Janie and I had hot tickets for a Royal Court preview on the evening of 29 June, but when Jo insisted that the cyber party she and Sheyda were to be throwing would only be getting started by the time we got to Tottenham Hale “no earlier than 23:00”, the idea of us going on to the party after theatre was very much on.
Only problem was, the party was a cyber party and Kim was very insistent that we do our bit by dressing up.
…but we got it done in the end, with just a few thumbs up and comments from the Royal Court bar flies who saw us leave.
Janie was convinced that we’d get stopped by the police driving through North London dressed like cyber-creeps, but my guess is that, in some of the neighbourhoods we drove through, we looked totally in place.
Taking excessive chances though, we drove past Pentonville Prison:
That’s me, trying to look normalMy cyber-moll took a selfie while on vehicle look-out duty
Once we got to the right postcode (thank you, Mr Waze) it still took us a while to find the venue…until we saw some vaguely-cyber-looking people waving at us from the distance.
We donned our cyber-lights and practised our cyber-moves a little before entering the fray.
Ah, there they all are. Cyber-Daisy with Cyber-Kim, Cyber-Millie and Cyber-Becky
It was a steamy hot evening, so most people spent plenty of time hydrating (and dehydrating) with liquids, but we were up for plenty of dancing.
Young people in search of instruction should study these movesThere’s Cyber-MickyCyber-Jo wondering where her brother, Cyber-Max might be?Ah!Cyber-Sheyda briefly addressed the throng
By about 1:00, we felt a little spent, dance-moves-wise and decided to retire from all forms of cyber-dancing while we were still on top.
I thought that I had been a big hit with the girls and that my cyber-moll in particular would be in awe of me, but unfortunately she found true love elsewhere that evening:
Size isn’t everything, you know.
Still, we both had a super time and I’m sure Cyber-Daisy must be happy with her new chap. As one of the gang explained to me, as I disconsolately left the venue
That new chap doesn’t answer back as much as you do, Cyber-Ged!
If you want to browse all of the photos we took that night, the link below takes you to a Flickr album with the whole lot of them:
The play takes place over two decades, starting in 1997 soon after the Blair government took power. It is a chamber play about a nuclear family, the parents being firmly of the left.
We saw a preview of this play/production and were both really taken with it.
It is hard to explain why this play is so good. It’s just beautifully well written. All of the characters are flawed and yet likeable. We wanted to know what was going to happen to all of them.
The acting is top notch. Lesley Sharp has been a favourite of mine for several decades. David Morrisey is also always good value. Indeed all of the cast were fine actors and well suited to their roles.
No gimmicks – it’s simply a super production of a very interesting new play.
Meanwhile, the drama of our evening was only just beginning when the curtain call was taken. We’d agreed to go on to Jo and Sheyda’s cyber party in Tottenham – another story for another blog piece – except that we decided to change into our gear at the Royal Court.
Having checked with the staff, we ascertained that none of the loos are designated by gender any more; they are designated as “urinals and cubicals” or “cubicals only”, so we would be welcome to change in the outer area of the cubicles one.
But when Janie and I went through the “cubicals only” door together, several women in that area started hissy-fitting. How very unwoke and cis-gendered that incident was.
Still, we retired to the relatively pokey but safer space of the disabled toilet to transform ourselves into cyber-folk:
Russ London — (Russ London) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons
This was the only one of the Wigmore Hall Lates concerts I booked this year and I don’t think Janie is now overly enthusiastic about me booking even one a year unless it is a “must see”.
It’s the Friday evening tiredness that gets Janie – especially after eating.
Perhaps I should have been wary of the lower case/UPPER CASE signal in the title of the concert.
Sean Shibe tries to show us the contrast and yet similarities between some beautiful, gentle 17th Century music from the Straloch and Rowallan Manuscripts and some modern electric guitar music of the most frenzied kind.
Here he is playing some of his gentle stuff – I believe the sample below is Dowland:
Although I much preferred Shibe’s acoustic guitar to his electric guitar work, I did really like one electric guitar piece: the Steve Reich Electric Counterpoint. Here is Steve Reich and Pat Metheney’s version of it:
I cannot find any YouTubes of Sean Shibe’s more ear-drum-splitting electric guitar music, with which he concluded the concert. You have been spared, dear reader. It ensured that Janie and I were wide awake for the journey home. Perhaps not in the very best of moods; but awake.
