Author: Ian Louis Harris

Ged & Daisy Go South On A FoodCycle Made For Two, 2 May 2020

Keen to help at a time of national crisis, but frustrated at having received no calls for help yet through the NHS Responder scheme – although we both had our applications accepted several weeks ago, Daisy (Janie) took matters into her own hands. A friend recommended that she speak with FoodCycle.

Why FoodCycle?

Under normal circumstances, FoodCycle’s thing is to use surplus food to reduce waste and to bring people together around healthy meals. It is a superb, award-winning charitable idea.

But the current circumstances are not normal; the social gathering element of the idea has needed to be parked at this stage of the Covid pandemic.

Thus the charity has had to re-orient itself towards distributing food to the vulnerable and needy, which profoundly changes the supply, production and distribution aspects of the initiative.

In this maelstrom, volunteers like me and Daisy become surprisingly useful. We possess cars, smart phones and a willingness to be guinea pigs as delivery folk for new/temporary food distribution projects.

Daisy signed up and did a delivery round for our most local, East Acton, project last weekend. I then signed up this last week.

FoodCycle were clearly keen to use us. Could we help out this weekend with a new project in Clapham/Battersea to distribute frozen meals generously donated by COOK Clapham? 10 deliveries for this one rather than last week’s five. Of course we could, but we all agreed that this larger job would be better done as a Ged & Daisy two-hander.

Three hander if we count Dumbo, the Suzuki Jimny.

Armed with a very smart Circuit for Teams app for routing, delivery instructions and confirming “jobs done”, plus a letter from FoodCycle confirming that we were doing essential work and not out for a drive on a sunny day, off we set.

Dumbo was a little fearful that he might be stopped by the police, despite his legitimate purpose. This was the first time he’d been out and about in several weeks, of course… & Dumbo does have previous in the matter of being stopped by the fuzz:

Lord’s net practice – journey report

Anyway, Dumbo needn’t have worried; we saw quite a few cop cars out and about but didn’t get stopped.

We certainly knew where we were going in the matter of getting to COOK Clapham, as it is just across the road from 33 Abbeville Road, formerly Newton’s, where Ged & Daisy had previous:

Contrasting Care And Attention To Lower Limbs: An Afternoon & Evening With Mum At Woodfield Avenue And Newton’s, 1 February 2008

The COOK Clapham team were lovely and handed us bag upon bag upon bag of food:

After we had loaded all eight bags into the back of Dumbo (but mercifully before we set off), my lightening computational mind worked out that we must have the food for the other pair who were doing the distribution as well as the supplies for our own round.

The others turned up at more or less the same moment as we were getting out of the car to check the details with the COOK team, so that matter was easily put right.

Ged helps Dumbo to shed his load

Doing this type of delivery round is a strange mixture of easy and difficult. Easy to get to the place where the sat. nav. tells you to stop (especially for me around Clapham/Battersea where I know the area well), but sometimes difficult to get the meals to the actual door for the actual person/people who need them.

The most comedic example of the difficulties was on one Battersea estate, where the recipient had asked us to phone on arrival, which I did, to which she said she’d be down in a minute or two. Janie took the goods to the front door of the large block of flats where she waited and waited. Meanwhile, I started to feel a little bit nervous of a man with a van, who had turned up next to me, who was rummaging in his van and talking on his mobile phone, but I sensed was also eying me up.

Eventually I phoned the woman again, who seemed aghast that her husband hadn’t yet found us; he’d gone down to get something from his van and collect the food.

So I asked the gentleman with the phone if he was collecting food for the guest in question, to which he answered “yes”. It hadn’t occurred to him that we might be the people delivering the food. The sharpest knives in the draw must have all been used to produce those yummy-looking COOK meals.

The mushroom spaghetti bolognese looked especially tempting and looked as though it could please vegans and regular carnivores alike.

Daisy and I resisted the temptation to try one of the meals ourselves, even though COOK had generously provided more than the required number of orders. We felt honour bound to distribute the additional dishes to those who said “yes please” when we told them that we had a few extras. Ged and Daisy’s halos will remain available for all to see for quite some time.

Driving around that area was a bit of a memory lane trip for me of course, especially when our route took us past dad’s shop on St John’s Hill:

Janie wondered whether I wanted to stop and take a picture of the location as it now looks, a rock bar named Project Orange, but I assured her there would be no need to try stopping on such a busy road just for a picture:

Borrowed from and linked to Zomato’s listing

On one occasion we did need to try and stop on a busy road, as we had one delivery to do on the Queenstown Road itself. As I indicated and slowed down to try and find a suitable & safe place to stop, a group of young cyclists took a dislike to what we were doing, to such an extent that the young woman of the pack shouted at me…

…what the hell are you doing?…

…I wanted to shout back…

…I’m delivering lunches to the needy for charity, while you lot are out having a fun bike ride on a sunny day. What the hell are YOU doing to help?…

…but I didn’t do that, I kept my wise words to myself, or rather I chose to share them solely with Daisy…and now with you, dear reader.

