Of late, I have been immersing myself in writing up the journal and some impression pieces about my visit to Mauritius, which was 40 years ago exactly. Devotees of Ogblog (i.e.subscribers) might well be aware of this; others not so.
Ahead of his latest visit, John Random e-mailed to say several things, including this about one of those journal pieces:
A Jew Hunt in Port Louis reminds me of something not very interesting I must tell you about next Thursday.
I had felt quite frustrated about the above piece since I realised that my mother had not only thrown away my article about the resulting great story I discovered once I hunted down the mystery man in Port Louis, but that she had also thrown away my journal notes for 10 and 11 August 1979, as part of the same inadvertently vandalistic act, in the name of “clearing out rubbish”.
Putting that to one side, John and I had a pleasant lunch and did some more fiddling around with his archive of writings. Less progress this session than the previous session, but the previous session had yielded plenty of unexpectedly retrievable data from his old collection. Actually even this day’s session seems to have yielded more than I thought it would.
Then I raised the matter of John’s “Jew Hunt anecdote”.
Oh, it’s nothing really. It’s just that, 20 or so years ago, Jenny and I went to a Mauritian community event in South-East London. There was a bookstall at that event, where I looked at a book called The Mauritian Shekel. It looked really interesting but in the end I didn’t buy it. Your headline, “A Jew Hunt In Port Louis” reminded me of that book.
I nearly left it at that, but my curiosity had been sparked, so I asked John if he remembered what the book was about.
It was a fascinating true story from the time of the Second World War, about a large ship full of Jewish refugees from Central Europe, who had been turned away in Palestine and who were eventually given refuge on Mauritius…
“Hold on!”, I yelled. “THAT’s the story the mystery Jewish man told me in Port Louis. THAT’s the very story I’m desperately trying to recall. The Mauritian Shekel, did you say?”…
…it might not have been cheap, but it was available as a rare second hand book on Amazon:
So the book is on its way and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to reconstruct my missing article/story from it.
At about 17:00, John went off in the direction of the Proms while I went off in the direction of Lord’s. I bagsyed some seats for me and Jez Horne in the Warner Stand, then went for a quick meeting with Katie Berry for a briefing on participation cricket in Middlesex.
Jez messaged me to say he thought he was a little delayed but should only miss an over or so. In the end, he arrived just in time for the start of the match.
It was good to catch up with Jez again. I hope we can catch up again when Janie and I are in Hove and he also intends to join the Z/Yen party at the Hampshire game in a couple of week’s time.
This Middlesex v Surrey match always has some real frisson to it, though, being a local derby. More often than not we Middlesex fans end up disappointed at this fixture, but of late Middlesex have been doing better and tonight demonstrated that improvement.
AB deVilliers and Eoin Morgan were scintillating with the bat; Steve Finn magnificent with the ball.
The first Ashes Test, it was. The match started on a Thursday this year (it was a Wednesday start last year), so I put my name down for just the first two days of the test.
On the Wednesday, I went up early so that I might have a two-hour music lesson with Ian Pittaway. I normally have my lessons with him by Skype; just occasionally having a face-to-face lesson.
On Skype, Ian looks like this:
…but this time, in real life, he looked more like this…
…so much so that I thought I’d gone to the wrong door at first.
Anyway, it was a good lesson and I was also able to cement some of the tips and techniques we discussed as I had more time than I find at home, while up at Edgbaston, to practice .
On to the Eaton Hotel, where a late lunchtime snack was to prove a problematic ask, so I wandered off to the local TGIF for a starter, a coffee and some reading.
This year we have been joined by Peter and Matthew – family friends of Nigel and Viv from Australia. Really good company, well-humoured guys, they seemed to slip seamlessly into the somewhat quirky group that is The Heavy Rollers. Only Harish absented himself from the Wednesday evening feast – he was coming up to Edgbaston on the morning of the match.
I arranged to meet the lads at their hotel, the Plough and Harrow, at 9:30 with a view to walking with Peter and Matthew to the ground.
Day One: 1 August 2019
I enjoyed a delicious and efficiently-served breakfast of kippers at The Eaton, then wandered down to the Plough and Harrow to find an irritable table of Rollers and Guest-Rollers awaiting their breakfast. They had been waiting for nigh-on an hour when I arrived.
Slowly and not altogether surely, one-by-one, their breakfasts arrived. Mercifully, Peter and Matthew were among the first to be served,so we were able to skedaddle around five-to ten, arriving at the ground and getting through security just in time to witness the toss.