Perhaps we’re getting too old for this sort of caper.
An enjoyable evening, as always, meeting up with Simon Jacobs for a natter and some decent grub.
I chose The Cow this time. I have only eaten there once before, some years ago, with Janie, Charlie and Chris. It turns out that Simon was in the same boat; he’d also been once before and also remembered the place fondly.
…so I asked Simon top provide trigger warnings before he mentioned any former, current or prospective leaders of the Conservatives. This Simon agreed and more or less stuck to throughout the meal.
A very tasty meal it was too. We both went for the smoked mackerel pate starter; then Simon went for the beef and Guinness pie, while I went for the posh seafood pasta dish.
…but Simon claimed to be behind with his Ogblog reading and deflected my more incisive questions. We agreed that we both recalled that Krokus were not to our taste…to say the least.
Then, just as I finished my main course, Simon said “Mark Francois” without so much as a trigger warning.
Look – I know that, strictly speaking, that gentleman is none of the things I listed (viz Tory leadership) but I do think that the flagrant, unexpected mention of his name was a breach of the spirit if not the letter of my trigger warning request.
It’s Simon’s good fortune that I was able to gather myself without causing a good deal of embarrassment, mess or embarrassing mess in The Cow.
We discussed many interesting things other than politics. We also discussed employment practices, cricket and music. We did not discuss tennis this time, much to Janie’s chagrin afterwards when I described the evening.
I always enjoy these evenings, but I must construct a more exhaustive list of characters who require trigger warnings ahead of being mentioned. We can’t afford any more Iain Duncan Smith or Mark Francois type incidents in public.
Photo of me on the East Court at The Queen’s Club with opponents (from a previous occasion) airbrushed out
Exile. The humiliation of it. Condemned to the role of real tennis supplicants for several weeks while the forces of global domination (cricket branch) took over Lord’s for the world cup.
We Lord’s real tennis players know how to suffer, so many of us have taken up the very generous offer of The Queen’s Club to play there for most of our weeks of exile. I say most, because the first of our wandering weeks coincided with The Queen’s Club ATP tournament for the modern variety of tennis.
But on this day, with the help of the kind professionals at Queen’s, three of us came in search of doubles practice. At one point, I think it was the day before, Ben Ronaldson e-mailed me to say he was having trouble finding us a fourth, but by the time I got to my e-mails he had e-mailed again to say that he had found us a suitable player.
So, Dominic (my doubles partner for this year’s Lord’s tournament) and Bill were joined by Chrissie for a two hour doubles slot. Ben said when I arrived:
I think this should be quite well matched. Try playing level and see what happens.
What happened was a five set epic. Dominic and I started strongly, with him facing Bill and me facing Chrissie. We won the first set 6-2. We tried the alternative server/receiver pairing on the next set, which led to Bill and Chrissie winning that set 2-6.
Dominic and I chose to persevere with the pairing of me facing Bill and Dominic facing Chrissie for the third set. We managed to turn things around and won that close set 6-4. We tried reversing again for the fourth, only to lose that set 1-6. Despite that loss, we chose to stick with that Ian facing Chrissie, Dominic facing Bill for the start of the fifth set; a set we didn’t expect to finish as we were now about 110 minutes into our two-hour slot.
But no-one came along to use the East Court at the end of our slot. Our sole (mostly sleeping) spectator from most of the match had been replaced by a keen scout who was 30 minutes early for his West Court contest. He encouraged us to continue. Or should I simply say that the crowd, as one, was baying for more and urging the metaphorical umpire not to suspend play.
So we saw through the whole of the fifth set, which turned out to be a cracker. Dominic and I got to 5-3 up, only to lose the next two games which (in real tennis, unlike the modern variety) leads to sudden death on the final game which was, as it happened, me and Chrissie doing the serving/receiving.
Somehow, at 2-sets-all, five-games-all, 30-30, with me on serve, I managed to conjure a couple of good-‘uns to seal the match. 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 6-5. Did that matter? Not really. Except that Dominic and I are trying to learn how to play as a pair, so the constant scoreboard pressure and trying to perform as a pair in that circumstance was just what we needed.
