Our visit to the Lord’s match against Surrey had been fraught with ticket difficulty. I had no problem getting a ticket to Alan Cooke and arranging to give him an informal pavilion tour before the match, but one other guest, Sean from the Salvation Army, was left potentially ticket-less when his ticket got held up in the post. The kind folk at Lord’s took our word for it and issued us with a replacement Members and Friends ticket for him – problem solved.
I can’t remember who else joined us that day, but I think it was mostly Z/Yen staff for the Surrey match and we did our normal thing of bringing our own drinks and a bit of collective picnic but basically everyone chipping in for an informal sharing evening.
We don’t seem to have any pictures from that evening. Oh well. Jez might remember better.
It was hard to believe it, but Middlesex beat Surrey well that evening to make it four out of four. It was a good game too. Middlesex always seemed on top but it was not a foregone conclusion until right at the end. Here’s the scorecard – click here.
Quite a shocking play centring around a man on a sex offenders’ register in small town USA. “Shocking” as in mood-affecting.
It was good drama, although in some ways lacked something dramatically given the quality of the material and the superb cast and crew lined up at the Bush of all places.
We found this evening hard going on a Friday evening, but for the right reasons. The play really made us think about the subject matter; Janie and I were talking about it all weekend. That’s good theatre in our book, even if the play and production fall short of the “absolutely top notch” class.
…a hefty day’s work, if my appointments diary is to be believed, followed by an informal works outing to the Middlesex v Essex game at Lord’s. No peace for the wicked.
Actually I look pretty bright-eyed and bushy tailed (well, the former at least) in the above photo, given the circumstances of the preceding two or three days.
This evening wasn’t quite in the style of the informal works outings that evolved for T20 matches in subsequent years, but I can see from the e-mail trail that Jez Horne mostly organised the event and that the “10 of us” who eventually showed up included Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett, as well as Mark Yeandle (see picture), perhaps some other Z/Yen folk and some of Jez’s old friends from school.
Perhaps Jez, Mark, Charles and/or Nick will fill in some more details.
I remember it being a fun evening; especially so for those of us who support Middlesex, because Middlesex won the match.
I recall there was some edgy business over Ed Smith’s injury and his request for a runner – in the end that injury proved to be career-ending for Ed Smith; those of us who saw his innings that evening saw his last representative appearance for a first class side. But of course no-one knew the severity at the time.
Update: I have just found the following e-mail from Chas, which suggests that his sense of humour did not extend quite as far as MTWD match reports – his response after I sent him the above link on the Friday:
Oh, so very droll!
I am ok with every thing other than the partisan match reports, much as I appreciate match reports with Middlesex winning, there must be many, many more that Essex were victorious e.g. the county match when Essex won victory from the jaws of defeat, just a few day’s ago.
The match reports that interest me the most (as you well know) are the tuffty/tcs, the TCS/Zyen along with the visits to Lords my myself, Geoff and big Jeff, so behave.
Charles
Whoever uploaded that match report did so at 4:35 the next morning. I’m going to guess that was me. No peace for the wicked. Oh dear, I’m repeating myself; time to stop.
The evening of 11 June 2008 was the first Domestic T20 match of the year for Middlesex. I was editing the Middlesex Till We Die (MTWD) website along with Barmy Kev at that time.
We were finding it difficult to generate much interest for the T20 tournament among Middlesex fans – this was to be the sixth year of the tournament and Middlesex had rarely managed to avoid humiliating defeats and low positions in the qualifying tables so far – not once had our beloved team even managed a quarter-final berth.
So deep was the low interest quotient, we were struggling to find match reporters for several of the matches, including the first. I agreed to “commission Hippity” to write a piece based on listening to the internet radio for the first match, which was away in Southampton, if no-one came forward to volunteer.
Then a full day’s work (for me, not for Hippity). Clients in the morning, a dash across town to London Bridge City Pier and a Z/Yen boat trip aboard the Lady Daphne that afternoon. Also, if I recall correctly, I needed to stay on a while and entertain one or two of the guests after the boat trip before dashing home.
I must have missed much of the Middlesex innings, as this extract from my e-mail to Kevin Hand at BBC Radio London (not to be confused with Barmy Kev of MTWD) attests:
Kevin/Big Al
Enjoying your commentary tonight enormously. Fun fun fun etc.