The others, arriving by car, were also in reasonable time for the cricket though not the toss. We spent a great deal of time wondering how difficult it can possibly be for a hotel kitchen to churn out breakfasts at some sort of reasonable pace.
Jimmy Anderson was not able to do anything at reasonable pace that morning either – after four tidy overs he went off, never to be seen bowling again – at least, never in that match.
The other England bowlers set about their enhanced roles well; at one point having the Aussies 8 down for not much more than 120. Then Smith and Siddle went about staging a match-turning recovery. I blame Charles, who said he likes Siddle because he plays for Essex and that he wanted to see Siddle score a few. Turncoat. (Charley, I mean, not Siddle).
The picnic was a Dot “Mrs Malloy” special, with enough sandwiches to feed a small army and a great deal of non-perishable food which came in very handy on the Friday (and no doubt beyond).
Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub Me, Matthew, Peter, Chas, Nick & Harish
For reasons known only to himself, Nigel stood aside when a kindly bloke behind us offered to take our photo at stumps that day.
Matthew, Peter and I walked back; I parted company with them at St George’s Church to save a bit of time, as we had agreed to all meet in the Plough and Harrow bar for a couple of jars.
Over those jars, it transpired that Peter and his good lady had taken their honeymoon in Vanuatu, so we spent some time swapping Vanuatu trivia stories over drinks, which was better than another hot topic – bemoaning British and Australian politics.
Day Two: Friday 2 August 2019
I enjoyed an English breakfast, efficiently and effectively served, checked out of the The Eaton and walked to the ground alone today. I discovered all of the others in their seats around 10:40. No doubt they had gone down to breakfast in the Plough and Harrow at 6:30 in the morning or some such.
Our seats, directly opposite in The Raglan Stand, offer an excellent view of the shenanigans from an ideal distance. Several strolls all around the ground, including the back of the Hollies, reinforced my view that my ideal spectator experience is the very opposite of the Eric Hollies.
I did offer Peter and Matthew an opportunity to choose their own Ogblog pseudonyms, but, like most people, they were foolish enough to leave that matter up to me. Hence “Papa Pete Blong Vila” and “Boe Blong Pete” were born. More on them and all of us should appear on King Cricket, eventually.
Dumbo (my car) rode like the wind, but had to do so the long way round due to a closure on the M40. Thank goodness for the sat nav, which turned me round and sent me through Birmingham and the M6 South at the very start of my journey, otherwise the extra 20-25 minutes that the detour entailed might have been an extra hour plus in traffic jams.
Well played, Dumbo
I thought I’d left England in a good position at stumps on Day two, which I had. But in my absence it all unravelled in the next two-three days. Only Australians, neutrals or mentally strong England fans should click here for the scorecard and cricinfo resources on this match.
The very first ball of the very first test match between England and Ireland
23 July 2019 – the day before the inaugural test match between England and Ireland. I had arranged to play real tennis at Lord’s that afternoon, but got the call to see if I could play “senior gentleman’s doubles” at noon. This was not especially convenient for me, given my chosen 16:00 slot for singles, but I acquiesced to play “if they were desperate”. I got the call at about half-ten.
As it turned out, the main senior gentleman had got his dates mixed up and wasn’t there, so I ended up playing a not-quite-so-senior gentleman’s singles. I played rather well, perhaps spurred on by the presence of two of the Ireland test cricketers; Kevin O’Brien and Andrew Balbirnie, who took a great deal of interest in the game and watched for a good 20 minutes or so.
Returning to Lord’s for my 16:00 session, I realised that playing two hours of singles on a very hot day was not ideal, but it went fine. Coincidentally, as I arrived at the ground Kevin O’Brien was leaving Lord’s. I leaned out of the car window:
“Don’t you want to watch some more tennis?”
“You’re back for more?”
“Yup, I must be mad”.
24 July 2019– Day One of the test. Dominic and I had been talking about finding a day to go to Lord’s with Janie and Pamela for a county match, but as I had tickets for this match, it seemed a good idea to use this Ireland test for our gathering.
Janie took this picture of me, Dominic and Pamela
I brought smoked salmon bagels and Dominic brought a superb selection of cheeses from La Fromagerie. Dominic was one of two people who sent me messages, within a few minutes of each other on the preceding Sunday, wondering about brie cheese given the weather forecast for very hot weather. The other brie-enquirer was Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett.