Great fun. Nearly two-and-a-half-hours in the end and oh boy did I feel it later in the day.
Coincidentally, much like my Keele experience described above, I developed a slight cold that evening which left me a bit husky for the next couple of days. That was not ideal preparation for a jam with DJ, except that DJ rather liked the variation it gave to my vocal range, despite that variation seeming, to me, rather restrictive.
Ged “Husky” Ladd sings sea shanties?
Still, DJ and I tried a few new ideas, sang a few of our favourites and had a good chat and a good meal. There are far worse ways to spend an evening even when you are a little husky.
Two very enjoyable activities with people who make excellent company.
**SPOILER ALERT** This piece does not end well if you are an England cricket fan.
The day seemed to start well enough. OK, our cab seemed to take an age to get to us, but basically we got through security at Lord’s and to our seats with a good 10 minutes to spare – enough time to “enjoy” the reverence of the national anthems and stuff.
Aussie anthem first; then the UK one. I’m no fan of either tune, frankly……but I can look suitably reverent.
Daisy was trigger happy at first with her iPhone camera…
Ball caught in mid air roughly half way down the track
…but soon tired of doing that.
Daisy had many bugbears about today, most of which I shared. The first was the high volume music whenever a boundary was scored. Irritating not least because the Aussies were batting and scoring boundaries.
But her main bugbear was the fact that the scoreboards were showing advertising messages for the vast majority of the time; just occasionally showing the score and/or a replay. Indeed, sometimes even the replays were cut off at the vital moment to return to some banal advertising message.
Some beer I have never heard of – on principle I now won’t try it
That beer ad was one of the less banal messages – some were simply the names of firms we had never heard of; we couldn’t even work out what they might do for a living.
Then even louder noise for drinks intervals, injury breaks and/or when a wicket fell. The cricket bat-shaped electric guitar is amusing at first but after a while the riffs are simply ear-drum piercing.
Worse, the cameras zooming around the crowd as a proxy for yet more advertising – such as the cab-firm turned food delivery company giving away a hamper of food to someone in the crowd who waves appropriately.
Worst of all, the utterly vapid on-ground commentators-come-crowd-chatters trying to describe the match position and/or ask people in the crowd what they think.
Daisy described the inane chatter as unbelievably amateurish and intrusive to the cricket. The nadir was a vacuous conversation about a crowd-member’s loud shirt which had to be cut off in mid stream because the bowler was about to deliver the ball.
We walked several circuits on which, as usual, we ran into a great many people we know. That’s what happens when doing the circuit at Lord’s.
I saw several of my real tennis pals and one or two other folk I know from outside cricket/Lord’s.
Madz Prangley (well known in various guises to several cricket web sites, someone who is oft-seen at Lord’s) told me off for ignoring her Facebook friend request some time ago. That might have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t, until today, know her real name. The matter has already been corrected.
Daisy took a shine to the look of the Harris Garden set up for corporate hospitality:
The stewards politely explained that it was for invited guests only.
Daisy tried to explain that we ARE Mr & Mrs Harris, so the place, basically, is our garden.
We got no closer than this.
We had a splendid lunch anyway, despite being turned down ever so gently by the Harris Garden steward. Daisy had made some smoked salmon and prawn sandwiches (that’s hedging your bets, isn’t it?) as the centrepiece. We also had a nice drop of Gewurtztraminer to wash that down.
I did one circuit on my own, during which I ran into Alan Curtis who said he was desperately looking for someone…but apparently not for me. That’s OK, Alan. Really, that’s OK. I hope you found someone.
But by the time I was circuiting solo and running into Alan, it was clear that England were coming second in this match.
Charley The Gent sent me an e-mail message to inform me that Essex had beaten Somerset. I hesitate to use the term bragging, as Chas would not approve of that term, but the e-mail read…
Great win for Essex over current leaders – Somerset!
…before setting out the summary final score of the match. As it happens, the gentleman sitting next to us in the Mound Stand was an Essex fan who was delighted with the news, despite England’s travails. He and I then discussed Essex, outground cricket and matters of that kind for a while.
Chas then said he had turned off the TV as he couldn’t bear to look any more. Daisy told me to instruct Charley not to be a wuss and to keep the faith. Chas promised to try.
