My second commission from MTWD was to review each of Ed Smith’s first two books. Ed had been signed by Middlesex in the autumn of 2004.
I had been meaning to read Playing Hard Ball for some time anyway, so the commission was a good excuse to read that one.
I got to know Ed quite well that summer of 2008, when he was injured and sitting around the pavilion a lot second half of the season. Coincidentally, he and his then girlfriend (now his wife) Becky lived just around the corner from me in W2. I would run into him/them occasionally in the neighbourhood for a few years after that injury forced his early retirement from the game.
This was a super event; both the restaurant and the preceding gallery visit. Click here to see, on The Internet Archive, the book that accompanied the fascinating Eyes Lies & Illusions exhibition.
RSJ’s was an old haunt/stomping ground of mine, dating back to the 1980s. It wasn’t quite a private room, more like a mezzanine section/area, which detracted a little from that “private party, let your hair down” atmosphere we tended to aim for.
Not that it stopped people from enjoying themselves. It was a very popular event that year.
I think the lack of privacy meant that, I’m pretty sure, we skipped the song that year, but we didn’t skip the giving of gimcrack and an early incarnation of Secret Santa. Had the “Linda Quiz” tradition started yet? The answer to that question might need some silicon dating or some other form of computer data forensics.
During the summer of 2004 I discovered the Middlesex Till We Die (MTWD) website and started corresponding with people through that on-line community’s message board. I decided to use Janie (Daisy’s) pet name/nickname for me, Ged Ladd, as my moniker on MTWD.
That autumn, the site moderators (in those nascent days David Slater, Kevin Ziants and Jeremy Horne) electronically “tapped me up” and asked if I would contribute some editorial pieces for the winter. I think we even met up that autumn to discuss matters. Part of the deal with the sites host, Sportnetwork, is that you must provide regular (at least fortnightly) editorial, otherwise the site (including the popular message boards) gets shut down. The minimum editorial requirement is easy to meet during the season (e.g. with match reports), but the long off-season presented a problem for the moderators at that time (and as I understand it, still presents a problem today, 2016 as I write).
Anyway, I enjoy writing articles and was happy to oblige. My first contribution was a “career tombstone” piece when Sven Koenig, one of Middlesex’s gritty opening batsmen, decided to hang up his boots. Word reached me later that Sven had seen the piece and rather liked it, as indeed he should.
The highlight, in my view, is the statistical device that indicated that it was not the colour of the ball (white or red) that affected Sven’s batting average, but the colour of his clothing, presumably for sartorial rather than cricketing reasons. Strangely, no cricket administrator seems to have picked up this theory and run with it since when assessing other dapper cricketers. I cannot imagine why not.
Janie and I formed part of a very sparse crowd for this National League match, which was meant to be 45 overs-a-side, in 2004.
The crowd was especially sparse because the game, which had been scheduled for the Sunday, was moved to a reserve day on the Monday because Leicestershire found themselves in the final (and indeed winners) of the almost new Twenty20 tournament that year.
But Janie and I had booked a day off that Monday anyway and the weather was deceptively good earlier in the day.
I remember only a few details about this match; Janie remembers less. I do recall sitting at the front of the Tavern Stand, with Darren Stevens fielding right in front of us.
Slightly later image, here with Glenn Hoddle of all people, from: https://www.londoncounty.co.uk/blog/2010/06/19/in-praise-of-darren-stevens/
Daisy (Janie) wanted to know about Leicestershire’s celebrations and party after their cup-winning success a couple of days earlier.
For a while, Darren Stevens played Daisy’s questions with a characteristically straight bat. But Daisy’s line of questioning and her persuasive manner can bamboozle even the most seasoned batsman. Eventually he failed to pick her metaphorical doosra, which was expressed roughly in the form…
Oh go on, you can tell me, I won’t tell anyone…
…at which point he spilled a few beans about the celebrations and party – now long-since forgotten by us, even if that victorious night remains memorable to him. The details he passed on will have been mere crumbs.