It was indeed a blisteringly hot day, especially as the sun came out full pelt in the afternoon, making my excellent Mound Stand seats a little over-exposed. Fortunately, we managed to find our way to a clutch of newly-shady seats in the Warner mid-afternoon. It’s not what you know…
Janie took this picture of the cricket
By that time, England had long-since been rolled for diddly-squat and Ireland looked to be in the ascendancy.
Still, it was a most enjoyable day of cricket-watching, eating and chatting.
25 July 2019 – Day Two of the test.
Hazy – but even hotter than the previous day
The weather was set to be even hotter. I knew I’d need to get to Lord’s pretty early to secure shady seats in the Warner. So I did that.
My guests for Day Two were Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks. On the water front, I brought a spare refillable flask but in fact Chas brought one for each of them, along with the picnic, which Dot “Mrs Malloy” very kindly made up for us all.
We’d agreed in advance that we’d have an alcohol-free day given the extreme heat. I suspect that bar takings were much lower than the MCC had hoped for too. Despite that, the St John’s Ambulance people were kept busy that day – it really was a scorcher – a record July day apparently.
The cricket was good – England set a fairly modest but probably defensible score ending the day nine-down, which meant that there was to be cricket on Day Three. Hurrah. Mostly thanks to an unexpectedly dogged night-watchman job by Jack Leach for England.
25 July 2019 – Day Three of the test. The original plan had been for Chas and Nigel to join me on Day Three as well, but circumstances intervened and they both dropped out several weeks ahead of the match.
In the end, for reasons far too dull to explain, I ended up with three guest tickets to dispense, which ended up in the capable hands of Simon “Awesome Simo” Jacobs, Bobbie “Báirbre” Scully and Pamela (see Day One). Dominic was also going to join us once he had escaped from the Tower of London.
The weather was less than special first thing, so my early morning mission to secure good seats on Day Three comprised finding a similar level of cover as was required for the shade the day before, but also in a position that would avoid any squalls of rain. Again, success.
I took plenty of reading matter as I guessed that none of my guests would be turning up early.
Pamela, who lives nearby, texted in to say that she was going to wait until the showers passed (smart move).
Simon was slightly delayed, but not as delayed as the start of play, so he got to see the first ball…
…which was also the entirety of the remainder of the England innings.
But before that, I had already received a text from Bobbie. I have previously described Bobbie’s timekeeping, which, traditionally was based on leaving Place A for an appointment at Place B at roughly the appointed time to be at Place B. This works fine if Place A and Place B are very close to each other; less fine if they are some distance apart.
…but for the Ireland Test Match she reverted to type. At 10:57, three whole minutes before the test match was due to start, I received this text from Bobbie:
Right, I am leaving [home] now – somewhat behind planned schedule (you will not be surprised to hear)…
Actually, with the rain delay, innings break and then another rain delay very early in the Ireland innings, Bobbie and Pamela (both of whom arrived around 12:15/12:30) only missed about eight balls and no runs. Just the one wicket.
…in fact, the cricketing side of things was done and dusted just over an hour later.
That’s not enough time to get through a whole picnic.
It wasn’t even enough time for Bobbie to get through her cricketing anecdote. It turned out that this wasn’t Bobbie’s first experience of international cricket; it was her second. The tale of her first, from 1977, is such a good anecdote it deserves its own Ogblog piece. Perhaps Bobbie will write it as a guest piece or perhaps I’ll have to ghost write it.
The stewards allowed us and the assembled masses to continue our picnics and convivialities for some time, although the arrival of the marching bagpipe band to “entertain” us seemed like an excellent way for the considerate host that is the MCC to make everyone feel that they remain welcome while driving all but the sturdiest (and/or deafest) away.
Simon decided to depart quite swiftly. Dominic joined us briefly before going off to change for his game of realers. Pamela, Bobbie and I watched Dominic play real tennis in the absence of any real Irish folk playing cricket.
After that, Bobbie and I retired to The Bridge (home to the Canal Cafe Theatre) for a more comprehensive catch up.
A most agreeable end to a convivial and sporting week.
Sort of three hours of doubles for me, as Neil at Queen’s asked me at the last minute to help make up a doubles the evening before, so I was still a little sore from trying to keep up with Bomber, The Saint and The Biscuit (all well above my handicap/pay grade).
For our two hour session, Dominic and Bill (as last time), but this time we were joined by Snitch for the first hour. After Snitch left, we played a real tennis form of Canadian Doubles, with the server/receiver from the doubles pair grabbing the “honour” of doing the hard work as the single player until defeated.