But in the end – once England were 8 down – even Daisy and I couldn’t keep the faith, so we nipped out through the East Gate and ordered our cab before the throng might make such cab-ordering an impossibility.
Our driver, Alex, turned out to be a local lad full of good recommendations for restaurants around Ealing, which helped lift our rather diminished spirits.
My riffs are well subtle compared with those of the cricket bat guitarist, eh?
Daisy is now done with World Cup live action and says she is delighted to be following the rest of the World Cup from the comfort and relative peace of her own home. I understand her point. The “thumping bollocks” atmosphere of a T20 match can be a bit much for three-to-fours hours of a T20. For the eight-plus hours of an ODI it is insanely too much.
Me? I’ll be doing it all again at Lord’s in 10 days time when Pakistan take on Bangladesh. And unless England pull up their socks big time, that match might be the one that decides who takes that final semi-final spot and eliminates England.
In late May, I got this slightly strange message from Rohan Candappa:
Ian, are you around on 18 June? I’m doing a reading of a new piece of work about getting an eye test and the meaning of life at The Gladstone.
As it happened, that afternoon was the only slot I had available to go into the City to do City-based work stuff and that evening also happened to be a free evening.
As it turned out, the day became a flurry of unwanted activity (not least a hoo-ha with Axa PPP regarding Janie) and then a bit of a rush to complete my City work, but still I got to The Glad in time for a pie, drink and chat with the pre-show diners, not least Johnny Eltham and Rich “The Rock” Davis.
Johnny Eltham was in especially skittish mood that evening, making some unusually disparaging remarks about my Jacobean music and mode. The Rock was his usually Rock-like self.
Others in attendance that evening included Paul Driscoll, Simon Ryan, Steve Butterworth, Dave French, Terry Bush, Jan and her friend Charmaigne, David Wellbrook and we were also blessed by the presence of The Right Reverend Sir Nigel Godfrey.
Last but not least, some minutes into Rohan’s performance, the late Nigel Boatswain arrived.
Something a bit misty-optic-like about the lighting
The setting; an Optometrist’s practice, is not exactly home turf for me, as I don’t yet need anything to adjust my eyes and have only had my eyes tested twice in that regard.
The phrase, “is it better with or without”, used many times, apparently, in the search for the optimal optical specification, provided the basis for Rohan to wander off on an existential angst-fest in which the said search might be a proxy for the meaning of life.
As is always the case with Rohan’s work, the narrative takes you into some detailed areas about which you have thought little, then makes you think about some big stuff and also at times makes you laugh a lot.
For reasons that seemed to make sense at the time but to which I cannot really back track, Rohan ended up getting the audience, led by John Eltham, to sing (or rather, “dah-da-da”) the theme to The Great Escape.
I feel bound to say that Johnny Eltham’s efforts dah-da-da-ing that particular tune ranged from poor on melody/harmony to utterly dire on rhythm. Elmer Bernstein was no doubt turning in his grave. And after all those back-handed compliments and disparaging remarks from Johnny about my Jacobean musical efforts too.
After his performance, Rohan told the assembled throng about Threadmash and asked David Wellbrook to retell his moving piece on the subject of Lost and Found from Threadmash 2 (below currently is my piece from that Threadmash – but I might at some stage persuade David to let me publish his Threadmash 2 piece as a guest piece:
It was a very stimulating evening and/but I was really quite tired once the performances were over, so I made my excuses and left promptly. Terry also left at the same time as me, so we had a chance to chat pleasantly until we parted company at Bank, where east is east and west is west.
So is life better with or without evenings like this? With – no question. Thanks, Rohan.
Daisy and I thought we’d take in a bit of out-ground cricket and/but the dates haven’t been working out great for the two of us.
But this particular Monday did work well for us and also suited Fran & Simon. The only issue, as I saw it, was the unseasonably wet weather we were experiencing.
True, the forecast suggested that our day was set fair, but then the forecast had looked fair for the two preceding days and had brought plenty more rain.
Anyway, we took stock on the very morning and all agreed that set fair it was. So we agreed to meet up roughly at the end of the lunch interval.
Daisy and I had a “game of lawners” first thing; quite a rigorous workout ahead of my game of “realers” scheduled at Middlesex University later.