Returning the empties to COOK for next time

There’s nothing glamorous about this type of volunteering gig; it is pretty hard work. While repetition and experience might reduce the time and effort factors a little, it will remain time consuming hard work. But we both got a buzz from the gratitude we heard and saw from most of the recipients.

And we felt an enormous sense of satisfaction when we completed our round of deliveries and headed home.

Will we do it again when asked? You bet.

Laughter, Joy, Be Wakeful & Deep Thoughts On The Bus, Lockdown Videos Viewed Before Breakfast, 28 April 2020

I woke up this morning to find two video links in my e-mail inbox, which conjured up very different emotions.

Ian Pittaway, my early music teacher, having seen so many examples of video-conference-based music making in the past few weeks, was amused to find a seeming spoof of the genre…except that the following video was made years before Zoom and lockdown:

I laughed a lot.

In truth, some of the examples I have seen of lockdown music making have been very good indeed, while others have been unintentionally laughable.

Actually the best example of multi-part lockdown music-making I have seen so far came out quite early in the lockdown. Especially impressive because the supremely talented Peter Whelan, whom Janie and I saw at The Wig at the end of last year, really can play several instruments and sing in more than one register…

…so he performs this beautiful Bach Cantata all by himself, with his tongue only slightly in his cheek:

But the really thought-provoking video this morning came from Rohan Candappa. Rohan has now decided to vent his spleen at the UK Government’s mendacious attempt to claim success so far in the coronavirus pandemic, where all the evidence suggests that we have a great deal to learn in the UK if we are to emerge eventually from this crisis without additional self-inflicted damage. It includes a touching tribute to transport workers, who are among the forgotten heroes of the crisis.

Rohan’s short, beautifully-crafted monologue is entitled “Bus”:

This last piece won’t cheer you up, so you might want to go back to The Muppets and/or Peter Whelan after watching Rohan’s piece, to make yourself feel a bit better again.

That’s what I did.

Big Dog’s Big Question by Kay Scorah, Guest Piece From Virtual ThreadMash, 22 April 2020

Kay Scorah (top left in the above picture) was “head girl” for this evening’s Virtual ThreadMash. She chose the topic of soft furnishings, perhaps thinking that such a topic might lighten the mood in these unprecedented, lockdown times. If you were to judge by my Tale Of Beany & Baggy piece and Kay’s Big Dog’s Big Question (below), you might conclude that Kay’s choice had succeeded in generating lighthearted pieces…

…but you would be SO wrong. David, Julie and Flo produced pieces that were so dark, I’m thinking of sending them to the government’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, suggesting that he examine these ThreadMash pieces as evidence of mental health issues arising from lockdown.

But for now, dear Ogblog readers, you are spared the darkness and lockdown anxiety.

I am delighted that Kay has, once again, (click here to read The Gift from last year), submitted one of her pieces as a guest piece for Ogblog. So I am proud to present:

Big Dog’s Big Question by Kay Scorah

Big Dog was trying to sleep. It had been a rough night, with a great deal of tossing and turning and intermittent hugging. At one point he thought he was going to fall out of bed, but Seán, himself only half awake, had grabbed him just in time and held on to him tightly. Now, just before dawn, things had quietened down and the boy had released his grip as sleep took over. Lucky Seán.

Big Dog had a busy day ahead, and knew he needed the shuteye, but his mind was too active. That same old question spinning around and around in his head.

He felt the softness of the pillow under his cheek, and, opening his eyes in the brightening pre-dawn light began to count the stars in the pattern on the pillowcase. He’d heard of counting sheep – perhaps counting decorative fabric stars would have the same effect.  But of course, thinking about the pillow only made things worse. Made That Question even louder.

Giving up, he opened his eyes wide and looked across the room to where Rabbidog and Blumberg seemed to be sound asleep on the chair. Rabbidog propped up on a cushion, Blumberg with his head on Rabbidog’s knee.

Rabbidog is called Rabbidog because no-one has ever worked out if he’s a dog or a rabbit. And Blumberg is called Blumberg because he was a gift from Jane Blumberg.