Still, when the rain came to interrupt Middlesex’s rather poor innings before it might well have in any case been brought to a premature end, Janie and I took refuge in the Middlesex Room.
There we and a few other refugees from the rain joined “the Middlesex gossips”, as I used to describe the regulars who tended to reside in that room.
I vaguely remember Auntie Janet expressing an interest in Mark Cleary, although Ottis Gibson and Claude Henderson had been the pick of the Leicestershire bowlers that day. I think this day might have been the only time I saw Charlie Dagnall bowl.
As it became clear that the weather was clearing up and that the Leicestershire innings would go ahead, reduced to 20 overs due to rain, the mood among the Middlesex fans became quite pessimistic.
“It’ll be a Twenty20 innings for them and they are the Twenty20 champions; we don’t stand a chance”, was the prevailing view. We (Middlesex) were offering a pretty depleted bowling attack that day too, due to injuries, wear and tear restings etc.
But Daisy’s view was laden with inside information:
I’m not so sure – they had one heck of a party to celebrate their cup win on Saturday, which by the sound of it went deep into yesterday…
Ever true to his word, David Steed indeed booked a minibus for our transport that year, in the light of our increased size of group. Here is the picture, presumably taken by Anita, of us all dressed up and ready to go first thing on that first morning, at Wadderton:
Of course there would have been many bants about drinks muling, as had been the case in previous years, but I think the consensus by 2004 was that most muling was likely to get caught. Thus only the expert did the muling – a wine box (outer removed of course) disguised as a cool bag bottom.
I suspect this trick doesn’t work any more, but here are photos of the operation in process:
David will have been describing the picnic contents in a quickfire patter styleeGang-master Jeff looks smug and satisfied
Jeff took on the role of mastermind rather than implementer in the matter of the prediction game too. I remember getting a call from him early in the morning of 28th, while I was getting ready to leave the flat.
JEFF: Ian, it’s Jeff here. I’ve screwed up. I cannot lay my hands on a prediction game template and need to go out now. I know you did one for Trent Bridge – any chance you could print it out for Edgbaston this year? It’ll be the devil’s job to try and get it done at Wadderton.
ME: I’m rushing to set off this morning too…but leave it with me…
…which Jeff did…for the rest of all time.
By 9:02 on 28 July (according to the meta-data), I had produced this masterpiece, which became the base template for all subsequent Edgbaston trips. Please note the correct spelling of Edgbaston & everything:
Not entirely suited to the nine player version of the game, but still
The next picture was taken just over an hour into the match. Note that our regular seats in the Priory Stand had a splendid view of the notorious Eric Hollies Stand while being a very safe distance from it. Even the 12th man seemed to be eyeing the Hollies with suspicion, while Bananarama Monkey-Face tried to sneak into any photo he possibly could photo bomb.
At lunch we peruaded a friendly steward, quite possibly Paul Guppy, to take a group photo of us:
Later in the lunch hour, Chas must have gone for one of his traditional lunchtime strolls, observing some cultural appropriation of Caribbean music:
My memory and the official record is silent on the delights that David served up to us for dinner on the Thursday evening. We won’t have been all that hungry because a David Steed Wadderton picnic left little room for dinner. It will have been very tasty, whatever it was. Everyone will have been in excellent spirits – England was doing extremely well.
Harish looks very happy indeedI think the player kindly giving Chas the thumbs up is Jermaine Lawson
At lunchtime Chas must have wandered over to the book signing, but whether he commissioned a private message about London buses and pigeons from Blowers, or simply took a photo of him plying his trade in audiobooks, I suspect is lost in the mists of time.
Following the coup with Nigel and Jeff the previous year, getting into the pavilion for a session or so (click here or below)…
…Chas couldn’t resist trying the same wheeze again – seemingly with some success.
Matthew Hoggard going in to batAndrew Flintoff returning with a daddy-hundred to his name
If you look very closely at the above photo, you can see, in the distance, the number ten batsman striding towards the crease. That is a young James Anderson and this was our first (but far from our last) sighting of him as Heavy Rollers.
