To the Royal Court Theatre on a Friday evening. “Why Friday?”, I hear you cry. Because the Royal Court is now, in its wisdom, starting Saturday shows at 6:30, which is a bit early for us in the summer months, when we like to take advantage of the outdoors in daylight.
This sounded a bit more techie but a similar idea.
That’s exactly what it was.
When we booked it we had no idea who we were going to see. We discovered a week or so before our evening that our performer was to be Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem.
This is what she looks like when she does one of her more regular things – singing contemporary music:
It is hard to review a piece like this because I imagine every performer stamps their own mark on the piece – that is sort-of the idea. But certainly the evening we spent at The Royal Court was a gripping 80-90 minutes of theatre, using multi-media the way theatre can use multi-media best. It added to the live performance rather than making me wonder whether we should simply be at home watching a film.
It seems to have had mixed reviews, but then different reviewers saw different performers respond to the piece in different ways. Here’s a link to reviews.
We found it moving and thought-provoking. We’re very glad we went and we’re very glad we saw Self Esteem. We could have done without the screaming groupies, but you can’t have everything…or rather you can’t omit everything that you don’t want.
Back then, I wasn’t a member of the MCC but I did know how to tick boxes on a form requesting a chance at returns if there were any.
This time, I simply applied for a guest ticket and this time, now that diversity is all the thing, I could even take Janie as a Member’s Guest into the pavilion and enjoy a relaxed dress code in there.
Janie loves the upper sub deck. Given that the sun indeed chose to shine on us that evening, that is the spot I picked, getting to Lord’s early enough to secure good seats up there.
Last time I travelled to Lord’s separately from Janie for the sun deck, Janie walked straight past me up there, so I decided to take no chances and sent her a selfie so she might recognise me…or at least recognise my shirt.
I hope readers have noticed the little nod to MCC colours about that shirt.
Janie arrived in good time, as evidenced by the headline photo, which she took.
England had already secured the series by the time this match came around. We didn’t think they batted brilliantly but we guessed they’d batted well enough.
As it started to get a bit colder and my picnic got depleted, we decided to catch the end of the match at home.
There will be a King Cricket piece of mine about this test in the fulness of time – I’ll publish the links here.
Meanwhile, just a placeholder to note that I:
watched and played real tennis on Day One;
brought Janie as a guest on Day Two;
watched and (once the match was over) played real tennis Day Three.
It was a very one-sided match, but passing time at Lord’s when there is a test match on is always a pleasant experience, however the cricket is panning out.
Rune & Djokovic Squaring Up Ahead of Centre Court Battle
I scored us a pair of centre court tickets for the second Monday of Wimbledon this year. Not bad, I hear you cry. I thought it was a smart move this year. I always thought that “Manic Monday” was better observed from the comfort of a living room and a gadget that enables switching between channels. But the craziness of “Manic Monday” has, in theory, been dissipated by the use of “Middle Sunday” for half of the draw.
Theory and practice failed to collide this year, with so much rain through Week One and Middle Sunday, that our Monday, which was blessed with good weather until early evening, was pretty manic.
Still, we were scheduled to see the following matches on Centre Court…
Elena Rybakina v Anna Kalinskaya
Taylor Fritz v Alexander Zverev
Novak Djokovic v Holger Rune
…and there was loads to see on outer courts.
Taylor Townsend & Katerina Siniakova on Court 18
We arrived a little late to get in to one of the main outer courts for the first match of the day, but after wandering around for a short while, I worked out that we’d get on to Court 18 to see at least part of the conclusion of a rain-affected Ladies Doubles including several players we like: Katerina Siniakova & Taylor Townsend v Leylah Fernandez & Ena Shibahara.
Rain constantly threatened but didn’t come until late afternoon
We bailed out of Court 18 before the finish, keen to see the first match on Centre Court.
Elena Rybakina & Anna Kalinskaya
After the first set, I went out to stretch my legs, only to discover, on my return after the first three games of the second set, that Kalinskaya had retired. Still, my leg-stretching had enabled me to spec out the neighbouring outer courts, where some of the youngster action was now underway.
Flora Johnson
We watched Flora Johnson overcome Alena Kovackova before returning for the start of the Fritz v Zverev match – a rare example of a match between two players with Z in their surname.
Zverev hitting
Having consumed my hot smoked salmon bagel during the first match, perhaps my defences were down. Or perhaps it was the relentless big serves and not much else at the start of that match. Anyway, I must confess that Janie caught me napping during the first set and kindly prevented what might have been a notorious snore-gate incident.