Not for the first time, Big Dog wished that he could move like the real dogs he had seen through the bedroom window. Or even like the small child now sound asleep next to him his head on the same pillow. He longed to jump down from the bed, run across the room to the others, jump up on the chair and ask them the Big Question. What are we, the fluffy toys? Are we toys, like the Playmobil and the Brio Train set? Or are we soft furnishings like the cushions and the blankets?

How could they sleep with this existential question unanswered?

The very next day, Big Dog was invited to dinner, and, at Seán’s insistence, given his own seat at the table. A couple of spare grownups were there, along with the mum and the dad. Their conversation turned to the question of gender and sexuality, to something called LGBTQ and the slow but welcome demise of the binary. And suddenly, although he didn’t quite understand everything that was being said, Big Dog realised that he was free! He need lose no more sleep over what he had thought was the Big Question. He could be soft furnishing AND toy. A place for Seán to rest his head, and a friend for him to play with and talk to.

Big Dog went to bed that night and fell sound asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. “Good night, big dog”, said the boy, resting his head on his friend’s furry back, “Sleep well.”

The Tale Of Beany & Baggy, Virtual ThreadMash Performance Piece, 22 April 2020

The picture above shows Kay, who hosted the evening, top left, reading her piece at the Virtual Threadmash. In normal times Threadmash is held at The Glad, but these are unprecedented times. Chris wrote a poem about the evening during the evening and Rohan presented a short, stray piece about nicknames. Eight of us prepared and presented pieces for the evening, either on the theme Charlotte Thomas (I didn’t present my text piece on that topic) or on the theme of soft furnishings. Below is the text of my soft furnishings piece.

Before Beany and Baggy…

…what a strange sense that phase has to me; “before Beany and Baggy”…

…I can barely envisage Janie’s place without Beany and Baggy.

But of course there was a before.

There is photographic evidence from before. I even took a photograph myself of “before”:

There’s Janie. The year is 1994. And look; there is an array of floor cushions; quite nice ones. But not Beany and Baggy.

That picture was taken before.

Here’s how it was. Before Beany and Baggy, there were floor cushions. Several floor cushions. For a great many years, Janie had been content, nay, even happy, with that array of floor cushions. Here is a picture from the mid 1980s. Same Sandall Close living room, same floor cushions.

But, early in 1996, something must have changed in Janie’s brain. Those floor cushions were lacking something; they were no longer sufficient to satisfy Janie’s need for large scale soft furnishings suitable for sitting, reclining or lying around upon.

There are rough scribblings as early as January in Janie’s 1996 diary that indicate, to my razor-sharp, investigative writer’s brain, that soft furnishing schemes were on the march in Janie’s mind. Ikea. World of Leather. Just the odd name and/or telephone number. Then the diary paper trail runs cold.

But Janie remembers clearly where and roughly when she acquired Beany & Baggy.

“I saw an advert in a magazine for gigantic, armchair-like beanbags. I really liked the look of them, size and shape-wise, but the advertised ones were all garish colours. I phoned the vendor, who turned out to be a Greek-Cypriot gentleman named Costas, to ask him if he had any of those armchair-like beanbags in black.

Costas said that he didn’t have any black ones in stock, but he was expecting a new consignment any day which would include black ones. He said he’d call me when they arrived and he did call me back quite soon. Costas’s shop was in Richmond, near a shop I wanted to visit anyway to get a garment to wear at Michael and Elisabeth’s wedding…”

That’s how we know that Beany and Baggy entered our lives in the spring of 1996. Back to Janie…

“I had intended to buy just one giant bean bag, but Costas was a persuasive salesman and offered me a very good price for taking two. When you came over on the Friday, you said I’d made a mistake buying two, because the pair of them seemed to dominate the living room. I was already thinking along those lines. But you named them Beany and Baggy and we both soon got used to the idea of them”.

Yes, I did name them. I do have a tendency to name our possessions and bestow anthropomorphic characteristics upon them. My road trip in Dumbo The Suzuki Jimny with Ivan Meagreheart The Smart Phone and Benjy The Baritone Ukulele, as documented in my Brummy version of The Sound And The Fury being the apotheosis of that genre.

But I digress.

Beany and Baggy don’t actually speak, but they do make sneery noises, usually when Janie and I address either of them by name, implying that we have got the two characters mixed up. Our hit rate for guessing the right name is so bad, precisely 0% over 24 years at the time of writing, Janie and I are starting to think that these rebukes might just be a little game that Beany and Baggy play with us.

Anyway, after their arrival in 1996, the next 15 years were Beany and Baggy’s glory years. They had pride of place in the living room, where they were the first port of call for us to flop into and relax after a hard day or week’s work.