We had a wonderful time in 2004, as always, but I do recall a sense that 2004 was an especially good one. I don’t think any of us realised at the time that we were at the dawn of a golden era for England as a cricket team and The Heavy Rollers as a motley band of visiting enthusiasts.
If you want to see all the pictures, including scans of the prediction game results sheets (surely everyone will want to know, as much as anything else, how I cunningly accounted for nine players on an eight-column template), you can see it all in the Flickr album linked here and below:
I’m not sure why The Heavy Rollers became, for a few years, a significantly bigger and bolder event. Part of a natural life cycle for such things, perhaps. Possibly something to do with the England cricket team’s partial revival, prompting a bit more realistic optimism (rather than the “hope against hope” optimism of the 1990s and early years of the new century) in England’s potential performances.
Or possibly it was due to our spiritual leader, Nigel, adopting a policy of suggesting that our journey would soon reach an end.
Here’s the 19 November 2003 note from Nigel to us Rollers:
Subject: Heavy Rollers 2004-the penultimate tour
Dear Heavy Rollers , Associate and Junior members
Despite phone bookings not being available until January (Warwicks. CCC staff are so bribable) have just heard that our allocation sorted, usual places, although on Friday 2 of the group (now 9- what an evening game that should be) will be directly behind (Just in case this all sounds too far off and you are thinking I am a sad git for even considering booking it when Rugby is the game, they told me that the row we occupy is now sold out for the second day!). I am a sad git but that’s another matter.
Tickets are 30.25 x 2 each = £60.50 (I got stung for a second booking fee as I added more on!).
Payable between now and end of the year to avoid serious surcharges applying.
The nine for that year were, as depicted in the headline picture (left to right seated, then left to right standing):
In 2004, the core group seemed to solidify. Most who had attended previously in earnest wanted to attend.
David Steed sprang into action immediately, sealing the deal on the Wadderton element of our trip within a couple of days of Nigel’s missive. David’s reply on 23 November 02003:
Dear Heavy Rollers (all grades),
Suitable accommodation now reserved for the Wednesday and Thursday. I wonder if we can persuade her indoors (scuse me it’s her that’s doing this typing!!!) to repeat the lasagne?
We have actually found a REAL Heavy Roller deep in the undergrowth at the back of Wadderton, so if I slip Peter a couple of cans of Banks Original we may even attempt to roll out a strip!
Nigel – cheque in the post in couple of days – and thanks for being a sad git!
Sadly, our 2004 exploits proved to be a final hurrah for Wadderton, as far as the Heavy Rollers were concerned – Wadderton was gone by the summer of 2005. Mercifully, those 2004 exploits were wonderfully memorable, not least thanks to Charles Bartlett’s trusty Canon PowerShot camera.
Wadderton looking splendid, 28 July 2004
No sign of Peter having cut a strip by the time we got there in July 2004, quite possibly because the bribe of Banks’s Original didn’t make it from the Steed quarters into Peter’s hands. [I must admit that Banks’s Mild was always my personal Banks’s beer of choice, but I was not even faintly likely to cut a strip. I digress].
Observant readers will note, from the headline picture, that the Heavy Rollers were all wearing a Heavy Rollers Edgbaston 2004 shirt. This was the first of several years for which shirts were commissioned. Jeff and Chas were the brains behind the idea.
I vaguely heard a story about consternation over the production of this first shirt. Something to do with Chas taking the lead, a deal done down Romford market and Jeff’s dissatisfaction with the combination of quality and price. The upshot was that subsequent shirts were produced elsewhere under Jeff’s auspices. I cannot comment on that debate but I can, nearly 20 years later, still model the very shirt:
Thanks to Janie for this picture 19 March 2023
Frankly, in my case, nearly 20 years later, the shirt appears to be maintaining its look better than the wearer.
