
It was actually a very good match playing level, with deuces galore and lots of good rests (which is real tennis speak for rallies).
Unfortunately, the CCTV cameras wee not recording our match for posterity, so I cannot show you any clips from the actual singles bout in question, but I can assure you that the level was much higher than my doubles level the day before…
…but I would say that, wouldn’t I?
In the absence of footage from the actual match, I thought the following highlights reel is as close as I can get to illustrating the sort of skills on show that day. Below is a six minute thrillathon, which you might prefer to the six hour marathon of the MCC v MURTC match above:
Actually, there were probably elements of the Rowe v Harris match that might be seen as comedy tennis, in particular when one of us (usually me) got caught in an “it’s behind you” position, unable to call my own chase.
We also both managed an array of “characters” correcting the chase calls and devising arcane etiquette on the fly…
…since you last played here, my good fellow, the MCC Committee has deemed it to be ungentlemanly conduct to make a chap run around the court like that and then take the point from him…
…that sort of thing.
But then, as I said when I first met Chris Stanton at Lord’s:
If John Random were to consider inventing an ancient game with bizarre, arcane rules, for comedy purposes, he need look no further than the actual laws of real tennis.
Joking apart, it was such a pleasure finally to play tennis with Chris Rowe having plotted to do so for so long. I hope we’ll do it again. Although, if he gets back into practice, Chris will need to be giving me quite a few handicap points for sure.
Actually the visit on 30 August started off as a real tennis match in the morning, in which “The Coley Kids” (which sounds like a 1960s Saturday morning pictures series) took apart me and my doubles partner Andrew Hinds.
Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.
Andrew and I consoled ourselves with a light lunch at The Ivy and then watched The Hundred women’s match together, before Andrew sloped off to Vicarage Road while I stayed on and watched most of the men’s match…
…before ambling home before the end.
Finals Day – 3 September 2022
Pretty much everything that Janie and I want to say about finals day has been said in our (Daisy and Ged’s) King Cricket match report:
We witnessed the whole of the women’s match and bailed out about 30 balls before the end of the men’s match, which turned out to be a closer finish than we anticipated. Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.
These days I’m far more likely to visit Lord’s to play real tennis than I am to watch cricket; or at least to play real tennis AND watch cricket. But this rare week had me at Lord’s three times to watch cricket without playing tennis.
England v India ODI 14 July 2022
The first of the visits was for the one day international (ODI) between England and India. I don’t much go to ODIs these days (World Cup in England year excepted of course) but I had planned to take Ian Theodoreson to the test match in 2020 (until Covid scuppered such plans) and the most suitable date for a rescheduling was this particular ODI.
Ian has had a tendency to choose what turns out to be one of the hottest days of the year for his visits to Lord’s with me. He did so four years ago...
…which might be connected with the choice of dates in mid to late July.
Anyway, this 2022 visit was Ian’s first in one of the wheelchair enclosures, a factor that at least allowed the opportunity for me to meet and host Sally Theodoreson for the first time, which was an absolute pleasure, plus an opportunity for the MCC to demonstrate one of the things it seems able to do very well indeed , which is to look after wheelchair visitors.
Actually, as it turned out, this day was far from the hottest day of the year – Janie and I had that “pleasure” to come at Lord’s a few days later, but still we were grateful to the stewards finding us some shade from which to view the match.
I made the substantive picnic – being smoked trout bagels, ham and cheese sandwiches, dry salads in cups plus plentiful fruits, not least some giant strawberries that were as big on flavour as they were in size. Sally and Ian brought the other items that make a picnic sing – savoury & sweet nibbles plus a very glug-able Shiraz wine.
A very enjoyable day, albeit a very long one for Ian and Sally, motoring up from Somerset and back on the day.
The Hottest Day Ever, Middlesex v Sussex Day One, 19 July 2022
Daisy awaiting the start of play, on the sundeck, having bagsed a parasol – yey!
We had planned to meet up with Fran and Simon at Lord’s that day, after first visiting (ironically, give Fran’s now former profession) the dental hygienist first thing. In the end, Fran and Simon gracefully withdrew from the plans and we resolved to give the match a try, but we were very much aware that the forecast was for the hottest day since records began. We suspected that we’d only stay until lunch.