And it wasn’t just Janie’s and my rump that graced Beany and Baggy back then. Janie’s living room was also the waiting room for her surgery and there were high-falutin’ folk who could not resist the charms of Beany and Baggy.

Perhaps the most high profile rump that regularly graced the cool black leather of Beany and Baggy was the late, great actress Anna Massey.

Coincidentally, Janie and I saw Anna Massey play Queen Elisabeth I in Mary Stuart at the National Theatre in the spring of 1996, around the time that Janie first took custody of Beany and Baggy.

According to Janie, it was Anna Massey’s habit to arrive early for her appointment and she was keen to sit in Beany or Baggy, even towards the end of her life, by which time she needed Janie to help her out of the squashy armchair, be it Beany or Baggy, once Janie was ready for her.

It wasn’t all the celebrity lifestyle and relaxation with me and Janie though, even in the glory years. Both Beany and Baggy had their struggles with anorexia. Frankly, both of them got quite saggy after a few years.

Mercifully, Janie’s best friend Kim is a highly-regarded surgeon in the soft furnishings world (and indeed in the world of cuddly toys), so a quick visit to Kim’s Hospital; then Beany and Baggy were no longer saggy, indeed they were both really quite portly again.

Here’s the only picture I could find of me and Janie with Beany and Baggy in their pride of place position in that Sandall Close living room.

Really perceptive readers will spot three pairs of hands in that picture – Kim is hiding behind us holding up the embarrassing pom-pom things. Even more perceptive readers will notice the well-hung painting, top left. Rumours that I was my father’s model for that picture are, I regret to say, fake news.

Of course, all wonderful things come to an end. Janie moved from Sandall Close to Noddyland in the summer of 2011. Anna Massey never saw Noddyland; she died just a couple of weeks after we moved there.

Beany and Baggy nearly missed out on Noddyland too. At first there was still work going on in the house and very little room for soft furnishings – they sat stacked on top of each other in whichever room wasn’t being worked upon.

Janie even suggested that Kim might like them for her workplace, Theme Traders once the new furniture arrived. Kim demurred, Beanie and Baggy were too special; she suggested that we should find room upstairs for them both.

Kim was right.

Now one of them lives in the bedroom, under the telly…the other one lives in the spare room.

Beany…or is it Baggy…in the bedroom

It’s a sort of semi-retirement for them both. Janie occasionally sits on Beany…or is it Baggy?…in the bedroom.

In truth no-one these days tends to sit on Baggy…or is it Beany?…in the spare room.

They are sort of living back-to-back now, in closer proximity than they were before. Less than two meters. Not sure if it counts as social distancing what with the wall‘n’all. So they live separately yet together, very close and unquestionably a couple. Janie and I can relate to that.

If only we could work out which one is Beany and which one is Baggy.

Live Sport! Well…It Was Live Yesterday, Table Tennis From Noddyland, 6 April 2020

Yesterday I finally plucked up the courage to attempt some filming of the half-sized table tennis that Daisy and I have been playing during lockdown.

We had played six games, which had gone: Daisy, Ged, Ged, Ged, Daisy, Daisy. That’s 3-3 (or, if you prefer, I won the first best of three and Daisy won the second best of three).

Nothing else for it, a one game decider.

We haven’t really got the hang of us changing ends mid game, nor of the camera placement, but this epic final is quite a thriller.

It’s also less than 5 minutes long.

After the decider, we checked out a different camera angle which, with the benefit of hindsight, I think might be better for future matches.

I get a bit arsy at the end of the screen test for this one. It had been a long, hard day.

The arsy ending is worth the price of admission alone in my opinion.

There will be more where these movies came from.

Windy City & Furry Mammal Morbidity, Virtual “Reality” Round-Up, 1 to 5 April 2020

Alderman & Sheriff Professor Mainelli prepares to blow

Connecting with other people via video conference (VC) is a fact of life at the moment. I reported some surreal conversations during our youth club reunion last week…

Virtually Going Back To Our Roots, A Streatham BBYO Youth Club Reunion On Zoom, 29 March 2020

…and the surreal nature of some conversations continues unabated.

During the week most of my VCs are business ones, but we have implemented a programme of short “water-cooler” type gatherings for the Z/Yen team; one or two a day at the moment, to help people punctuate their working days with a bit of social interaction if they wish.

One topic which dominated the conversation last week was lentils. Linda, who has been laid low with suspected Covid-19, mentioned that she had made herself a pan-full of lentil soup for sustenance.