Downhill From Here: The Night Before The Test, 28 July 2004
Frankly I’m not sure a cut strip would have much enhanced our game the night before, but I am sure that the nine of us had a splendid early evening game.
I suspect that all who were present remember one particular detail of this game of yard cricket…probably to the exclusion of all other details. Certainly in my case, the one pivotal moment of the evening – one ball – has extinguished all and any other memories of the game.
I cannot remember who bowled it (it might even have been me), nor can I remember who struck the ball (certainly not me given the quality of the strike – probably Nigel or Biff), but I do remember who sought to field the ball. Charley.
The ball hurtled off in the direction of the lower slopes below the garden which was, in effect, our pitch. Coincidentally, Charley, who is a photographer extraordinaire as well as a fielder extraordinaire, had photographed those lower slopes earlier that afternoon:
The lower slopes of Wadderton
I don’t think Chas leapt over the fence, I think there was a strategic gap through which the ball, then Chas following the ball, went.
It took everyone (including Chas) a few seconds to realise that running as fast as you can down a hill to try to stop a ball has certain consequences in the matter of how the momentum of that run comes to an end. For an excruciating few moments it became obvious to everyone, probably including Chas, that his run would have to end with either an inadvisable dive or an involuntary tumble.
We could debate at great length the exact nature of the concluding moment. Suffice it to say that it looked extremely comical and yet at the same time, in the moment, I suspect we were all genuinely concerned for Chas.
I have asked Dall-E to help me depict this moment, both in cartoon form and in photograph form, by explaining the matter in words to the AI tool. Here are the results:
Chas Downhill in Cartoon FormChas Downhill in Photo Form
Once it became clear that Chas’s moans were the result mostly of bruised ego rather than serious physical harm, the incident became a matter of much mirth, for the rest of that evening…and the rest of that Heavy Rollers 2004 event…indeed for the rest of all time amongst those who witnessed it.
Other reports on the incident or other aspects of that evening’s game will be gratefully received.
I have no idea whether the evening meal was indeed centred around the ever-popular lasagne, but I strongly suspect that it was.
A memorably convivial evening at Wadderton
We sat around after dinner for quite some time that year, reminiscing about Heavy Rollers events past, the earlier events of the evening and of course looking ahead with eager anticipation to two days of test cricket between England and West Indies.
Chas looks revived – no doubt describing his “dive” in Jonty Rhodes/Paul Collingwood terms
I shall write up the Edgbaston element of the 2004 Heavy Rollers event separately.
Charles Bartlett’s wonderful pictures of the events described in this piece and of the 2004 Edgbaston trip can be found in the Flickr album linked here and below:
Postscript: Indeed We Did Eat Lasagne
I have just discovered one more e-mail – this one from Anita to Nigel the weekend before the event. Proof positive that we had lasagne and also that we already knew that this stay would be Wadderton’s last hurrah, Heavy Roller-wise:
Subject: Re: Nearly time……
Hi Nigel,
David’s working this evening but I thought I’d reply anyway and if he wants to get back to you tomorrow then I am sure he will.
He and Dan are really looking forward to next Thursday and Friday. David is off work Wednesday too to prepare!!
I think everything is fine about people staying here but you will need to bring sheets or sleeping bags, pillow slips and towels, as the laundry contract has finished and I don’t think I have enough!
I have been commissioned to make another lasagne for one of the evenings and I think David has plans for food for the other one. He said he would book a minibus for Thursday but, if there are fewer of you needing to come back here after the cricket on Friday I can be chauffeur!
The Children’s Society XI in 2004 – Photos by Charles Bartlett
It is hugely helpful to have a stack of photos from Charles from the 2004 match – I’ll pepper this account with some of those and provide a link to the “album” at the end for those who would like to look at all of them.
…so keen scouting and selection was going to be key for this third match – such a huge task, the event didn’t take place until a couple of years after the second match.
Chas’s selection missive was sent on 12 July 2004:
This looks to be the final lucky 13. – What I must stress is that if you are committed to coming and let people down by not turning up you will deny others the opportunity to play.