I did the leg stretch thing again at the start of the second set and returned for the end of that set, which also went Zverev’s way. I suggested to Janie that the rest of the match was only going to be interesting if Fritz revived and that would take quite some time. Janie agreed, so we decided to wander around some more and take in the outer courts.
Janie’s eye’s fell on some mixed doubles: Jan Zielinski & Su-Wei Hsieh v Hugo Nys & Demi Schuurs.
Hugo Nys & Demi SchuursSu-Wei Hsieh
It really is a privilege to be able to watch these fantastic players at such close quarters on those outer courts.
Then we focussed on some more youngsters for a while: Henry Bernet & Flynn Thomas v Mark Ceban & Charlie Swaine.
Mark Ceban & Charlie Swaine
Then to Court 14, where I spotted that an interesting-looking mixed doubles was about to start: Maximo Gonzalez & Ulrikke Eikeri v Jean-Julien Rojer & Bethanie Mattek-Sands…
…but not before Janie snapped some hydrangeas that took her fancy:
Bettanie servesUlrikke Eikeri & Maximo Gonzalez
All the while I was keeping an eye on the score from Centre Court. Once it became clear that the fourth set between Fritz and Zverev was heading for a tie-break, I suggested that we return to see the end of that match, one way or another.
That we did and it was a well worthwhile switch. That tie break was excellent and Fritz went up through the gears in the final set.
Fritz, victorious
We stuck around for the first set of Rune v Djokovic (see headline picture), but by then we had seen plenty and thought that people queuing for returns were more deserving than us.
Besides, it had started raining and it looked as thought he rain would only get worse. We quite fancied getting home before the proper heavy stuff.
The young lad from Guest Services admired my poncho, describing it as “stunning”. Excellent taste, some youngsters these days, excellent taste and good choice of advective. He even sounded as though he meant it.
We didn’t go too mad with the camera at this one – we were a bit photo-ed out from Eastbourne. But if you want to see all 60 pictures, here they are on Flickrt:
We always have a a great day at Wimbledon. This day, despite its frenetic nature, was no exception.
All the more reason to find out what Viktoria and Misha are up to, musically. Further, we liked the sound of the Brazilian theme for the concert, which we sensed, correctly, would please us.
We enjoyed a light supper of charcuterie and stuff at The Wig before the concert. They do that sort of thing very well these days. While we were eating, the performers were setting up and photographing one another.
The conceit of this concert, if indeed conceit describes this simple rationale, is that Viktoria and Misha perform a selection of the stuff that they like to play together. Their joy in playing this music really came across in performance.
We heard:
Blue Deer by Misha Mullov-Abbado
Brazil by Misha Mullov-Abbado
Shir Lelo Shem by Shalom Hanoch
Adagio & Allegro From Violin Sonata No. 1 in B minor BWV1014 by Johann Sebastian Bach
Moderato from Sonata in D for solo violin Op. 115 by Sergey Prokofiev
Sabiá by Antônio Carlos Jobim
Little Astronaut by Misha Mullov-Abbado
Shanti Bell by Misha Mullov-Abbado
O Silêncio das Estrelas by Lenine & Dudu Falcão
O Cabo Pitanga by Laércio de Freitas
Träumerei from Kinderszenen by Robert Schumann
Tico Tico by Zequinha de Abreu
Here is a lovely example, recorded a few years ago, of them performing one of the above pieces:
Their closing number, Tico Tico, is more than a bit of an earworm for me. Not least, because the Harris family gramophone records included a version of that song by Mickey Katz and His Kosher Jammers. Viktoria and Misha’s version sounded more like the above example and did not sound at all like the following recording:
I sense that Misha and family thought the event went well. Misha and Viktoria certainly look pleased in this green room photo.
Thanks again for allowing me to use your photographs, folks.
This Wigmore Hall lunchtime concert was a bit unusual.
Camerata RCO is the scaled-down chamber orchestra bit of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. They are making a bit of a reputation for themselves playing scaled-down versions of enormous symphonies, such as this sixth one by Anton Bruckner.
…we decided to book three days of Eastbourne tennis for 2024: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Tuesday Evening
On the Tuesday evening we met Linda Wrobel (formerly Linda Phillips) for dinner. Linda lives in Bexhill, which, me being a died-in-the-wool Londoner, seemed to me to have no proximity whatsoever to Eastbourne. But last year, when I posted about our Eastbourne trip on Facebook, Linda messaged me wondering what the hell Janie and I were doing in Eastbourne without contacting and meeting Linda!