Janie picked up on this idea mid-week – her research suggested that lentil soup was almost certainly both a vaccine and a cure for Covid-19 (and many other ailments). So Janie promptly gathered together the necessary ingredients and made a large consignment of concentrated lentil gloopiness, good for many portions of soup and/or savoury breakfast mush with yoghurt.

I mentioned Janie’s research at the Z/Yen gathering on Thursday.

On Friday, presumably not wanting to risk being out-lentiled, Michael Mainelli showed us a 5kg sack of red lentils, which he had just procured during his “one-a-day” walk; on this occasion down Brick Lane.

Other brands of red lentil are available.

Given the quantity of nutritional lentilly substances that Janie managed to conjure up with just 250g of lentils, I should imagine that a 5kg bag will keep the Mainelli family going, as it were, for quite some time.

I suggested that London might replace Chicago as the “Windy City” if we carry on escalating pulse purchases at this rate.

But these Z/Yen virtual-breaks are not all talk about legumes. Oh no. I mentioned my early music playing hobby the other day, only to learn that Juliet enjoyed seeing Joglaresa recently and wondered whether I knew the medieval song about the killer rabbit.

In truth I was unfamiliar with both the band and the notion that there might be a killer rabbit song, but the idea did remind me of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, so I told Juliet about Ian Pittaway’s version of the song about a miraculously animated pork chop:

The animated chop of meat (and other miraculous marvels): pilgrimage songs in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM article 4/6)

Indeed, my suspicions were well-founded. The Joglaresa song in question…

…is one of those Cantigas. In truth, not really about a killer rabbit but about a glutinous pilgrim who nearly chokes to death on a rabbit bone but is saved by the Virgin Santa Maria’s intervention – click the link for a more restrained version of the song with a good translation of the words.

In my opinion, the animated pork chop is more miraculous than the non-fatal rabbit bone one, but my opinion on Santa Maria miracles is really neither here nor there.

Anyway, all this talk of rabbits brings us neatly back to BBYO youth club virtual gatherings, as we regrouped on Sunday.

We discussed many things, of course, not just a continuation of the brace of rabbits saga from last week.

Mark was able to join us on this occasion, whereas Ivor was not; nor was Wendy. Nine of us, there were. Martin ran two sessions for part of the meeting for some reason, but that doesn’t count as two people.

Ivor? Absent. Sandra? Present. Mark? Present. Andrea? Present.

We learnt that no rabbit has been spayed since we last gathered but that the pair were being kept socially distant for their own sakes. This felt to me like a societal metaphor in these days of lockdown.

We then had a macabre conversation about furry mammal morbidity, with several inappropriate suggestions about carnivorous possibilities, tales of burying various furry mammals at various stages of rigor mortis, Fatal Attraction style possibilities…

…I mean, really. Shouldn’t we all have grown out of this sort of thing by now?

No.

We’re going to gather again next week. One of the more disciplined among us really should draw up an agenda and some etiquette guidelines…I’m not volunteering, just suggesting that somebody ought to…

The Night Of Charlotte Thomas, My Piece For ThreadMash Six, 31 March 2020

Is it really only a few weeks ago that we were still gathering in a crowded room above a pub to eat, drink, socialise and deliver our ThreadMash Five pieces to an eager audience of ourselves and others?

Threadmash 5, Rohan Candappa’s Thing Has A Birthday Bash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2020

Yup.

But in these unprecedented times (oh boy am I becoming sick of hearing that phrase, “unprecedented times”) the only way we can ThreadMash is remotely.

So that’s what we did.

The brief for TheadMash 6 was set at ThreadMash 5. Rohan waved a leather-bound notebook emblazoned with the name “Charlotte Thomas” at us. Rohan had bought that notebook cheap in Paperchase on the Strand. Someone had ordered it before Christmas but had not turned up to collect it. “Who was Charlotte Thomas?”, Rohan wondered. The brief was simply to write a short story that addressed that question.

Eight of us have written Charlotte Thomas pieces. Four of us addressed the mystery of Charlotte’s leather-bound notebook in our stories.

Here is my story, steeped in the experience Janie and I had volunteering for Crisis At Christmas. The character, Sharla, is based on several of the vibrant characters we met at Crisis. As far as we know, none of them were actually named Charlotte Thomas in real life, but then again, you never know!

THE NIGHT OF CHARLOTTE THOMAS

The karaoke was in full swing. Not the best karaoke we’d ever heard, frankly. But also not the worst.  This was not your semi-professional karaoke of regular singers hoping to be spotted. This was impromptu karaoke. Informal, party, Christmas night, karaoke.