Actually it was pretty pleasant up on that deck during the first session, although everyone was wondering why Tim Murtagh had chosen to bowl on the hottest day ever, so some of the Middlesex regulars were getting a bit hot under the collar.
Don’t I look cool considering it was the hottest day EVER?
I wanted to show Janie the view from the top of the new Upper Compton, so we wandered around that way, bumping into one of my tennis pals, Russ, with whom we chatted for a while as the temperature rose.
We didn’t stay up top for long – the view was great and the shade welcome but the breeze was almost non-existent by 2:00 and it was getting seriously hot.
We went home to swelter in the discomfort of our own home for the rest of the day, still wondering what Middlesex had been playing at choosing to bowl.
Young Men At Lord’s, Middlesex v Sussex Day Three, 21 July 2022
But in some company the phrase seems even more sarcastic than usual. For example, my third visit to Lord’s in a week, when I met up with young Jez Horne, who came to work as a summer intern at Z/Yen in the summer of 2005 and stayed for nearly 10 years…and Jez’s six-year-old son Nathaniel.
As it happens, I originally met Jez through Middlesex cricket. In fact, now I come to think of it, I conducted his internship recruitment interview while playing catch on the outfield at Southgate in the interval between innings of a Middlesex v Gloucestershire Sunday League match, 17 years ago.
Jez did a lot of serious numbers work with Z/Yen – scoring the charity cricket matches was the least of it
Returning to 2022, Jez and I agreed to meet up on this day while Jez was introducing six-year-old Nathaniel to the joys of Lord’s. It was a very enjoyable experience for me to witness a young child’s wide-eyed wonder at all the different viewing points and places we could show him there. Nathaniel had previously visited Radlett and Hove, which are both lovely grounds, but not, until that day, had he seen Lord’s.
Our circuit started in the Warner Stand, took in a photo-opportunity or two in the Grandstand, then we watched from the very top of the Compton Stand (from whence Nathaniel was sure the land below was flat and not a hill, as I kept asserting), then the lower Compton Stand (at which point Nathaniel changed sides and agreed wholeheartedly that the cricket field is indeed a slope) and then, before tea, the Upper Allen Stand.
We met plenty of people on our trek, including Barmy Kev, Russ (who was again wending his way home after tennis) and Fletch, who shared some thoughts on the “bowl first” decision with us.
Just before leaving home, I had found a small Virgin Active gimcrack beanie ball on a shelf, which I thought might come in handy…and it did.
Just before tea, as I started to wonder whether the little fella was ever going to run out of energy, we tried playing catch with him using that beanie ball. He struggled at first but within just a few short minutes he was getting the hang of it and catching far more than he was missing.
Come tea, Nathaniel wanted to see “Grandpa’s Garden”, as I tend to call the Harris Garden. (Well, Grandpa Harris WAS a gentleman of Marylebone, albeit not THE Lord Harris of Marylebone Cricket Club fame). In the garden, Nathaniel devised a game of catching and tag that might, to the untrained eye, seem to have the rule complexity of real tennis combined with the rule-adjustability of Mornington Crescent. The use of a hat to catch the ball would have met with particular disapproval had an MCC stickler for the laws of cricket witnessed the game.
Soon after tea, that energy lull finally occurred, so I said goodbye to the actual young men and reverted to being a “relatively young man” in the pavilion watching the remainder of the day’s play.
In there, somewhere
I had been due to play tennis early evening, but after messing up my right arm the day before on the modern tennis court, I had to gracefully withdraw, so spent a few minutes after stumps watching my would be fellow combatants play, before ambling home feeling very content.
Everything that needs to be said about that day, and more, is covered in that piece.
Middlesex CCC AGM 17 May
I was there. I played real tennis at Lord’s beforehand and then hung around for a bit ahead of the AGM. It was a meeting with drinks afterwards.
Middlesex v Durham 19 & 20 May
I barely saw any cricket before and after playing tennis on 19th, but I did see a bit.
