Jez and Sarah were soon to get married – which was a near-perfect excuse for a team evening that didn’t involve tennis or cricket. Outrageous.
Mary, Linda & Gordon
Linda Cook, our social-secretary-in-chief, organised an evening of wine tasting at the office (through her brother Gordon) followed by crazy golf in Devonshire Square, which was “a thing” in the City, that summer of 2010.
Libations aplenty, bound to improve the results when blind tasting and playing crazy golf: Linda, Gordon, Michael, me.
There are lots and lots of photos from that evening, almost all of which were taken by Monique Gore. The story is better told through pictures than words, really.
Sarah and Jez taking the wine tasting very seriouslyJanet, Sonia and Alex studying the winesGathering for results time at the wine tastingChiara, Steph and Simon Mc look on in horror at my inept crazy golfChiara and Steph soon recover their composureBen dwarfs the Palace of Westminster while Mary & Sonia look onMonique, Flynn, Leo and Kirstan demonstrating their ball skills
The whole album, with thanks again to Monique, can be viewed by clicking the link below – there are more than 120 pictures to be seen:
I’m pretty sure we’d seen Ensemble Clément Janequin before and liked them so much we fancied another go for this concert of secular Renaissance music and modern music in that “Renaissance Cri” style. They were promoting their album L’écrit du Cri at that time; the concert was basically a performance of the album.
Here is a vid recording of the Ensemble singing Janequin’s hit cri, Les Cris de Paris:
This is not easy listening Renaissance (nor easy listening modern) music. I recall Janie being a little disappointed, awarding a low relaxation score despite the high fascination score and very high “talent” score for this ensemble, always excellent.
But I’m sticking to booking mostly sacred music from this Renaissance period (early 16th century) for Janie from now on. Ensemble Clément Janequin do plenty of that too.
But I do remember the events of the 24 hours or so in question.
In those days, Vic Demain, now the head groundsman at Durham CCC, was the groundsman at Uxbridge. He would organise a charity party night during the county championship match to raise money for a good cause – breast cancer mostly.
This particular year, I was unable to attend the cricket on the day of the party, as it clashed with business meetings of such import I can barely bring myself to read the appointments for them in my diary without trembling.
So, I decided to hot-foot it to Uxbridge after my last meeting (in Kings Cross) and arranged for Daisy kindly to collect my weekend gear from the flat and take it to the house.
That way, I could commute to Uxbridge to the party, cab it to Daisy’s after the party, commute to Uxbridge the next day (Day Three, the Friday) and have Daisy join me for the conclusion of play and a lift home.
Simples.
I recall the charity party was a good one that year. I think I might have ended up with some Middlesex memorabilia and a lighter wallet, but that’s the idea of such things I suppose.
I also remember having terrible trouble meeting up with my minicab driver, as the gate I thought would work for my collection was locked and we struggled to work out how I might get out without walking for 10-15 minutes around the ground and adjacent fields. I think we ended up with me jumping the gate, in the style of the escape Daisy and I had made from Laos some years earlier:
But that Sunday idea fell through for lack of willing participants.
We had in any case planned to have a team bonding cricket session on Monday 19 July. We’d originally planned to play in Regent’s Park, but with that location unavailable we arranged for the match to be played at Z/Yen’s spiritual cricketing home, Holland Park. That facility got closed on us at the last minute, so the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, bless them, switched us to Kensington Memorial Park instead.
I’m not sure that the locals around Kensington Memorial Park had been informed that recreational cricket had been switched from Holland Park for a few weeks. Several of the locals let their unease with cricket be known to us in no uncertain terms during the evening.
Despite handling all of constantly moving goalposts regarding the logistics of this event, there’s no evidence that Monique Gore attended that evening, by which I mean there are no photographs from it. Monique’s attendance normally meant photographs.
Back then, if no-one was there with a camera (remember those) then you might not have any photographs to show.
The headline picture depicting Simon McMullen, one of the eventual winners, was taken the previous year.
If it’s summer that means there must be some sort of Z/Yen cricket match and 2010 was no exception. We decided to play a pairs tournament this year, which made sure that everyone got a go. Indeed, Xenia Mainelli was drafted in as a last minute replacement for her mother and came a close second – and who are we to judge whether her contribution or that of Louwrens was the key to that partnership’s success.
Chiara von Gunten, fresh over from Switzerland and experiencing cricket for the first time managed to take two wickets, which is quite an achievement.
Congratulations to the winners, Jacques Malan & Simon McMullen.
Rumours of match fixing at Z/Yen cricket matches are most certainly untrue, but we can confirm that the 2011 cricket match will be won by Ian Harris in partnership with Linda Cook.
Perceptive readers might have noticed that Simon’s picture was taken at the Lord’s academy, thus demonstrating that practice pays off. Indeed the photo was taken on the day that most of us Z/Yen folk played a practice game at the Lord’s academy, as witnessed by Garry Sobers, no less. Have I ever mentioned that before?
A short two-handed piece set in a cafe, pairs of people go to a cafe to perform the piece themselves, through the use of headphones and props provided.
