Following my trip to Switzerland, Janie and I clearly chose to have a quiet weekend. We spent at least some of the time at mine.
The most noteworthy thing in the diaries…indeed the only appointment…was Microbee at 10:30 on the Saturday. We’d had an infestation of cockroaches in Clanricarde Gardens – I think resulting from the major “knock-down-leaving-facades-only” job a few doors down from mine.
I remember in particular a very friendly Aussie pest-control dude whose lifestyle was to spend English summers in England and Australian summers in Oz. He was clearly over-qualified for the role of pest control dude, but the lifestyle of perennial summers mattered morre to him than the nature of his work.
I think this might well have been his last visit.
Janie jotted L’Artista Finchley Road in her diary, which I suspect was planning for the Wednesday evening meal with Kim & Micky.
Janie and I both finished work late on Friday 1st, so I’ll guess we fell back on getting some top notch Chinese food from May’s place, The Park Inn, just around the corner from mine…
…Postscript: What excitement. My Quicken financial records start in mid September 1993 so I can confirm that I spent the princely sum of £16 at Park Inn that night, 1 October. That almost certainly means that I had some home cooked Chinese food; perhaps won ton soup and/or my Cantonese style braised brisket dish, which I would have supplemented with some of May’s food, e.g. pork bellies (a necessity I’d have thought), rice and vegetables.
I’m not 100% sure we ate at L’Artista that Wednesday night with Kim & Micky but I know we did eat there with them way back when, so I’m guessing this was one of those occasions.
My accounts are silent on this matter, but “over there” Kim & Micky would no doubt have insisted on picking up the tab.
Not only am I pretty sure this one wasn’t used, I’m not even sure it was ever submitted. It isn’t even recorded on my log – just the electronic file sitting in my 1993 creative folder. I’m guessing that I decided that the subject matter was simply too grim for comedy.
(A medley using a range of seemingly unconnected tunes)
BOUTROS BOUTROS (To the Tune of “Stupid Cupid”)
Boutros Boutros you’re a real mean guy,{Boutros Boutros} Your troops in Mogadishu wish you’d die;{Boutros Boutros} You try to harmonise relations,{Boutros Boutros} By sending in the troops of the United Nations;{Boutros Boutros} To free Somalis, Boutros Boutros, Boutros Ghali.
WARLORD (To the Tune of “Milord”)
We’re getting peeved and bored, With this Aideed warlord, The blasted UN blow up everyone but him; They think they’ll end the war, If they just fight some more, But this Somali gore gets deadlier and grim.
BOUTROS BOUTROS (To the tune of “Daisy Daisy”)
Boutros Boutros, Send us your UN troops; Snipers shoot us, Which gives us all the poops. It won’t be a stylish slaughter, But we still think you oughta, Bomb infantry, And Somalis, In the blighted Mogadishu.
WARLORD (To the Tune of “Milord”)
We are indeed more bored, With this Aideed warlord, The blasted UN blow up everyone but him; They think they’ll end the war, If they just fight some more, But this Somali gore gets deadlier and grim.
Below is a video of Connie Francis singing Stupid Cupid with lyrics on the screen:
Below is a video of Édith Piaf singing Milord with an English translation of the lyrics on the screen:
Below is a recording of the original Daisy Bell (Daisy Daisy) song with lyrics on the screen; the familiar chorus starts around 37 seconds in.
I think this short song was only briefly performed, although I’m sure it could have done well for a long time in the hands of any half-decent Prince Philip impersonator, of whom NewsRevue had many at that time.
All these years later, I still find the idea of Prince Philip being the patron of WWF bizarre. I mean the World Wide Fund for Nature, of course. Philip The Greek God as patron of the wrestling lot would make a bit more sense.
ALL THINGS WILD AND SHOOTABLE _
(A Quickie to the Tune of “All Things Bright and Beautiful”)
CHORUS 1
All things bright and beautiful,
Love the World Wildlife Fund;
Their patron’s not cute at all,
Prince Philip has beasts gunned.
VERSE 1 – PRINCE PHILIP
I shoot the grouse on Moorlands,
But won’t hunt baby fawns;
I’d sooner stuff their mummies,
And mount their daddies’ horns.
CHORUS 2
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures tasty hot;
All things wild and shootable,
Prince Philip kills the lot.
(PRINCE PHILIP:Hear, hear.)
(c) Ian Harris 1993
In Autumn 1994 I replaced the “Hear hear” line with
(PRINCE PHILIP: I think I’ll start with that stupid wimp of a son, Charles)
…it looks as though I had another go at resubmitting it in autumn 1995 as well.
Michael Mainelli and I traveled to Geneva and Gland more than once, while we were doing some advisory work for the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). This was our longest visit – best part of a week in my case – I think Michael might have stayed a bit longer.
Good to see that the above picture of the World Intellectual Property Organisation building in Geneva is licenced to be used under creative commons.
Michael had lived and worked in Geneva for a while, a few year’s earlier. We stayed at Michael’s favourite hotel from that bygone era; Small & friendly it was. L’Hôtel d’Allèves. More than 26 years later, judging by the website, it still looks like a nice relic of a bygone era; somewhat upgraded from its 1993 incarnation.