The plan had been to take Fran & Simon as guests on 20th, but the weather was decidedly iffy, so we delayed that visit until July. Instead, I got stuff done at the flat in the morning and sauntered over to Lord’s to watch a few hours play as the weather cleared in the afternoon.
Before setting off I got a message from Madz, who is now part-timing as a photographer for Durham CCC, wondering whether I planned to be at the game that afternoon.
We agreed to meet beneath Old Father Time, her favourite vantage point for the photos. Also the favourite vantage point for travelling Durham supporters, who were, by the time I got there, making serious headway with their preferred brews. I’m not certain that they were all drinking Newkie Brown, but it felt and sounded like that sort of crowd.
It was good to catch up with Madz.
At one point, the soon-to-be-new-England-wunderkind Matty Potts came on as 12th man for Durham (being rested ahead of the test match) and fielded for a few balls in front of our stand.
I caught this picture on my smart phone as he came our way:
Matty Potts A Few Days Before Stardom
I was pleased with that photo. Madz wondered whether she could have done better with her Nikon and infeasibly long lens.
Did you get one of those, pet?
…asked one of the Durham stalwarts, as a few of them took a passing interest in my snap.
I missed it, unfortunately,
said Madz.
You’re only here for one thing, pet,
said the stalwart, inducing much laughter from the Durham crowd and also from Madz, who clearly knows those fellas well enough and was able to enjoy the joke.
I sent the snap to King Cricket, who agreed that it was the best picture of Matty Potts he’d seen so far and wondered if he might use it, which of course I said he could and he did on 1 June (naturally crediting me…i.e. Ged Ladd) and also 2 June:
As I get older, I realise that certain statements that older people make, such as, “the policemen look younger and younger” express how those older people feel, rather than an objective reality about the average age of policemen.
But when I say, “the county championship seems to start earlier and earlier” I believe that is pretty much true…although not by all that much.
The last time I froze this much, Daisy and I went to see the second day of the 2013 season in Nottingham, 11 April that year, reported on King Cricket at that time…
I had arranged to play tennis at 14:00. I got to Lord’s in time to see most of the first session of play. I decided to sit in the relatively sheltered central part of the pavilion forecourt, where I watched, read and chatted a little with one or two other hardy folk. The stewards reckoned I wouldn’t last long out there but actually it wasn’t too bad in the morning and the new soft padding on the pavilion benches…
…standards are falling…
…made the whole experience less painful than expected.
Young Josh de Caires bowling
After a very close game of tennis, which my adversary won by dint of the odd point here and there, I took my time over my ablutions and then grabbed a soft drink followed by a light bite and coffee – initially in the pavilion bar but subsequently, as the sun was shining, I took my coffee in the new Compton Stand – a vantage point from which I took the headline picture (also replicated above).
But even in the sunshine, it was bitterly cold by that afternoon period, so I decided to return to the pavilion.
By the time I got to the pavilion, Josh de Caires had taken a wicket. This was to be my burden all afternoon; I didn’t actually get to see a single wicket – I was either changing or on the move every time Middlesex took a wicket. One of the friendly pavilion stewards even asked me to keep moving around, as my moves seemed to coincide with Middlesex’s success so comprensively.
Anyway…
…I decided to focus on 19-year-old Josh de Caires’s bowling.
I watched for a while from one of my favourite vantage points, the writing room. If you ever wondered what it looks like from behind the sight screen, wonder no more – the above picture gives you a pretty good impression of it…indeed much like an impressionistic art work.
I had brought plenty of warm clobber with me and I decided to don the lot of it. After all, as Alfred Wainwright famously said:
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”
Thus I braved the middle tier balcony, as evidenced by the following pictures…
…for about three overs, before I decided that jumper, thick jacket, scarf, hat and gloves were insufficient for me as the sun was going down on a seriously chilly April day.
I congratulated the handful of hardy folk who remained on the balcony, admitting to them that I was a wimp. One agreed. One consoled me by letting me know that I was far from the first to have tried and failed to brave the afternoon chill. One pointed out that I hadn’t lowered the ear-flaps on my hat, which might have made all the difference.