Originally this evening was set up with Paul and a young woman named Holly. But Holly was off the agenda some time before the evening came round and Scott elected to come down to London to see us instead.
From memory, dinner at the Dock Kitchen had always been on the agenda for this event, but once the dramatis personae changed we thought that some light entertainment before dinner might go down well.
So we booked an hour of stand up comedy at Riverside Studio 3: Andrew Lawrence. He turned out to be pretty good. Stand up comedy is not usually Janie’s thing, but the young men (all three of us) enjoyed it – as did Janie really. This was more thoughtful and less obvious than a lot of stand up.
Then we hot-footed it to the canalside at Ladbroke Grove/Kensal Road to try Dock Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant that had popped up the previous year and stayed around for several years.
It was a really good meal to round off a really good evening.
Paul Deacon, taken a few week’s earlier at England v Bangladesh
The Pakistan cricket team had just started their 10+ year sojourn following a terror incident in their homeland. England hosted a couple of neutral tests and I was keen to sample the delights at Lord’s.
To join me that day, Paul Deacon (this was to be his last hurrah of test cricket before he and his family went into self-imposed exile to Canada) along with Mat and Tim from the gym.
Paul clearly enjoyed himself at the neutral match but did not take (or at least did not post) any photos on the second visit. The headline picture and the one below are from the Bangladesh day.
But Paul did write this:
Hi Ian
just to say another big thank you for a fantastic day at Lord’s. Thoroughly enjoyed it. A nice tumble of wickets today!
Will fix a time for us + partners to meet up for a meal. Do you like Indian? Chinese? Thai? Or all 3 on one plate even?
Wigmore Hall on-line rubric doesn’t go back quite this far, but I have lifted the following text, which is also in the programme, from www.concert-diary.com – click here:
Il siglo d’oro – the Golden Age – was the name that Spaniards gave to their great flowering of music in the 16th century. Spain brought forth some of the finest writers of the age and the Virgin Mary was a popular subject with all of them. Francisco Guerrero was known as el cantor de Maria. Much of his highly characterful music was dedicated to the Virgin, from well-crafted four-part pieces to the more splendid double-choir numbers.
This fascinating exploration of music from 16th-century Spain sets Guerrero alongside his contemporaries and colleagues Morales, Esquivel, Vivanco, Alonso Lobo and the brightest star of all, Tomas Luis da Victoria.
The idea of this concert sounded great to me but not so great to Janie (or at least not for a Monday night in those days), so I made a rare trip to the Wig on my own that Monday night.
Anyway, we went to the opening Saturday night at the Almeida.
I’m not normally one for stage adaptations, but Bergman himself had granted stage adaptation rights for this film alone, so it is fair to assume that the great man himself could visualise a suitable staging.
We really enjoyed this production. I can’t honestly say that you get much from the text that goes beyond the movie script, but seeing this chamber piece close up, live, was an unforgettable experience and did add to this great work.
Ahead of the impending Z/Yen cricket matches that season (which ended up being scaled back to a pairs tournament in Kensington Memorial Park), Steph Rochford was keen to have a go at the Lord’s academy and I was keen to encourage same.
Here is a summary from our extended correspondence a few weeks earlier:
At the moment it looks like you, me, Jez, Ben, Alex and little Si. Thanks, Steph
From: Ian Harris Sent: 07 June 2010 15:57 To: Stephanie Rochford Subject: RE: Cricket Nets?
Steph
Booked for the 6th – two nets and one coach.
Try not to overextend the numbers – 3 or 4 people in each net is the “sensible maximum” if everyone is going to get a decent go, so 6 to 8 for the two nets.
Don’t forget that you’ll need to sort out protective gear if you are going to have a go at keeping – helmet should be easy in any half-decent sports shop but “abdominal protectors” and the like for women cricketers are probably only available at shops that specialize in cricket quite a bit. Unlike the helmet (which you really do need to try on and make sure is right for you), you could probably get those other bits and pieces on the web. Keepers gloves and keepers pads we have in the Z/Yen kit.
Best
Ian
In the end I think it was about half-a-dozen of us in the nets and jolly good fun it was too. I think Steph might have abandoned her wicket-keeping ambitions quite quickly but I think she did sensibly procure an abdominal guard.
The other thing I remember very clearly about the evening was a gathering of about 10 of us in The Star – a now late lamented pub in St John’s Wood. Four or five Z/Yen people gathered there and were waiting for those of us from the cricketing party who fancied some libations after our net.
The soccer world cup was going on at the time. Alexandra Flynn, who has some Uruguayan extraction, was “put through the wringer” by Steph with regard to a controversial moment a few day’s earlier. At one point during her monologue, Steph, more or less without pausing for breath, said words to the effect of:
…oh my goodness I’ve just heard myself sounding off about this – I’d better stop right now…
…which came across to me as very self-aware, in a eureka moment sort of way. There was much myrth about that and indeed throughout the evening, which I remember fondly as a very pleasant few hours with the Z/Yen team.
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