Month: February 2023

Book Club Evening At Lord’s: Being Geoffrey Boycott With Jon Hotten, 28 February 2023

Don’t talk to me about uncovered pitches. Pictures by Janie.

I met Geoffrey Boycott in the summer of 1969, when I had just turned seven:

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

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:

Uncovered

The indifference of that refined fox (you get a better class of vulpine in St John’s Wood) has subsequently found its way to the King Cricket website:

A fox being conspicuously indifferent to Being Geoffrey Boycott

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.

Jon seemed amazed at how many people wanted to buy a copy of the book on the evening; I ended up procuring the very last book from that pile. Almost running out of books is not quite as bad as my act of omission at my first book signing, coincidentally in Yorkshire…

My First Ever Book Signing, Clean Business Cuisine (the book), Actors’ Workshop Halifax (the venue), Yet Something Was Missing, 5 July 2000

I thought about asking Jon to write a glib remark about “a stick of rhubarb” or “uncovered pitches”, but in the end decided against.

The long and short of it is – Janie and I had a very enjoyable evening. I am now looking forward to dipping into the book, Being Geoffrey Boycott.

A Bratish Evening With John White: The Umbrella Workshop & BRAT Restaurant, 21 February 2023

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

Leave it with me…

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

Brat.

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

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

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

The Umbrella Project

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

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

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

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

The bar: super-well stacked with stuff

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

BRAT

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

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

We started with:

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

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

For mains and sides, we had:

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

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

The headline photo shows John with the spider crab toast.

Here’s me attacking the velvet crab soup

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

Here’s the place: BRAT

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

Let Them Eat Cake: Dinner At Jilly’s Place, 18 February 2023

Photo by Janie: Clockwise – Ruth, Daniel, Simon, (Janie’s chair), Me, Jilly.

We don’t go to people’s houses much for dinner any more. We don’t have people round to our house much either.

I guess the dinner party has sort-of gone out of fashion, but it really shouldn’t have done so, as it is a very pleasant way to spend an evening with friends old and new.

I have known Jilly for many decades – since we were youngsters at BBYO. Similarly Simon – in fact I have known Simon for longer than I have known Jilly…and Jilly has known Simon for even longer than that blah blah.

Simon…so sensible back then.

Jilly was even more sensible…and in colour

We were also supposed to be joined by Timothy, but he had somehow managed to get a diary clash, having agreed to accompany Simon’s mum to see András Schiff at The Wig.

Ruth and Daniel are good friends of Jilly’s from the locality, which means Watford and also means that they too have known Jilly for decades…just not as many decades as me and Simon…about as many decades as Janie has known Jilly.

Anyway, point is, it was a really super evening. Jilly made a wonderful meal, with a slightly spicy tomato soup…

…just a week or two later, you’d probably have needed police protection around your house if it became known that you had enough tomatoes for a home made soup…

…followed by a very tasty chicken-based main course…

…followed by Jilly’s pièces de résistance – cake-based deserts. Enough for a small army.

Qu’ils mangent de la brioche…

But of course such evenings are really special, not only for such good food, but also for the delightful company. Thanks, Jilly.

Plenty Of Real Tennis, Including The MCC Club Weekend & “Batting For The Other Side” In The Queen’s Club v Dedanist’s Society Match, Late January & Early February 2023

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.

Almost everything I want to say about the weekend, including some video links and photos, is in the match report I wrote about the weekend, which you can find by clicking here.

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.

I have previous at this – here’s a report on one in which I represented the MCC against the Dedanist’s, with Carl Snitcher, doyen of The Dedanist’s partnering me for the MCC.

MCC v The Dedanists’ Society, Lord’s, 10 February 2018

…or this one from just before the pandemic, in which I had both an MCC and my Dedanist’s shirt in my bag, as I really had no idea which team I’d end up representing. Carl Snitcher, who was the captain of The Dedanist’s team, ended up playing for the MCC:

Four Courts In 25 Hours; Boston Manor Centre Court, Lord’s Real Tennis Court, Royal Court Theatre & Boston Manor Court One, 8 & 9 February 2020

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.

Admittedly, I did do some advisory work for Queen’s in the early 1990s, enabling me to enact a fiendish piece of Gamesmanship at that club in the late 1999s…

Lawn Tennis At Queen’s, In Which I Inadvertently Deployed Gamesmanship Masterfully, Yet Still Lost, 24 June 1999

…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.