We heard one of the guests belt out Delilah, rather well, in a strong Middle-Eastern accent. Then we heard another guest belt out My Way…badly. Daisy and I couldn’t see the karaoke. We were in earshot, well within earshot, but we were on duty and had to remain at our post.

Then we heard Sharla sing. We didn’t know that she was called Sharla at that juncture, of course, nor did we yet know what she looked like, but we did know that the quality of the singing had gone up several notches, above and beyond the Delilah guy.

“…I should have changed that stupid lock, I should have made you leave your key, If I’d known…”

Daisy gave me one of her “I’m impressed” looks. I responded with my “too right” nod.  I wished that I could go and have a look over the balcony to see this singer, but that would have meant breaking the rules and leaving my post. I wasn’t about to do that.

About five minutes after I Will Survive had finished, a pint-sized, super-confident-seeming female guest came up to our station and engaged me and Daisy in conversation.  Sharla was only one or two words into her husky, deep-voiced opening gambit with us and we both knew we were being visited by that singer.

In truth, Sharla had taken a shine to Daisy, not really to me, although she seemed interested in both of us once she learnt that we were not just a duty pair, but an actual couple in real life. At this stage, Sharla pretty much asked all the questions and Daisy provided most of the answers.

Soon after Sharla moved on, Daisy and I were reallocated to a different station; ground floor. It was getting late by then, perhaps midnight, but quite a few guests were still milling about.

We chatted with several interesting people down there, before hearing the unmistakable sound of Sharla singing. The karaoke had long since finished. These were snatches of songs, mixed in with chatter. 

“Pull up to my bumper baby, In your…every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little…”

Daisy complimented Sharla’s singing again and asked her if she’d ever considered singing for a living. Sharla told Daisy that she wasn’t the first person to have asked her that question.

Later, Daisy and I were advised to wrap up warm for front door duty.  Now about 2.00 or 3.00 a.m., Boxing Day morning, gosh it was cold out there. A few guests still hanging out, some having a smoke, others just having a chat. Sharla appeared around the corner, a large mango in each hand. She told anyone who’d listen that a local 24 hour shop had given them to her. She vehemently denied the suggestion that she might have “liberated” them without the shopkeeper’s consent.

Sharla seemed in her element outside; indeed she told us that she was so used to rough sleeping, that she felt more in her element outside than inside at that hour. 

Sharla must have spotted that I was feeling cold – at least Daisy had been given a padded hi-vis jacket to wear, I just had one of the flimsy ones…

…Sharla darted inside and badgered one of the indoor volunteers, who was wearing a fleecy hi-vis, to swap with me.

“Thank you, that was very thoughtful of you, Sharla”, I said, wondering why I hadn’t thought to take that action myself.

“I’m very grateful to you volunteers”, said Sharla, “unlike some of the fucking dickheads around here. I’ve seen some of ‘em being so fucking rude, it’s a fucking disgrace. I was in a bad mood last night, but I’m never that fucking rude to volunteers. I’m ‘avin’ the best night ever tonight”.

Outside, Sharla opened up to Daisy more than before. Sharla talked about her disorganised upbringing and the similarly chaotic upbringing to which she had subjected her own children. She talked about the drugs and the prostitution and the rough sleeping. She talked about her family in Jamaica and her desire to visit them. Not all of Sharla’s stories quite stacked up, nor were they all entirely consistent with each other. But all her stories were eye-opening.

“You have led a fascinating life”, said Daisy, “you should write your stories down and get them published.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that”, said Sharla.  “In fact, just last week, down by the Strand, I was talking to a nice gentleman and he said just that. He said he’d buy me a leather-bound writing book with my name on the front as a Christmas present. He even wrote down my full name and made me spell it out for him. Charlotte Thomas”.

“Ah, Sharla stands for Charlotte”, said Daisy, “our niece is called Charlotte.”

“Nice,” said Sharla, “anyway, that nice gentleman never showed up with my present.”

“Maybe he’ll show up with your present after Christmas,” said Daisy.

“Nah,” said Sharla. I knew he wouldn’t and I know he won’t. People make promises like that all the time, but they don’t really mean ‘em.”

We didn’t see Sharla again for the next few hours. We were on various dormitory floor duties and Charlotte Thomas was clearly not one for using the Crisis beds.

The last time we saw Sharla was at about 7:00 in the morning on our last duty; near the entrance, making sure that incoming daytime volunteers and wandering guests all went in the right directions. We replaced another pair who very quietly pointed to a sleeping Sharla, sitting in a chair, her upper body sprawled out across the table, fast asleep. “She pretty much fell asleep mid-sentence while talking to us”, a grinning volunteer told us, in a whisper.

