Month: October 2016

King Cricket Explained by Sam Blackledge, 10 October 2016

king-cricket-logo copy

As regular Ogblog folk might know, I write occasional pieces for Alex Bowden’s wonderful website, King Cricket, using my nom de plume, Ged Ladd.

punim de plume
Punim de plume – Ged Ladd

I’m still in the process of linking through to all of my published pieces there; a few dozen now, over the years. But readers might not realise that I far more regularly (like, most days) put down scribblings in the comments section of the King Cricket site, which is remarkably active and indeed one of the site’s main attractions for us regulars.

Indeed, it has occurred to me occasionally that I should, one day, write a piece on Ogblog explaining what the King Cricket site is about and what it means to me and to those of us who read and scribble there regularly…

…but now I don’t have to…

…because journalist Sam Blackledge, bless him, has written a simply delightful piece about King Cricket and us on his own blog. I really couldn’t have put this as well myself – click here to read Sam’s piece – trust me you’ll enjoy it. While you’re there, you might enjoy some of Sam’s other pieces about cricket too. I certainly do.

Lunch With Charlie and Chris, The Gate, Bryants Bottom, 8 October 2016

Our first opportunity to visit Charlie and Chris’s new home in Speen, to deliver housewarming presents (coffee machine being the main item) and have lunch nearby, in part also to celebrate Charlie’s birthday.

Big house, slightly reminiscent of the Cooper Close place in Chippy where Charlie grew up. Big garden too.

Lunch was at The Gate in Bryants Bottom, just a couple of miles down the road. A bit too far to walk on this occasion, as we were a little late and the weather was less than special. We luckily dodged the showers whenever we were getting in and out of the car.

Really nice pub grub at the Gate – most of us had the home made pies as mains, which were very tasty. Fairly quiet in that late lunch slot; a good chance for a proper catch up chat in a public place without needing to shout to be heard.

We were keen to get back to London before dark and the afternoon passed so quickly we all too soon realised that we would need to end proceedings if we were to achieve that aim.

There’s some beautiful countryside in those Chiltern Hills nearby; perhaps next time we’ll allow enough time for a country walk as well.

 

Middlesex County Cricket Club End of Season Forum and Party, Lord’s, 3 October 2016

This was a great opportunity to see the Middlesex crowd one more time this season.

The forum is usually an opportunity for members to vent their spleens, but in a Championship winning season (have I mentioned that fact before?) there wasn’t too much spleen to vent.

Prior to talk about the successful season, discussion centred around the proposed new T20 tournament and Durham’s penalty relegation.  MTWD have written up the forum, here.

The Thomas Lord Suite is large enough for a lecture-style room for the meeting and a large open space next door for the party afterwards. The mood at the party was as good as you might expect.

I chatted with several of my regular friends and also met some new people – at least new to me. One couple I chatted with, it turned out that the lady, Miranda, went to JAGS but was taught economics by a young David Stretton at Alleyns, as JAGS had no economics teaching back then. Quite a coincidence and an unexpected line of conversation at a Middlesex party.

I always enjoy these Middlesex events, but my goodness the party felt especially sweet this year with the celebratory mood. I hope the gleeful feeling lasts long enough to sustain us all through the winter.

Dinner With Seema and Carl, 2 October 2016

Seema was Janie’s neighbour for many years in Sandall Close, just across the road. Strangely, they got to know each other better after Janie moved to Noddyland and after Seema had a major fire at her house, about five years ago.

A couple of years ago, Seema moved to Johannesburg. She and Janie keep in touch through Whats-app, one of the few bits of ICT wizardry that Janie has embraced with gusto.

So when Seema told Janie that she was going to be visiting the UK with her new beau and soon-to-be-husband Carl, we found a mutually convenient slot in the diary for the pair of them to join us for dinner in Noddyland.

Having been given Seema’s description of Carl as “a big Saffer”, Janie decided to go for a big, red meat option; beef fillets with wasabi mayonnaise as the main dish. Rather a lot of it. As it turns out, Carl is a big chap, but perhaps not the massive eater that Janie catered for. No matter – that beef fillet dish works wonderfully as left-overs, as Janie and I discovered to our joy for two further meals each.

We had a very enjoyable evening with Seema and Carl; they both loved Janie’s garden and it was still warm enough for us to enjoy drinks and nibbles on the terrace, with a little bit of help from the terrace heater.

Carl is a very interesting chap. He works in design and construction using interesting, sustainable materials in innovative ways. We had lots to talk about; wine, partially-shared heritage, a love of travel and of course cricket.

Indeed, Carl would have come in handy for our cricket matches in days of yore, as he can bowl pace from quite a height, except the budget for our charity matches doesn’t quite stretch to flying players in from Safferland.

Meanwhile Seema seems to have made a good life for herself over in South Africa and is well settled there now, which is lovely to see.

As is so often the case with such evenings, the hours seemed to fly by and soon the evening was done. Who knows whether the next time we see them will be in England or in South Africa; their case for us visiting that country at some point in the not too distant future was quite compelling.

R And D by Simon Vinnicombe, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 1 October 2016

I really liked this short play downstairs at the Hampstead. Janie found the subject matter rather too weird and felt she couldn’t relate to it.

The central characters are two brothers; one a writer, bereaved just under a year before the start of the play, the other a geeky scientist whose company is secretly developing a world-beating sentient, anthropomorphic robot, in the form of a rather attractive and spirited young woman. Take it from there.

I liked the drama of it and also the ethical dilemmas that got an airing through the story. It’s a short play, perhaps 75 minutes. It was very well acted.

There is an excellent stub with all the information you might want about the play and production – here.

No formal reviews at Hampstead Downstairs, but the audience shout outs on the above stub are very positive.

Janie was that set against it but she sees the idea of sentient anthropomorphic robots as being way too futuristic. Personally, I think we’re getting mighty close to such technology – perhaps within 10 years; certainly our lifetimes, unless our lives are cut short.

Anyway, Janie was mollified by some excellent Chinese food from Four Seasons afterwards, so all was not lost for her as an evening, not by any stretch.