I recall having a good meal with Michael in the hotel on the evening we arrived. Local dishes and local wine.
Several members of staff at the hotel clearly knew Michael, who was keen to show off his command of the French language. Unfortunately, while Michael is no doubt very good at learning words and grammatical forms, his accent has a very un-French sound to it. I remember a few times, repeating what Michael had said or me choosing some simpler French words from my own, more limited, French vocabulary, to ensure that we were understood. That aspect of the trip reminded me of family visits to France; my father had a similar problem with spoken French.
Despite Michael’s insistence, while briefing me pre-visit and/or in transit, that Swiss trains run on time, the service between Geneva and Gland was almost British in its tardiness while we were there for this trip. We experienced several delayed journeys during that week, including that first Friday ahead of the weekend.
Michael had arranged a weekend jaunt with a charming woman, Ita Schlik, who was a former colleague of Michael’s. Ita took us out to Annecy for the day, I think on the Saturday.
Annecy is a beautiful town; I remember our visit being a very relaxing and enjoyable day out. Ita was very good company and clearly knew the ropes extremely well in terms of scenic routes, avoiding traffic and gaming the differential benefits of being in France and being in Switzerland – e.g. where to fill up with petrol, where to fill up with wine and gifts. There seemed, to me, to be a whole border industry based around those differences, with no physical border to be seen. A possible lesson for us in the UK (or what might soon be left of the UK, he writes in January 2020).
I do recall the clocks going back that weekend (about a month earlier than in the UK). I went for a walk early on the Sunday and every public clock had been changed overnight. Yes, top notch effort with the clocks. So, based on my own experience, I’m not so sure about trains, but the Swiss are great at clocks…
…I’m starting to sound like Harry Lime…
But we were mostly there to work and we did most of our work in Gland.
Mind you, I recall one occasion when Swiss-style time keeping might have helped. We arranged some surgery sessions, which allowed people to approach us informally with issues. Michael and I would pair on those. I got to one surgery five minutes late, to find a woman in tears in front of Michael, who looked unusually lost for words. I imagined an Oleanna-like incident or something, but it transpired that this woman simply got very emotional worrying about her spreadsheet or some such administrative problem that was troubling her.
I also remember one flight back from Switzerland with John Ward and David Taylor (of WWF), but without Michael. (It might have been this particular trip or it might have been one of the shorter visits). The pilot clearly made a mistake on landing – the experience was so bumpy and damage-noise-ridden that we all jumped out of our skins. The co-pilot apologised for his colleague over the public address system.
I’m pretty sure it did eventually find its way into NewsRevue…
…but not on the particular Thursday evening of my return. The lyric was scribbled in my diary while I was away and I can see from my electronic log that I typed it up and saved it c19:15 on the evening of my return.
So I probably took the script with me to the Canal Cafe that very evening, printed out on the rudimentary line printer I had at home at that time. Yes, for sure I did rush to the Canal Cafe that night, grabbing a Thai meal on the way, to catch the opening night of a new run and to drop off my new script.
There’s dedication to both work and play. Not so sure about the rest.
In truth I don’t much remember this party, but we both recorded it in our diaries with faithful addresses and how to get there notes, so I’m sure we went.
The Loose Box is now (writing January 2020) in Horseferry Road, but in those days for sure was Brompton Road.
No clues about where Janie and I had our dinner 23 September. Perhaps I cooked for her but I did have an early flight to Geneva the next morning, which is one of the reasons we dined together on the Thursday, as I was due to stay over in Geneva for the weekend and then the following week.
Actually, more likely I’d have got us both a Chinese takeaway from May’s place (The Park Inn) that night – I’d been on a busy day that day and can’t imagine that cooking would have made sense.
In May, I had a hunch that Norman Lamont would make a subsequent pile in the City and by September it had been announced that he was joining the Board of N M Rothchild.
Soon after, Lamont must have moved even closer to my W2 residence, as I went through a phase of seeing him on the main strip of Notting Hill Gate, shuffling along in his inimitable manner. We even had a branch of Threshers along there at the time, which added to my fun at the sightings. But I never saw him go in to Threshers. On that N M Rothchild stipend, I suspect that Norman was buying more expensive booze than the Threshers kind and that his credit limit was, by then, more manageable/much bigger.
TEACHER:Gather round children. I’m going to tell you a story about a nasty grey man who made your mummies and daddies all very poor. And who made himself very very rich.
VERSE
One grey day,
A cabinet shuffle came;
The people said they were badly lead,
And Norman got the blame.
Some may say,
Lamont is a merchant banker; (children giggle, TEACHER: settle down children)
So Norman smiled, joined N M Rothchild,
And called Major to say…… “thank ya”. (perhaps children mouth “wanker”)
CHORUS
Oh, Norman the Chancellor left the bunch,
And said goodbye to John’s circus;
Since the pound had gone bumpety bump, bump, bump, bump.