And there slept Sharla…Charlotte Thomas, for the rest of our shift. The arms of Morpheus had finally got her, just when most of the other guests were getting up and starting to mill around again. What was Charlotte Thomas dreaming about, I wondered? Such a life she leads, so many stories she has. She really could do with that writing book. Maybe that nice gentleman really will turn up on the Strand with her gift after Christmas.

Noddyland Gym And Indoor Sports Centre, 29 March 2020

My recent posting about the socially-distant World Miniature Table Tennis between me and Daisy…

World Miniature Table Tennis Championship: Ged v Daisy, Noddyland, 23 March 2020

…elicited several amusing items of feedback. One wag suggested that we might stream live events, while another wondered whether we had established our own private gym. Well, on that latter point, I did say in the 23 March piece…

…we’ll need to exercise and play at home for a while. I have ordered some low cost, high value gizmondry for the purpose, which should be wending its way to us as I write…

…and I’m here to tell the world that most of that gizmondry has now arrived. It aims to enhance the stretching, posture, strength and balance work that I normally do at BodyWorksWest , while Daisy of late has been doing this stuff in the comfort of her own home, since she parked her pole ambitions.

So let me talk you through the colourful array of gadgetry, for which I have laid out literally dozens of quid, adding to those items we already had:

Top left: Flossie (long-since resident) demonstrates the stretches we undertake on mats such as the purple rolled-up one (mine) using items such as the green blocks for supporting the lower back and the green eggy thing and wheel for pilates-type groin stretches etc. All of those items, together with the baby weights (pink and black) and the knobbly green pressure point ball thing were already here. Flossie models herself on Lexi from BodyWorksWest, hence the extreme looking stretches which Flossie can quite literally hold all day, if we leave her undisturbed.

So, the italics describe the items we already had here; now to talk you through the newly acquired and repurposed items:

  • four kilogram weights atop a rather fruity-looking bottle of Rioja. No, the Rioja is not part of the exercise regime. I have been using 4kg weights to strengthen my arms for (mostly real) tennis. I felt that, without that level of weight to play with, my strengthening might go backwards. The weights will always come in handy, even after the pandemic has passed;
  • atop the purple mat (with it’s additional weight on the floor by the pink doo-dah) is a Senshi forearm wrist curler. This looks like the easiest exercise on earth… until you try it. I have long-since told Lexi, Shaf and anyone else from the BodyWorks team within earshot that I feel like a right weed when doing this exercise – and indeed some of the 4kg weight movements – but they tell me that no-one cares and that no-one is looking. Well, I think I get funny looks from space cadet types at the gym when they see me struggling to do more than three or four cycles of the wrist curler thing. No more! I am wrist curling in the privacy of my own social distancing. Daisy now knows from experience that this is harder than it looks, so she doesn’t give me funny looks…at least, no funnier than usual;
  • in front of Flossie, a pair of adjustable grip strengtheners. This is a cleverer idea for us than I thought it would be, because Daisy can set them for a weight that suits her – while I can switch to a heavier setting as I strengthen up for the additional grip strength requirements of real tennis;
  • the pièce de résistance, though, is the wooden item, by Flossies side, propped against the sofa. At BodyWorksWest, my favourite piece of equipment is the “magic stick”, which some ill-informed members and staff imagine simply to be a broom handle. It is absolutely great for some of the standing up stretches. The device shown in the picture is slightly shorter (but long enough) and was originally designed to latch on to the loft entrance hook, to help open the hatch and start to pull down the steps. Absolutely does the job for our stretches; Daisy is enjoying using it as much as I am.

So yes, the living room can now be repurposed as our indoor gym by the simple expedient of moving the furniture around a bit. This we are doing each day.

But it is not all about such gym-like exercise. We are both mad keen on bat and ball sports – the miniature table tennis was only going to get us so far.

So, we have treated ourselves to a compact-but-decent-sized home table tennis table, which, for the time being, while Janie’s surgery is by necessity decommissioned, takes pride of place in that room, which is also (as is usually the case at the weekends) doubling as my music room:

This table will work well in the garage and/or the garden once life gets back to normal. For the time being, suffice it to say that Daisy has come to terms with this size of table far more rapidly than I have.

So will we stream the matches live? Unlikely. For that, we’d need to dress differently and take far more care in our use of language while playing. In any case, I need to get better at the game before the matches would be worth seeing (or gambling upon).

But I might experiment with some video filming and making highlights packages, not immediately but if the partial lockdown goes on for long enough.