Linda first came to our Airbnb to have a look around, then we wandered round to the same Thai place that Janie and I had tried the previous year.
So deep in conversation were we, that we completely forgot top take pictures of each other or of the food. Here is a picture of Janie with the food from the previous year.
It was a very enjoyable evening with Linda.
After that, three days of tennis and picnics.
We took an infeasible number of photographs on those three days, which could do with some editing into a highlights album. If you like canonical, the 200 or so pictures are in the following album:
Wednesday
On the Wednesday we saw:
Sebastian Baez v Miomir Kecmanovic
Jelena Ostapenko v Katie Boulter;
Emma Raducanu v Jessica Pegula;
Taylor Fritz v Thiago Seyboth Wild (actually we just watched the first five games of that last one).
Here are some sample pictures from the Wednesday:
Baez servesKecmanovic servesBarrista serves
It was a very hot day, that Wednesday, hence the iced coffees quite early in the day.
The Boulter bounceThe Pegula poseThe Raducanu Racket MarchFritz in the FrameThe Cyborg Wildebeest
Thursday
On the Thursday we saw:
Flavio Cobolli v Billy Harris,
Jasmine Paolini v Katie Boulter,
Daria Kasatkina v Emma Raducanu,
Taylor Fritz v Juncheng Shang (again we just watched the first five games of that last one).
Cooler and breezier, it was, on the Thursday and the Friday.
Colourful Flavio“Cousin” Billy grey in contrastPocket-Rocket PaoliniDashing DariaHark At these TwoWe can’t wait to see Juncheng Shang (depicted) play Zhizhen Zhang (who we saw last year), if only to hear umpires and commentators trying to distinguish between the names.
Friday
On the way to the ground, Janie took some pictures along the front. She even made me park up so she could photograph the bandstand
On the Friday we saw:
Leylah Fernandez v Madison Keys,
Daria Kasatkina v Jasmine Paolini,
Max Purcell v Billy Harris,
Leylah……you’ve got me on my (Madison) KeysJasmine & Daria chat with Kader “Barry White” NouniGiving the serve MaxEastbourne seagull – conspicuously indifferent to tennis and to being photographed.
In short, we had a really great time in Eastbourne.
But now, having heard them and seen them some more, I realise that The Gesualdo Six are now beyond boy band. They are to 15th/16th century Chansons de Regretz what Taylor Swift is to the 21st century heartbreak song.
Further, the Ges-Ges Boys, much like Tay-Tay, are mastering the art of social media management. When Owain Park announced from the stage that “you can find us on TikTok”, I wondered:
whether he was joking,
how many members of the Wigmore hall audience understood what he meant by TikTok,
was I the only person in the Hall (other than the Ges-Ges Crew) who had a TikTok account.
I can’t be sure about the answer to the second and third question, but I can confirm that Owain Park wasn’t joking.
They are also very good at merchandising. On my 2018 visit Owain tempted me to buy a pre-release version of their first album – English Motets (which includes the track embedded above from TikTok, as it happens). This time he persuaded me to be among the first to buy Queen Of Hearts, the latest album.
To be honest, I don’t really need much persuading and I can confirm that the Gesualdo Six recordings are excellent.
The Gesualdo team themselves staffed the merchandise and payment gadgets during the interval, chatting kindly (and at some cases at length) with the patrons who queued up to buy the recordings. I believe they did that all again at the end of the gig.
I wondered to myself whether Taylor Swift was doing this at her Wembley Stadium concerts – I have heard that she engages with her audience like no other. Possibly Tay-Tay is still there at Wembley, selling, signing and chatting.
Almost all the stuff we heard was from this new Queen of Hearts album. Did I mention that it is available from The Gesualdo Six website – click here. We are loving listening to the albums. I also bought Josquin’s Legacy to add to my collection.
Before the interval we heard:
Antoine Brumel (c.1450-1512) Sub tuum praesidium (pub. 1520)
Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521) O virgo prudentissima
Loyset Compère (c.1445-1518) Plaine d’ennuy/Anima mea
Antoine Brumel Sicut Lilium
Jean Mouton (c.1459-1522) Ave Maria … virgo serena (pub. c.1520)
Johannes Prioris (fl. c.1485-1512) Dulcis amica Dei (pub. 1508)
Owain Park (b.1993) Prière pour Marie (2023)
Jean Lhéritier (c.1480-1551) Sub tuum presidium a6
After the interval:
Josquin des Prez Petite camusette (pub. 1545)
Antoine de Févin (c.1470-1511) Fors seulement (pub. c.1515)
Jean Mouton De tous regretz
Anon Se je souspire/Ecce iterum attributed to Margaret of
Austria
Costanzo Festa (c.1485-1545) Quis dabit oculis (1514)
Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade (b.1989) Plaisir n’ai plus Commissioned by The Gesualdo Six (2023)
Johannes Prioris Consommo la vita mia
Nicolas Gombert (c.1495-1560) Tous les regretz (pub. 1544)
Below is a video of them singing Josquin’s O Virgo Prudentissima – one of the pieces we heard.