Daisy and I got to Radlett just as the umpire’s called lunch. This enabled us to snap up some good front row seats during the lunch interval – perhaps abandoned after the first session or perhaps not yet used that day.
Soon after we grabbed those seats we saw Posh Margaret and chatted with her for a while. She’s very pessimistic about Middlesex’s position this season – I’m still reserving judgement on the whole season as I feel there is still time for Middlesex to improve and get promoted.
The weather really was smiling on us – as evidenced by this picture of Daisy.
…so it was easy to give Fran and Simon directions to the seats.
Before Fran and Simon arrived, I led Janie to believe that she was going to see the England One-Day Captain, Eoin Morgan, playing in this match. This seemed extraordinary, as Eoin was also scheduled to appear for England in the world cup fixture the next day, in what turned out to be a record-breaking innings of his.
Here we all are.
Soon after Fran and Simon arrived, I made the same announcement with regard to Mr Morgan. Fran seemed surprised/pleased but Simon was onto it straight away; “Oh yes”, said Simon, “a Welsh chap named Owen Morgan plays for Glamorgan“.
We then went in search of Morgan on the field, discovered that he was number 29 and then tried to get a suitable photo of him.
Janie thought she had succeeded in getting an action shot of him, but then numbers is not what Janie does best:
Nick Selman is neither Eoin Morgan nor is he Owen Morgan
In the end, after several rather poor attempts, I finally snapped this:
Incontrovertible evidence that we saw Morgan play that day
Daisy is convinced that Owen Morgan has the body language and rear-view appearance of Eoin Morgan.
So much were we enjoying ourselves that I clean forgot to get up and walk around at all – which is a bit of a mistake when a three hour session is the order of the day.
So when we parted company just before five, Fran suggested, gently, that I was not moving quite as a tennis player should. That accurate observation might explain my tennis results for the next few days, until I got to see Michael Durtnall (the chiropractor).
I have long been a fan of Caryl Phillips‘s writing; I discovered his novels in the mid 1980s and have several of his books in hard cover.
So I was excited to see that he had written a play, although, when I booked Strange Fruit at The Bush, I didn’t realise that it was an early work, written in the early 1980s, prior to the first of the novels.
I think Janie and I saw a preview, although it is hard to tell at The Bush when press night might be without doing deep research.
In any case, we found the production slick and the acting truly excellent.
Written and set in the early 1980s, the play covers some fascinating aspects of African-Caribbean culture and issues from that time, many of which resonate strongly with issues of migration and identity in our current troubled times.
In truth, the play is somewhat unsubtle, starting in a rather tinny, scene-setting style and tending towards melodrama at the end, in ways that Caryl Phillips clearly ironed out as a writer very soon after writing this play.
But there are flashes of brilliance in the writing and the characters, while somewhat stereotypical, are tragic and engaging.
In fact, the whole piece is engaging throughout; although the play is rather long for the simple story it tells, the piece held our attention throughout.
This is not a play that will cheer you up if you seek some light entertainment. It will make you think about the issues and if you like visceral drama then it is most certainly for you.
Unfortunately I shall not be attending the formal celebrations of Alleyn’s (my old school’s) founding 400 years ago, but I thought I would, instead, upload a suitably Jacobean piece.
My mind turned to the beautiful, tragic verse, In Darkness Let Me Dwell, which was well-known and much used in the Jacobean period.
The mournful piece would still have been popular in 1619 and highly appropriate that year, as the English Queen, Anne of Denmark, died that spring. Anne had been a great patron of the arts; indeed she patronised John Dowland. She was also said to enjoy theatre, such that she (unlike King James I by all accounts) even tended to stay awake during plays.
So Edward Alleyn might well also have mourned the passing of Anne. It is even possible that it was Anne’s passing that triggered King James I to sign the Letters Patent that founded Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift in June 1619. The matter had been mired in bureaucracy and politicking for several years prior to the theatre-loving Queen’s passing.
So, I went in search of a suitable musical setting for 1619 and discovered a rare scrap of music that had been recently discovered in the cellar of an inn located in the Darent Valley lowlands.
It might well have been written in 1619…or do I mean 1966 – anyway it certainly sounds ridiculously old and I’m sure it comes from a year with all 1s, 6s and 9s in it.