Stay well, stay safe, stay fit, everyone.

Virtually Going Back To Our Roots, A Streatham BBYO Youth Club Reunion On Zoom, 29 March 2020

The roll (l to r): Ivor (present) Sandra (present) Mark (awol) Andrea (present)

It was Natalie’s idea and rather a good one. Or maybe it was Andrea’s idea. Anyway, point is, our plans for a spring gathering of the old youth club clan are in tatters this year, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mission Implausible, The Annual Streatham BBYO Alumni Gathering, Bill’s, 30 May 2019

Only one thing for it: gather virtually, e.g. on Zoom (other video conferencing tools are available).

Natalie set it up and a good few of us joined in. Andrea, David, Ivor, Linda, Liza, Martin, Me, Natalie, Sandra, Wendy…

…I think that’s everyone from the old clan who came along on Sunday – apologies if I have missed anyone out. One or two wives/partners/children popped in for a while (Janie for example) or added colour to the proceedings through noises off or other such distractions.

Janie had never witnessed a video conference before and suggested that video-conferencing seemed a chaotic medium to her. I had to point out that video conferences can be highly disciplined and decorous. Had she ever experienced one of our youth club meetings, she’d realise that the chaotic nature of the gathering has little or nothing to do with the medium.

Simon wasn’t there to stick the boot in, but Martin was there to provide security

The conversation covered many topics, not just “what were you up to before the pandemic?” and “how are you coping with the pandemic?”

The Chatham House rule should apply to such gatherings, I feel, so I won’t attribute specific tales to specific people. But we are a communitarian lot, still, so we heard word from near the front line of health care, social services provision and education. Unprecedented times (as everyone seems to be saying right now) presenting immediate and urgent challenges to everyone, especially those working in civil society.

The most fascinating yarn, though, was a true story about rabbits. Apparently, if you put a male rabbit and a female rabbit into a household with children, you generate a myriad of soap-opera-like scenarios within just a few weeks, even if the children are given strict instructions to enforce social distancing between the rabbits. Children, it seems, struggle to obey such simple instructions with predictably hilarious and tragic results in equal measure.Throw Covid-19 lockdown into the scenario and you have a strange brew for story-telling – Beatrix Potter’s Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies meets Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

I do hope Zoom’s VC security is better than some suggest…I’d hate to think that the bunny community found out what’s been going on…

Word on the street is that our gathering went so well that we shall be gathering again very soon – i.e. same time, same day, the next week.

This really IS becoming a virtual youth club, even down to the weekly meetings. Soon we’ll need to reform a committee, start scheduling programmes and sending delegates to virtual regional, national and international shindigs…

And You Are? by Rohan Candappa, Lockdown Theatre Company, 24 March 2020

I have known Rohan Candappa since Noah was a nipper…

…OK, not quite that long, but we did meet on the first day of our first year of secondary school. We were in the same class…

…but subsequently, Rohan has proved himself to be in a class of his own, with tremendous ideas such as The Lockdown Theatre Company.

Rohan will be livid that I am focussing my preamble on him, rather than the highly-talented actress, Katrina Kleve, who performs the first Lockdown Theatre Company piece.

But the reality is, Rohan has come up with this highly creative and generous idea to help acting folk who are currently pretty much all out of work and finding these difficult times especially challenging.

As I understand it, Lockdown Theatre will publish a short piece each week, normally on a Wednesday, for the next 10 weeks at least.

Here is the very first Lockdown Theatre piece:

As Rohan says on the YouTube blurb (you find that if you click the link to watch, rather than watch the embedded video), this is an abridged version of a longer live performance piece.

I was honoured to attend the preview of that longer piece in November 2018 …

One Starts in a Barber’s. One Starts in a Bar by Rohan Candappa, Preview, Gladstone Arms, 21 November 2018

…and once again found myself honoured with an opportunity to preview “And You Are?” on the Tuesday evening, a few hours before it went live to the world.

Janie joined me at the preview, which we streamed onto the living room telly. Perhaps not quite as dramatic as the Prime Minister’s lockdown address to the nation the night before…

…but frankly I prefer seeing Kat Kleve act and I prefer Rohan Candappa’s well-crafted and thought-provoking words.

So there you have it. Rohan was, at one time, an ad man, so I am sure he will want to extract the essence of what I have just said as a promotional quote:

Better than watching Boris Johnson telling you what to do and what not to do – Ian Harris, Ogblog.

Seriously, Janie and I both very much enjoyed the piece and are looking forward to the next one. It is “appointment to view” stuff. You can make your own appointment to view by subscribing to the YouTube channel here.