This group is the real deal. Janie and I floated home after the concert.
Lots of pleasant events in my diary in one mid-June week:
18 June – MCC real tennis club night;
19 June – lunch with Stuart Harris after session with accountants;
20 June – real tennis follwed by a bit of Middlesex v Surrey at Lord’s followed by Jazz in the Crypt at St John Smith Square…or should I say Sinfonia Smith Square;
22 June – dinner with Simon & Timothy… & Ella.
Club Night
The last tennis club night of the current season – we’ll resume in September – had seven of us engaging in various doubles battles until the last four of us standing were worn out.
Lunch With Stuart Harris
The next day, I met up with my very first former tennis doubles partner – albeit “lawn” rather than “real” – Stuart Harris. (No relation).The tale of our great seminal tennis tournament victory in 1974 can be seen by clicking here or below.
Following a most enjoyable Zoom, we decided to meet up properly for lunch. Fitting that Stuart suggested John Lewis’s 5th floor restaurant, as that location was well suited to Cavendish Square accountants and was also faintly reminiscent of Pratts restaurant at the John Lewis store in Streatham, where my dad used to like to take me for tea on rare, cherished occasions during my childhood.
It was great to catch up with Stuart again after all these years. We had lots to talk about and a couple of hours flew by. Stuart’s jokes have not got better over the decades, whereas mine have. That’s one of my jokes, btw. Why isn’t anybody laughing?
LOrd’s For Tennis & T20
Real tennis was fun. Then I had some time to kill, not least because the T20 match was to be a late kick off due to the football Euros match. I got some reading done on the pavilion sun deck while holding some suitable seats for me and Janie. Janie arrived in such good time for the match that we were able to eat first. Good idea, really, as we’d neither of us had lunch.
Yum
Middlesex did its usual “flatter to deceive” bit, looking good for the first 15 overs of the Surrey innings.
Janie and I were not heavily invested in this match, as we had long-since planned to abandon ship in favour of SJSS and a jazz evening there.
Jazz In The crypt with emma raWicz & Dave preston
Emma Rawicz is seen as one of the brightest young jazz talents around. Saxophone too – Janie’s favourite. She, together with her friend Dave Preston, another bright young thing in the jazz world – guitar in his case – were to do a jazz impromptu set of their latest stuff.
No second innings at Lord’s for us – off to collect Dumbo who drove us across London to St John’s Smith Square.
But wait…
…there are balloons and signs of a party as we arrive. The place is no longer named St John’s Smith Square – it had that very day been rebranded as Sinfonia Smith Square. Get it right.
Thus, instead of the promised St John’s Smith Square crypt jazz concert, we saw a Sinfonia Smith Square crypt jazz concert.
Here is a video of the two of them, plus a pianist on this occasion, playing one of the cool jazz pieces they played for us: Vera:
Emma comes across as a warm-hearted young woman, who spent more time plugging Dave Preston’s latest album, Purple / Black…
…than she spent plugging her own latest material. The album Chroma, seeing as you asked:
We really enjoyed the concert and for sure will now be looking out for Emma and Dave – yes we feel as though we’ve done enough to be on first name terms with them both.
Dinner With Simon, Timothy & Ella at their place
Simon & Timothy have a recent addition to their family: Ella. One of the purposes of our visit was to have dinner and a good chat with Simon & Timothy. But the main purpose, obviously, was to meet Ella and take her the present that we have been accumulating for her since we learnt of her imminent arrival – our spent, balding tennis balls.
“Ella” depicted by a lookalike actress
Naturally we didn’t take photographs of young Ella – Simon and Timothy don’t want her to turn into a vain, lens-loving gal…
…in any case, she’d probably just eat the photos. Apparently Ella will try to eat almost anything. She certainly made a good attempt at one of my elbows while I was eating and made headway with the first of the 15 balls we took for her. That collection of balls is not expected to last long. Janie and I will need to play yet more tennis.
Simon cooked a splendid meal:
asparagus soup;
roast chicken with roasted vegetables;
strawberries and cream.