I watched the remainder of the day from the impressionistic comfort of the writing room. Naturally Middlesex took a wicket while I was ambling down one flight of stairs from balcony to room.
I had a very good day. I read, I chatted, I played tennis and best of all I watched some live cricket again.
Anyway, I started to hatch a plot several years ago – 2018 when at Falkland Palace playing real tennis, to be precise – where Ewan Lee informed me that he was teaching his pupils to play fives on squash courts. The slightly different size and colour can be compensated for with a special ball, he told me. Squash courts are good for fives and vice versa. It occurred to me that Lord’s, with two squash courts, might be a very good place for fives.
Let’s not talk about why it took me three-and-a-half years from idea to actual plan and fruition. Let’s just talk about the fruition.
Early in 2022, I ordered a selection of fives equipment (several sizes of gloves & inners, plus a couple of those special balls) as a donation for players at Lord’s to share. Most of the gloves were “white-labelled” but you can buy, for a few bob extra, gloves labelled for the old school, so I treated myself to a personal Alleyn’s pair.
What would Mr Tindale have done? What would Mr Banson have done?
The equipment arrived 25 February and I had a provisional arrangement to have an initial go with Jack Clifton (one of the real tennis pros) and Janie on Monday 28th February.
What a glorious day it was.
I had arranged to play real tennis at 14:00. Janie and I arrived a little early for that session, enabling me to show her the (very) basics of fives for quarter of an hour or so before my game. It transpires that 10-15 minutes is sufficient for the addiction factor of the compelling game that is fives to kick in. Janie said she’d practice on her own for a while and come and watch the tennis a bit later. She did show up to watch the tennis for quite a while, but not before she’d warmed up her hands a fair bit for fives.
After I’d come a close second (which seems to be my regular placing post-Covid) at tennis, Jack, Janie and I had a good introductory knockabout on the fives court.
Jack took to the game very quickly indeed – I’d suggest that anyone who is a natural sportsperson for hand-eye co-ordination ball sports should be able to pick up fives and find pleasure in it rapidly.
Janie’s new-found addiction was slightly mitigated by her concern for her hands and fingers when playing a hard-ball game. As a podiatrist, she does need fully-functioning hands for work and worries about even the slight bruising that is inevitable (especially at first) even with padded gloves. I remember a similar conversation when she tried wicket-keeping.
Jack and I tried a couple of short games before the former returned to the pros office to do some work. “But for you, this too is work”, I said, but to no avail. Janie and I played for a while longer, while waiting for the next pair of combatants to finish their tennis match, as I had semi-lined up one of them to have a go at fives.
Graham Findlay, an Old Fettesian and increasingly handy real tennis-player, had previously told me that he used to play rugby fives at school. I should have guessed that he would have been very handy at the game; he’s very handy at games.
Both of us were able to boast an interval of 40 to 45 years since we had last played fives.
You can just see Graham in the background checking out the fixture list
Janie volunteered to watch and shoot some hand-held video from the squash court viewing gallery.
The first three clips show the progression of our warm up and refreshing our memories about the rules.
I had remembered the serve rule, but forgotten that lefties normally serve from the other side
Graham claims not to be remotely into it yet, then plays a classic leftie’s winner
Graham practices some serves from the left-hand side of the court
The next three clips show some highlights (or should I call them lowlights?) from our match: A Very Old Fettesian v An Alleyn’s Very Old Boy. Hold on to your hats:
The first rally of the match and Graham is unquestionably “too good”
Graham goes 3-1 up, Janie advises and I somehow scramble a winning rally
At 3-2, Janie advises some more and I pull off a classic shot to confound a leftie
We should draw a veil over the rest of the match. After all, fives is a quintessentially good-natured, sporting, fair-play game. It’s not about the score. It’s not about winning or losing. I’m sure, dear reader, you understand my points…or shortage thereof.
Graham wondered afterwards what Dr Colin Niven (a former teacher of his at Fettes and a former Head at Alleyn’s) would make of it – would he cheer for Fettes, Alleyn’s or just give three cheers for the sport?
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.
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.
… 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.