Problem is, I got home from work c 7:40 so missed the first 35-40 minutes of the game.
At the risk of boring less workaholic listeners, could you both update me…
Middlesex did very well that night. Hampshire had consistently been one of the most successful teams at T20; Middlesex had gone to Southampton and was winning the game well.
I got over-excited; even the BBC commentary team got over-excited, as this later extract from my e-mails to them attests:
Kev/Al
Get a grip.
Stumped/bowled/lbw – surely you can tell the difference. From here…I would say it was probably hit wicket.
So I decided that “Hippity” needed to file his match report in a hurry. To generate and/or build some interest in tournament. As much as anything else, I had meetings scheduled throughout the following day and was due to go straight to that evening’s game at Lord’s with a gang of people, so the report needed to go up quickly or not at all.
Why “Hippity” got it into his bean-filled head that one win meant that Middlesex were well on their way to winning the tournament, goodness only knows, but for once his mindless optimism proved to be justified.
Why “Hippity” thought that Delhi might have anything to do with it is more of a mystery. There was a shot at the ill-fated Champions League for the top teams, but I don’t think the Indian organisers had ever intended that tournament to take place in Delhi. In the end it was scheduled for Mumbai but had to be cancelled at the last minute following a hideous terrorist incident.
Anyway, given the late hour and early start scheduled for the next day, you can imagine how much time “Hippity” spent rattling off his rah-rah piece – here’s the link again. Indeed, looking at the timings on my e-mails to live commentators and the publishing time for the piece, “Hippity” must have written it before the match had completely finished.
The only other thing that needs explaining here is Hippity’s references to Gnomic the Leprechaun. At that time, Hippity had an imaginary friend of that name, who occasionally manifested as Charles Bartlett’s toy Yoda (see photo above). That now said, the matter seems to me to be fully elucidated, entirely normal and thus requires no further explanation.
This one didn’t really float our boat, although it should have done. Michael Frayn, wrote it, Michael Blakemore directed it, Roger Allam was starring in it, the full forces of the RNT were behind it…
…but it didn’t work for us.
It is basically the story of the turn of the 20th century German/Jewish impresario Max Reinhardt, retold as a morality play.
We saw a preview and wondered whether the production was not quite ready when we saw it, but the reviews seemed to share our reservations:
As is the RNT’s wont, no on-line archive resource (inverse correlation between organisation’s size/budget and its ability to do sensible things on-line blah blah), but there is an Official London Theatre stub – click here.
This exhibition was about contemporary/recent artists and their relationship with books.
Janie and I had both heard/read good reviews about this exhibition and ensured that we took a Monday off at a suitable stage in the exhibition’s life to have a quiet look at it. This plan worked very well on the first Monday in June.
Thursday 22 May 2008: Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner
This was at “Rogues” in Maida Vale, as was the norm in those days. John Random did the shout out and only provided limited feedback afterwards:
A big thank you to all of you who turfed yourselves out for the Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner despite the cyclone, earthquake, Crewe and Nantwich Bye-Election and anything else that might have put off lesser mortals. To those of you who didn’t make it, you were much missed. Till the next time…
It will have been fun.
Tuesday 27 May 2008: Net At Lord’s
The e-mail trail tells me that this was Chas, Adam, Mat and me. Here’s my shout out/reminder:
Just a note to remind you all that we are netting this evening. See you at HQ Indoor School in whites just before 18:00. Adam – FYI – I’ve bought and am bringing my helmet after our last net together! Although, having seen Mr Flynn on Friday, I’m not sure I’ll be trying to hook the head-high stuff anyway!! Best Ian
The “Flynn” reference is to a Kiwi player named Daniel Flynn who was not spared the need for dental work by his helmet – see video below:
I think that net was my first go with a helmet. I had decided to wear one from that 2008 season on, after a couple of near misses the previous season – at least one of which was at the hands of Adam, albeit in outdoor nets. Chas commented afterwards:
Great being at Lords last night, but am I the only one suffering from multitude of aches and pains from the cricket net?… …The helmet was ‘interesting’ although I did notice others wearing them as well.