Howard Bartley (friend of mine – club cricketer) Ian Harris (Z/yen) Charles Bartlett Nick Bartlett Mat (aussie wicket keeper – club standard known to Ian Harris)- Nigel Hinks Dorian (friend of Jeff Tye – club standard) Harish (runemout) Gohil Kyle Bullock Lyall Orange Doug Turvey Richard Britain Kelly plus brother
There followed some correspondence between me and Chas about possible drop-outs and fall-back positions, details of which should probably remain between me, Chas and the data protection legislation prevailing then and now.
Here’s a taster of it:
ME: You’re the skipper, but I’d have Xander in the squad as well – I have visions of 13 becoming 9 or 10 as the day approaches, but perhaps you feel you have sufficient assurances and a fit enough squad (and the squad members have fit enough wives, children, father-in-laws etc.) to prove me wrong…
CHAS: To have the best possible team (no half measures) would mean leaving out the lesser players (and there are a few!) probably you and me for a start. I do not want to be a non-playing captain and you are a mate who is always in the side, because I pick you, need I go on…who said , Captain and Chief Selector was easy? let alone having a Mrs Duncan Fletcher at home who put Nick back in the team.
We can only assume that Mrs Duncan Fletcher was none other than Dot “Mrs Malloy” Bartlett.
In the end Nick didn’t play – I have a feeling he dropped himself. Nigel also didn’t play; I think he struggled to get to North Crawley that weekend or perhaps injury. Jeff Tye was never listed to play – I think he might have dropped himself by then or possibly was temporarily “offf games”.
Anyway, this was a reasonably good team with some proper talent in it – not least Mat “The Tasmanian Devil” Watson (my mate from the health club) and Chas’s former work mate Howard.
Children’s Society Supporters 2004, North Crawley. Back row l-r: The Boy Malloy, Mrs Malloy, Daisy. Front row l-r: Bananarama Monkey-Face, Hippity The Green Bunny.
Most of the day it was glorious weather for playing and watching.
I think Tufty put on about 240 off 45 overs. During tea we felt this was challenging but gettable with the team we had brought with us that year. The Britten Kelly brothers, for example, could both hold a bat, to supplement the club standard folk we had with us that day and the “bits and pieces” regulars like me.
I think Chas opened that year to take some of the shine off the ball – I think with me – but certainly the meaningful batting line up comprised Mat at four and Howard at five and some decent allrounders scheduled to follow.
One year in the sunshine I recall opening and having Glenn Young in my ear from behind the stumps trying to put me off by chirping about the nice cool beer that was waiting for me in the clubhouse as soon as I got out. It was hard to keep a straight face let alone a straight bat with that going on. That particular chirp-fest might have been a different year of course. Or every year for someone or other.
Waiting to bat – the Britten Kelly brothers with the scorebook, Mat behind them.Chas dismissedHoward waiting to bat
Mat and Howard came together when we were three down for not too many but they then put on a good stand of 50 or so.
I’m calling it a good stand, but in truth the vibe we were all getting was that the pair of them couldn’t stand one another. They had an altercation while we were fielding, as Howard refused to move to a position Chas had chosen for him, which Mat, chirping away as keeper, felt was utterly unacceptable insubordination.
In short, the two of them batted extremely well “against one another” rather than as a pair – each trying to show that they were the more complete cricketer.
Anyway, it was all working swimmingly well until a huge cloud appeared and decided to rain heavily on North Crawley. I think we were something like 80 for 3 off 20 at that juncture, which Messrs Duckworth and Lewis might well have concluded had The Children’s Society marginally in front, but these matches are not so determined so the match was abandoned as a rain-affected draw.