Norman the Chancellor did some lunch,
And said hello to the city;
He’ll get rich in the slumpety slump, slump, slump, slump.
Some good lines in this one but I have a feeling it wasn’t used. I had plenty in the show at that time and perhaps this wasn’t my strongest political lyric when taken as a whole.
JOHNNY MAGGIE _
(To the Tune of “Johnny Reggae”)
INTRO
CHORUS:What’s he like Margaret? MAGGIE:He’s a real dreary geezer.
VERSE 1 – MAGGIE THATCHER
He’s going bald a bit and he’s been in power much too long; And he wears a nylon tie with the label “C&A” on; He always makes a cock up when decisions cross his path, He’s stupid over cricket, And he couldn’t run a bath.
CHORUS 1 – CHORUS
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Slag off Johnny Maggie, Johnny Major Maggie, Lay it on him; Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, In your memoirs Maggie, Slag off Johnny Maggie, Blame it on him.
VERSE 2 – JOHNNY MAJOR
While still in power she promised she would go on and on; And most of Maggie’s memoirs are like a dose of Mogadon; Her publishers were anxious cos they want a best seller; They told her “spice it up a bit, Slag off that Major fellah.”
CHORUS 2 – CHORUS
Maggie is a menace, She slurs more than Dennis, Her book shook John then it’s Hit the stalls; Johnny tried to cage her, But he can’t upstage her, Maggie’s got John Major by the balls!!!
Below is a video of The Piglets singing Johnny Reggae:
Janie and I were preparing to go to China, Hong Kong & Bali in the late summer of 1993. An element of prophylaxis was called for, including some vaccination. In particular, we both needed a typhoid jab; I hadn’t had one of those since 1979.
My track record with vaccination was not (and is not) a glorious one. I am a true believer and always take recommended vaccines, but I get irrationally nervous for jabs. One especially ignominious example from my infanthood (some time in the mid-1960s) is contained in the prelude to this (here or below) weird, other story:
For those who choose not to read the above, Dr Green ended up under the dining room table at Woodfield Avenue giving a terrified, bolting infant-version of me one of my childhood jabs in the buttock.
Further, my previous experience with typhoid vaccination, in 1979 ahead of my visit to Mauritius, had not been a great experience. It had left me feeling very sore and a bit poorly for a couple of days.
I therefore planned my typhoid jabs with precision, arranging a Friday end of the day appointment so I could drive straight over to Janie’s, where she had promised to look after me and help me convalesce from the jab.
I seem to recall that she made soup for the purpose. Chicken might have been involved as well. We’d been going out for over a year by then and in any case she had insight into the quintessential cultural mores.
Prophylactic, therapeutic, palliative…chicken soup has got the lot
While all that tender loving care was being prepared in my honour, a trembling version of me turned up at the Colville Health Centre to see Dr Rasheed at 17:40.
Dr Rasheed was a locum, I believe. My regular GP at that time was Dr Catherine Mok. I used to refer to my regular GP as “Mok The Afflicted”, but only because I was addicted to puns. She was a very good GP in my view.
Are you all right?…
…asked Dr Rasheed, perhaps concerned by this trembling wreck of a patient.
Sorry, doctor. I’m a total wimp when it comes to jabs.
Hmmm. Well, the really cowardly people don’t turn up for jabs at all. What are you afraid of?
It’s irrational, doctor, I realise that. But actually, in the matter of this typhoid vaccination, I get a bad reaction to it, so I am anticipating feeling very sore and a bit poorly this weekend.
Dr Rasheed looked puzzled.
When did you last have a typhoid vaccination?
1979, when I went to Mauritius.
Dr Rasheed laughed.
We don’t use those antiquated vaccines any more. You haven’t had Typhim before. You might get a little soreness at the site but side effects are all-but unheard of now.
Back when a jab was really a jab. You knew about it for days. That’s what I call a jab.
It was all over in the batting of an eyelid. I felt like a total fraud as I was driving to Janie’s place, anticipating some 24 hours of tender loving care, realising that my chances of actually feeling poorly were vanishingly small.
Cushions, plumped up pillows, gentle entreaties of the “how are you feeling now?” variety…
…so for how long did I milk that TLC situation before coming clean to Janie that I had been worrying about some obsolete vaccine from a bygone era and didn’t feel sore and poorly at all with this one?
Strangely, I remember going with Janie to an open day for one of her chiropody suppliers, Footman, in Mitcham.
It was a bit weird.
I think one of the reasons I tagged along was because we wanted to see the movie Much Ado About Nothing and the sensible show time that Sunday was to go straight on from Janie’s trade show.
“But I thought Janie doesn’t like Shakespeare?” I hear you cry. Well, that wasn’t quite so set/established by then and in any case so many people were telling us that we needed to see this movie because the Beatrice and Benedick bit of the plot reminded people of our relationship.
Yawn.
Kenneth Brannagh & Emma Thompson? Do me a favour. Who were we and/or our friends trying to kid?
Not a bad movie though, in that British costume drama/turn a classic into a rom-com sort of way.