Thursday 29 May: Bridge At Andrea’s Place
The four was again Andrea, Barmy Kev, Maz and me. Pre bridge e-mail chat between me and Barmy Kev revolved around Kev being available early and wanting to meet for a pre match drink, whereas I was a mixture of unwilling and unable to do that. My final word on what seemed to have been quite a stressy day:
I need to clear some work before coming out this evening so won’t be around until 20:00 as expected.
Also expect to drive, as could do with a detox and will be pushed for time.
Afterwards, my e-mail to Andrea:
Just a note to thank you very much for your hospitality on Thursday. Super meal and good bridge too. Is Kev still there? Looking forward to seeing you at the next one.
Andrea’s e-mail back to me:
V funny! Kev obviously likes it here as he turned up early and stayed about 20 mins after you lot left. See you at the next one – and don’t forget to get your visa.
The reference to a visa must mean that Maz had just moved South of the river and that we were going to play at her new place next.
Despite the fact that Andrea and I are both “propa sarf” people…”deep sarf” in Andrea’s case (Sutton), by 2008, after so many years north of the river, we needed metaphorical visas when venturing sarf.
An unusual mixture of the vaguely familiar and less familiar Italian Baroque and its aftermath. The list of composers reads like an Italian restaurant menu or perhaps the lyrics of Mambo Italiano.
Fabio Biondi is a bit of a showman, I seem to recall, which is not necessarily the style that floats Janie’s boat, but it seems almost compulsory to perform Vivaldi that way these days. Although these particular Vivaldi concertos are not the best known ones, there’s always something fairly familiar about the Vivaldi concerto sound. No bad thing.
The second half of the concert was more subdued and in many ways more interesting, as I’m not sure I’d ever heard any Sammartini, Nardini or Brioschi before. Well worth a listen, but nothing so wow that I’m desperate for a recording or rushing back for more in the concert hall.
There’s no Wigmore Hall stub for this concert – those start from January 2012, but there is an Instant Encore entry, click here, so far I am the only person to confess to having attended this concert. Not even the Orchestra…
Joking apart, it was a very good concert, just one of those low key Sunday night at the Wigmore Hall affairs.
Janie and I really like a bit of Ibsen. In some ways that is odd, in Janie’s case, as she tends to prefer modern plays and eschew classics. But she makes an exception for some classics; not least Ibsen, Strindberg and to some extent Chekhov.
Anyway, Rosmersholm is rarely performed and here was a production at one of our favourite theatres with a stellar cast and production team.
It’s hard to explain why this play is so rarely performed. In some ways Rosmersholm is über-Ibsen; it seems to throw in a lot of Ibsen’s favourite political, social and moral themes all at once. But then most of his great plays do that. Perhaps it is über-gloomy.
So although this was a superb night at the theatre, with wonderful performances and a truly top-notch production, we didn’t end up thinking that “everyone should see a great production of Rosmersholm” in the same way that we might say that about Hedda Gabler, Ghosts or A Dolls House, for example.
Still, a great theatrical event and right up our street.
With grateful thanks to Alan Cooke for this photo.
I think this test match might well have been my first sighting of live cricket that season, given the scheduling at Lord’s and the timing of our trip to France in late April.
The weather was less than special for that match. I recall having been disappointed to get some rather ordinary-sounding seats (Grandstand I think) in the county members’ ballot, only eventually to be pleased for the cover given the weather.
We got best part of two sessions of cricket on the Thursday, which was better than we had expected given the forecast on the day itself. We witnessed Brendon McCullum batting better than anyone else and Jimmy Anderson bowling better than anyone else.
I made up one of my bagel-based picnics for that Thursday – I know that because Cookie mentioned them in his thank you note:
In particular, I enjoyed the bagels (a decision at last) and the Lords ambience. Hope you get a decent amount of play with your second Lords sitting.
By second sitting, Alan meant that he knew that Janie (Daisy) and I were due to go on the Saturday. Unfortunately, Saturday it pretty much rained all day. I don’t think we even left the flat, secure in the knowledge that any break in the rain would be very temporary, so I’m pretty sure Daisy and I witnessed the half hour or so of play that day on the TV, ate the picnic food in the comfort of the apartment and found other ways to amuse ourselves. One of those rare occasions I got my money back for a day of cricket that didn’t happen.
It seems that Chas was luckier and got to see play on the Sunday. He sent me this photo to prove that he had been there:
Vaughan caressing the ball to the boundary, taken by Charles Bartlett