I do think the ending might have been properly close. The following year, Chas’s insightful team selection led to the most exciting match I have ever played in, which just proves that Chas knew a thing or two…or perhaps that he got lucky a few times:
The tea and the post match conviviality in one or other of the village pubs would have been similar to that experienced in the first match – click here or below for those details:
…there are some strange pictures at the end of that stack. Charles Bartlett in the company of several of the Tufty Stackpole people. Undeniably at Lord’s – in the Edrich Stand to be precise. Undeniably at the first test match of that 2004 West Indies tour – a mere few days after the battle described above – merely a week before that season’s Heavy Rollers event at Edgbaston.
Trevor Cooper & Mike ArcherGeoff YoungMike Archer scoffs a nugget with Charles Bartlett alongside
Charles has a little bit of explaining to do about this. Has he been batting for both sides all these years?
By 2004, the Z/Yen v The Children’s Society cricket match had become a well-established fixture in the social calendar.
In the few years preceding this 2004 match, we had settled on Regents Park as the venue of choice, but Regents Park was unavailable that year, so we thought we’d try Holland Park’s non-turf pitch for a convenient change.
Two extraordinary things happened on this day in 2004. The handful of relics remaining of the event leave only tiny clues about those things, but in this Ogblog I shall deploy my forensic skills and reveal those memorable happenings.
The annual Z/Yen versus The Children’s Society cricket match was held in Holland Park around the longest day, 22 June. And it must have seemed like a long evening to the largest ever crowd of friends and spectators, huddling under the trees in the cool drizzle. Perhaps it was the bottles and pin of superb beer sponsored by Youngs brewery (via George, Giles Wright’s brother) that kept the crowd motivated and audible throughout.
Z/Yen batted first and accumulated 91 for 4. More or less everyone got a bat with several players, even Ian Harris, retiring not out. Restricting things to 15 overs per side saved the game from the impending rain, as well as the use of some handy Astroturf. Z/Yen bowled well – John Davies (Helen’s husband) getting man-of-the-match for his efforts – restricting The Children’s Society to 73 for 6, despite some late heroics by Harish Gohil and Richard Britain-Kelly. So for only the second time ever, Z/Yen has regained the Rashes (risk/reward ashes) trophy.
In a desperate attempt to rebuild the devastated relations with this important client, Ian Harris helped The Children’s Society to win (for the first time ever) its annual Tufty Stackpole match a few weeks later. Ian’s help was mostly vicarious of course (p-lease), lending The Children’s Society Z/Yen’s star ringer Mat for the 45 overs-a-side Sunday marathon.
Yes, the original write up records one of the key features of these quintessentially beer-match-style cricket matches. Giles Wright’s brother George being an essential ringer for our Z/Yen team, not least because he was the head of marketing at Youngs Brewery and would insist on donating lashings of beer for the event. No wonder we started to draw sizeable crowds during that era.
I also have the scorebook for this match:
Play Of The Day
The casual reader glancing at the above relics would not settle upon the name James Pitcher and imagine that the play of the day might have anything to do with him. Did not bat. Did not bowl.
James was a reluctant member of the team. That’s not to say that he was an unwilling participant in events, far from it. But James was convinced that everyone else in the team deserved their place in cricketing terms more than he did. So when time was running out and I offered him my place in the batting line up, James deferred. He also stated firmly that he could not and should not bowl.
Importantly, James also implied that he couldn’t really field that well either, but he could run, so we agreed that the outfield would be best for him.
When my friend/nemesis Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett came out to join Eugene Kinghorn at the crease, the match was still well poised, but the Children’s Society knew they needed to get on with it; they were falling behind the required run rate.
Charles drove his first scoring shot (it might even have been his very first ball, you know) extremely well, straight down to long on, quite near to the location where James was peacefully grazing in the long grass.
Eugene, gazelle-like compared with most of us, set off at Charles’s call of two and I’m pretty sure again yelled “yes, one more” on the turn, as he would be running to the danger (non-striker’s) end.
But James didn’t throw to the non-striker’s end. Why would he? How could he? James, the non-cricketer, simply ran as fast as he could, picked up the ball and hurled it (he’s not named Pitcher for nothing) vaguely in the direction of the action.
