Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
When I say that we had our niece Charlie for dinner, I don’t mean that we had Charlie for dinner, obviously…
…according to Janie’s diary we had pork for dinner…
…what I mean is that Charlie came over to our place that evening and we three had dinner together.
It will have been a very pleasant evening and I’m sure the grub was wonderful.
John Random’s rallying cry for this one read as follows:
…the next Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner is to be held on Thursday March 5th at 8 o’ clock at the Cafe Rouge in Clifton Thingamy. Look forward to seeing you all,, and if you haven’t been for a while, please don’t think that means you can’t come along now. Regrettably, Sir Fred Goodwin has had to cry off. Says he’s a bit strapped for cash at the moment.
Don’t ask why, but John also sent the following photo of himself along with the message:
John’s thank you e-mail after the dinner was not very forthcoming about our event itself:
…A big thank you to all those who came out to the I don’t know 23rd Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner. It was a very enjoyable evening. If you couldn’t make it this time, rest assured that you were sorely missed.
Now, to more serious matters. Some of you may have heard about the disgraceful auction of some of our founder’s personal effects. Mike ‘MaHoddma’ Gandhi always eschewed vulgar displays of vulgaressness so the news that his original wire-rimmed spectacles (so humble that they didn’t even have any glass in them) and a pair of his even humbler sandals (the very sandals he wore during his famous March, which was just before his famous April) have come up for sale at Christie’s in New York will send a shiver down many a loyal spine. To us Newsrevue veterans these items are tantamount to sacred relics, and tantamount is next to Paramount, as you well know.
I sent the following, which should be recorded for all posterity:
…I amused (most of) those who were there on Thursday with the Washington Post invitational word “ignoranus”. I attach the list of all of this year’s winners from that competition – several of which are well worth the effort of reading:
Best
Ian
Here are the winners of this year’s Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition :
Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright Ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7.Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8.Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease (this one got extra credit).
Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s, like, a serious bummer.
Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
Glibido: All talk and no action.
Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:
Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade, v, To attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.
Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Noel Christopher reported that:
…Wow. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at the new definition of “flatulence”. There’s probably a word for it…
…perhaps “posterity”?
An unusual timing and location for the Middlesex pre-season forum in 2009.
Timing – about a month before the AGM rather than as part of it.
Location – the Long Room, nach.
Barmy Kev reported on it at length on MTWD and I chimed in with some comments – otherwise, in truth, the detail might have been lost to my memory completely – I only vaguely recalled it even when I read the following piece:
Phil Good Factor At Forum – click here.
I’m not sure whether I made it to the Seaxe Club AGM (31 March) or the actual MCCC AGM (7 April) that year. I don’t recall them and I can see that I did a shout out to other MTWDniks such as Barmy Kev (unsuccessfully) to try to get cover for those.
We absolutely loved this unusual and superb production.
We weren’t in the theatre downstairs, we weren’t in the theatre upstairs. Janie and I were in a caravan with six other audience members and the cast.
It was about the floods that were/are affecting so many UK citizens.
Read about it on the Royal Court site here.
Official London Theatre explained it well, with a super picture, here...
Verbatim theatre. When it works it really works.
the caravan was only 35-40 minutes long, but this short piece has lingered long in our memories. Not much bowls us over these days, but this production really did.
We rather liked this one, although more form the point of view of it being a well acted interesting piece on an interesting subject than it being great drama or great comedy.
You can read all about it on the Orange Tree site – here.
Janie and I describe silly or farcical comedies as being “a bit Vincent Golightly” (don’t ask, long/fictional story) and this was a bit Vincent for sure. But we enjoyed our evening in the theatre and topped it off with some Spanish food at Don Fernando, as is our Richmond habit most times.
This was a short play with a good cast and minimal set. We wanted to like it more than we did like it.
Set in Dresden, it is about a house that changed hands while retaining secrets across 60 years of political strife.
Janie usually hates plays that jump backwards and forwards in time, as this one did.
The play and production is well described in The Stage – here.
…you get the point.
Not sure what we ate afterwards – in all the temporal confusion it’s a miracle that we succeeded in getting food and getting home in that order.
Janie and I really liked this play/production, well summarised on the Official London Theatre site – click here. It is basically about migration to/through London from the late 16th century until today.
It’s a slightly show-bizzy play, with some of the humour being a little obvious, plus some singing and dancing thrown in. Which doesn’t sound like our sort of play. Yet, there was an interesting enough narrative line and some fabulous performances to keep us interested throughout.
We saw a preview, so were unaware, when we discussed the play/production afterwards, how much it would divide the critics.
Quite a mixture of opinions. Mark Espiner’s analysis of the reviews from the Guardian might help – click here.
A very memorable show for me, which is an element of praise indeed. Olivia Coleman and Michelle Terry were standout performances among many good ones.
I wonder how the piece would come across to me now, in our Brexity times (writing in April 2017) – would my sense of humour still be in tune with it, or should I say would the play’s sense of humour now be in tune with mine?
Even by our enthusiastic standards, three visits to the Wigmore Hall within three weeks is going some.
Xuefei Yang is a superb guitarist, though and this was a very interesting programme:
A real mixture of stuff.
We really liked all of it. And we really liked Xuefei Yang too.
This concert was a very relaxing end to (by the looks of it) a pretty full-on working week.
Just a couple of weekends after our previous visit, another early music outing to the Wigmore Hall.
Rather a different feel, this one, as the conceit of the concert was to mix early music with some contemporary compositions influenced by those earlier periods.
Central to the concert was Purcell, whose 350th birthday was that year and who therefore featured a lot in 2009 concert programmes.
Here is the full listing for this 1 February gig:
In truth, Janie and I got a lot more out of the early music than the contemporary stuff, although I always enjoy Arvo Pärt more than I expect and the Shostakovich was interesting too.
But Purcell was the star of the show, as was Clare Wilkinson, who specialises in singing this Renaissance and Baroque stuff; often with Fretwork.
Lovely stuff, it was, on a Sunday night.
We’re big fans of Ian McDiarmid. We think he worked wonders running the Almeida with Jonathan Kent and he is a fine actor to boot. He is also a nodding acquaintance of mine in Notting Hill Gate (although, writing in April 2017, it is a while since I have seen him around).
But in truth I don’t think this play/production did much for us. It all felt a bit grim. It sounded like it might be a bit like a Bergman movie, but ended up a rather drab stage equivalent.
The play/production is well described on Official London Theatre – click here.
No doubt this did well when National Theatre of Scotland took it touring north of the border.
No record of what we ate afterwards, but I’ll guess we went to May’s place (Shanghai Knightsbridge) to take away some yummy Chinese grub.