Very English summer, which, coincidentally, is the way the weather seemed to be turning that weekend. At last.
It was a very enjoyable evening which flashed by all too quickly.
The third event: Streatham BBYO alums gathering at Bill’s Covent Garden
Dinner At Claudia & Richard’s Place, 1 June 2024
Claudia & her pot
The weather didn’t smile on us for drinks & nibbles outdoors – Janie and I had a quick guided tour of Claudia’s lovely garden before dashing back inside to warm up – but the warmth of the hospitality made up for the chilly evening.
Jonathan does the wine waiter bit
Claudia likes to show off her culinary skills and thus chose to serve a coulibiac as the centrepiece of her superb meal.
With thanks to Anthea for taking this picture of the coulibiac on my phone – not all blogs have their food porn pictures snapped by world class fashion photographers, you know.Anthea tries unsuccessfully to encourage these two “kids” away from their phones and towards their dinner. Honestly, kids these days with their phones…Janie’s attempt at food porn photographyMy attempt at food porn photographyJanie’s pud
It wasn’t all about food. It was great to catch up with old friends again (Anthea, Claudia and Richard), plus meet some new (to us) folks in Jonathan and Joanne. Jonathan’s greyhound provided some additional entertainment, not least when it went missing in the house for a while and search parties scattered to find it.
A super evening – thanks Claudia.
Dinner At Maurizio Barca With Simon Jacobs & Graham Greenglass, 5 June 2024
A few weeks before this dinner, I saw Graham Greenglass in person for the first time in decades at the sad occasion of Fran Erdunast’s funeral evening prayers. Graham and I had re-engaged by e-mail and I had even put Graham back together again with Fran, who was a cousin of his, back in 2021. We had every intention of meeting up back then, but I let that ball drop at that time. My bad.
Coincidentally, Graham’s name had come up again a few weeks before the sad Fran news, when I attended and spoke at the Gresham Society annual dinner:
As a small token of thanks for my speech, Professor Tim Connell presented me with the canonical book about The Guildhall – Guildhall: City of London: History Guide Companion: A History and a Guide:
I had meant to get in touch with Graham about that happy coincidence, but in the end it was Fran’s sad demise that triggered the reunion.
While pondering how best to set up a proper meeting, I recalled that Graham and Simon were also good friends back in the day…
Graham and Simon in 1979
…so I e-mailed the two of them to suggest that we three meet again. The idea found favour.
Simon somehow found time to fit us in, despite his sixth album having just been released ‘n’ all:
Graham’s book you may only sample for free, whereas Simon’s album can be heard in full
Compared with the others, I felt a little bereft of relatively recent published materials…apart from the 3000 or so pieces here on Ogblog.
The Scarsdale Tavern was my initial choice of venue, but that place is especially picky about arrival times, which they felt sure we would understand. We did understand that their proposed timings suited the Scarsdale rather than us, so we chose instead to eat when we wanted to at Maurizio Barca, which was a quiet, friendly, local Italian place on the North End Road. Little did I know that Graham’s mum’s family hailed from that part of London, so it was a bit of a spiritual reunion with his family’s ancestors, as well as a reunion with a couple of relics from Graham’s own past.
We had a very enjoyable evening, despite signally failing to put all of the world’s problems to rights by talking them through. Perhaps it will need another get together or two to complete the solving of those.
Streatham BBYO “Annual” Gathering, Bill’s Restaurant, 6 June 2024
David, Linda, Sandra, Wendy, Liza, Andrea (and me behind the lens).
In a break with tradition, we gathered the week after half term holiday this time, but then Sandra is now the last of our clan still working in the education sector and was able to make this date.
Unfortunately Mark was unable to make it in the end for health reasons, but still seven of us gathered, which isn’t bad at all.
Andrea and Wendy were fashionably late, as always. Except that both announced well in advance that they would be late and ended up arriving earlier than we anticipated given that they had said that they’d be late. Does that mean that they were early?
No matter, we all had a good chat over palatable food and a few drinks.
The stuff I have been writing up from my 1974 diaries proved strangely pertinent to much of the chat.
Sandra seems to have forgiven me for needing to be reminded that she suffered along with me and others at the hands of Miss Aaron at Brixton cheder…
…I even seem to be forgiven for bringing back Sandra’s nightmares about those unpleasant experiences.
Andrea and Wendy keenly anticipate me reintroducing them to Stuart (no relation) Harris, through whom all three of us met before the BBYO days and with whom I have recently re-engaged after finding my earliest tennis memories in that 1974 diary.