Had James thrown to the non-striker’s end, Eugene would have been home easily even if James had hit those stumps directly.
Instead, James’s throw somehow managed to hurtle an additional 22 yards past the non-striker’s stumps and directly hit the stumps at the striker’s end, with Charley still running a few yards short of the line. Run out.
It was an incredibly long throw for a direct hit. As James has subsequently agreed, we could set him that throw as a deliberate exercise and he might hit the stumps one time in a couple of hundred attempts.
I am reliably informed that Chas still has nightmares about this dismissal.
Pitcher by name… (this photo from the 2007 match)
Match Of The Day
But even that incredible dismissal was not the most extraordinary thing to occur that evening. In fact, both the score book and contemporaneous match reports are silent on the momentous occurrence.
I mentioned earlier Eugene Kinghorn as Charley’s batting partner during the unfortunate run out incident…the run out described above in some detail…the one that Charley still has nightmares about…
…anyway, Eugene formed another partnership that evening…
…with Fran Birch, one of the Z/Yen players.
By the time we all returned to “the scene of the crime” – three years later we again needed to decamp to Holland Park, those two had got married, Eugene was no longer working for The Children’s Society and he thus ended up playing for Z/Yen.
These are the lengths some Z/Yen folk are prepared to go to in order to strengthen the Z/Yen cricket team.
Joking apart, I really do believe that Eugene and Fran’s initial meeting at one of our silly cricket matches is one of the very most wonderful things to have come out of all of those events.
Linda gives Fran and Eugene the “match of the match” award, Holland Park, 2007
As luck (and a little bit of tactical captaincy on my part) would have it, Eugene and Fran even ended up partnering each other at the crease to knock off the winning runs in the 2007 game. Funny old game, cricket.
Another action-packed seasonal outing and dinner for the Z/Yen team that year. Linda seems to have taken charge of proceedings by 2003, no longer describing herself as “assistant social secretary” to me, as she had in 2002.
The following note to the team also provides evidence that Secret Santa was first implemented at Z/Yen that year:
Dear All
This is just a reminder for you all about the Christmas Party.
Firstly, I hope you have all bought or about to buy your secret Santa present, as you should know you have £5 to spend and the gift should be wrapped in Z/Yen paper with a label which will be in the secret Santa box (when I get that organised – tomorrow).
As only a few people want to go to the “The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy” exhibition, please buy a ticket at the gate and claim on your expenses. We would like to be at the Science Museum at 16.30, this will give us approximately 90 minutes to see the other galleries (six in total), closing time is 18:00.
Afterwards, from 18.30 onwards, we will be having drinks at Shanghai Knightsbridge, 138 Brompton Road, London, SW3 1HY, followed by dinner there at around 19.15.
Regards
Linda
I recall that the several of us who wanted to see the Science museum took great pleasure in the exhibits available for us to play with that season.
Several of us were like pigs in s**t at the sight of items like this arithimometer
But all of us, along with Janie and other arty folk who were more enthusiastic about seeing the extraordinary Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Earth from the Air photographs, went across the way to see those before wandering along to Shanghai Knightsbridge.
Our wonderful friend May had hosted our 1999 event at The Park Inn. In the intervening years, she closed The Park Inn…
…Janie and I actually cried when we found out that the Park Inn had suddenly closed just before Christmas early in the new century…
…then re-emerged like a phoenix from the ashes at Shanghai Knightsbridge. Not so convenient for me and Janie on a regular basis, and more pricey, but still the excellent food and friendly service we had got to know so well.
It would have been churlish not to introduce the Z/Yen team to May’s new place. I think we had a sort-of room at the back of Shanghai Knightbridge if I recall correctly, or perhaps we were downstairs in a similar fashion to the P{ark Inn set up for larger groups.
Here’s my song from 2003:
DOES Z/YEN KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS?
(Song to the Tune of “Do they Know It’s Christmas”)
VERSES
MICHAEL: It’s Christmastime, there’s no chance of getting paid,
MICHAEL: At Christmastime, we’re off the clock and we cannot trade;
MICHAEL: But in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy;
MICHAEL: Throw your birthday breakfast feast at Christmastime.
JEREMY: (spoken) But say a prayer,
MICHAEL: Pray for the finance one,
MICHAEL: At Christmastime, it’s hard, but when you’re having fun;
MICHAEL: There’s a world that’s west of EC3, and it’s a world of dread not glee,
MICHAEL: Where the only cash that’s flowing goes out to the EBT;
MICHAEL: And the Christmas bell that rings there is the alarm at five-o-two,
MICHAEL: So tonight thank God it’s Ian instead of you.
MICHAEL: And it’s risk/reward in Bishopsgate this Christmastime,
MICHAEL: The three wise men with PropheZy divine;
MICHAEL: (Oooh) where a seasonal remark,
MICHAEL: Is wide of the benchmark;
MICHAEL: Does Z/Yen know it’s Christmastime at all?
MIDDLE EIGHT
MALES: Here’s to you, raise a glass for everyone;
FEMALES: Here’s to Scrooge, working while we’re having fun;
Image of us at Shenley by Google Flow Nana Banana 2 Lite, instructed by me
It must have been mentioned in a Middlesex CCC newsletter that there was to be a women’s test match at Shenley. Janie and I decided to take a Friday off work to go and have a look. We had been to Shenley before, to see Middlesex v Zimbabweans…
However, whereas the Saturday of the Middlesex v Zimbabweans match had been a pretty busy and convivial affair at that small but beautiful ground, we arrived at the women’s test match to an almost empty car park and just a few people to be found in the pavilion.
Janie and I sensed that we were the only people there, other than friends and families of the players and officials.
I spotted a pile of programmes, and asked a random parent/friend how I might pay for one.
Oh, er, don’t know, let me ask around…
…eventually they came back, confessing that no-one knew who might collect the money or how that money might get remitted…
…just take one.
I still have it in my programme collection – I’ll fish it out and scan the cover some time – when I finally get to my 2003 programme pile.
We had a lovely day at Shenley. It is a lovely place to watch cricket. Any cricket ground with a Corn Field End has to be a lovely ground. The headline picture gives a reasonable impression, although our deck chairs were not quite so up close as to be fielding at leg slip and leg gully. Google Flow needs a fair bit of artistic licence in the matter of its depiction of cricket.
At one point, after an especially sloppy bit of fielding, Janie turned to me and said, “I’m thoroughly enjoying myself, but this is a bit like watching one of your charity matches”. The bit after the “but” was not meant as a complement.
What’s wrong with our charity matches?
In truth, back then, the pace of the women’s game, together with the quality of bowling and fielding, was distinctly amateur. Possibly this was because the women’s game was, at that time, still amateur.
The women’s game has come on leaps and bounds since it became professional and real money was invested in the women’s game. Who knew such could be possible?
Still, a thoroughly enjoyable day at Shenley and our first taste of watching women’s cricket.
The annual Z/Yen versus The Children’s Society cricket match was held in Holland Park around the longest day, 22 June. And it must have seemed like a long evening to the largest ever crowd of friends and spectators, huddling under the trees in the cool drizzle. Perhaps it was the bottles and pin of superb beer sponsored by Youngs brewery (via George, Giles Wright’s brother) that kept the crowd motivated and audible throughout.
Z/Yen batted first and accumulated 91 for 4. More or less everyone got a bat with several players, even Ian Harris, retiring not out. Restricting things to 15 overs per side saved the game from the impending rain, as well as the use of some handy Astroturf. Z/Yen bowled well – John Davies (Helen’s husband) getting man-of-the-match for his efforts – restricting The Children’s Society to 73 for 6, despite some late heroics by Harish Gohil and Richard Britain-Kelly. So for only the second time ever, Z/Yen has regained the Rashes (risk/reward ashes) trophy.