I worked up quite a sweat, especially as the single towards the end. Then picked up the message from Fletch at Middlesex CCC that Kevin Hand wanted to interview me this evening about the London Cricket Trust and AB de Villiers, for BBC Radio London and BBC Essex, so we arranged that between the sweats and the showers.
Soon after I set off in Dumbo for home, I felt a touch of cramp starting in my foot and tried to wriggle my foot while braking for the lights…but instead slipped my foot onto the accelerator, requiring me to switch to emergency stop braking which made one hell of a screech.
Better than half-a-yard…or more or less the nick. Phew.
I signalled an apology to the driver in front, who seemed to be apoplectic with rage, leaping about in his seat and waving his arms. Then I realised that he was car-seat-jiving while listening to loud music. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed my near miss.
When the lights changed, the jiver/driver in front zoomed off ahead of me, as fast as I have ever seen someone zoom out of Palliser Road. Whether he was just that sort of driver or desperate to get away from me I’ll never know.
Then some work in the sweatshop that is my little office at home on a sunny afternoon.
So I had another shower before heading to Lord’s – not for the start of the match but in good time for my “over 18 of the first innings” appointment with Fletch.
As I got out of the shower, the phone was ringing. Fletch.
Can we meet a little earlier than I said – like over 15?…
…sure, I’m just getting ready to leave…
I’m sorry, it’s because I have other media to do on the pavilion side in the interval after dropping you off…Eoin Morgan…
…should be no problem, Fletch, but I need to get off the phone so I can put on some clothes and leave. I know its radio, but I figure I’ll still need to put on some clothes to get through the street, the gates and to the media centre?…
…yes, I think that would be for the best.
In fact I was making good time and got to the Maida Vale/St John’s Wood borders, where I knew I could park easily, bang on 18:30. So I was in the ground and able to watch cricket for about half-an-hour before wending my way round to the media centre, where I enjoyed the commentator’s view of the last few overs and could hear the radio commentary of course…in the commentary box.
Below is my interview, which runs for about eight minutes if you want to hear it all.
In the commentary box was the artefact pictured below. It seems that the media centre tea-time spread was adorned by this artefact for each of the world cup matches at Lord’s, with the badges of that day’s competing nations shown on the helmets. Left over from the world cup final on Sunday:
Kevin Hand was apologetic about the shortness of the interview and the fact that he sort-of had to leave me to it while he photographed and tweeted about Eoin Morgan. But Kevin owed me no apology for that; it was great and timely publicity for the London Cricket Trust charity.
In any case, it seems Kevin might want me to do the odd additional slot with him this season. If for no other reason, I think he’s keen to disambiguate Ian Harris and Ged for any listeners who might, understandably, be bemused and/or amused.
Kevin also apologised to me when he discovered that I came in especially for the interview as I hadn’t planned to attend the match. Again no apology needed as I live so close by and in fact I am so glad I was there for the post world cup afterglow. The Middlesex v Essex match was even played on the world cup pitch.
In fact I stayed for just the first few overs of the Middlesex innings before heading home and catching the end of the match on the broadcast.
One final anecdote. When I mentioned during my interview that AB de Villiers had come out to Deptford for us just a few hours after landing from South Africa, Kevin wondered whether we might have tired him out ahead of his first appearance for Middlesex. I think the scorecard and match reports attest that Kevin needn’t have worried.
Why did one of the greatest cricketers of all time, AB de Villiers, pop along to Deptford Park, more or less hot off the plane from South Africa, to help the London Cricket Trust (LCT) put cricket back into London’s parks?
Because AB de Villers is a very decent chap, that’s why.
The LCT is a joint venture between the four counties with a London presence: Essex, Kent, Middlesex & Surrey. I am the Middlesex Trustee.
…a day of quiet contemplation, gardens and art seemed to be in order.
So we went to Kew Gardens. It’s ages since we’ve been and Janie was especially keen to see the new Dale Chihuly exhibits.
Just the sight of one of them made Janie’s hair stand on end…
…or was Janie still frazzled from the cricket world cup?
If we both look a bit “straight off the tennis court” in the pictures, that’s because we did go to Kew straight after playing some tennis. We had a quick bite in the pavilion on arrival before wandering on to the Temperate House.
Temperate House from below…Temperate House from the viewing gallery above
After the Temperate House, which has several stunning Chihuly pieces, we then went to the Marianne North Gallery to see her fine works.
Then on to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, where many of the regular Dale Chihuly’s can be found and where we bought Janie books on both Chihuly and Marianne North.
Shirley you must be joking, Mr Chihuly?
Then around the gardens some more to take in the new, scattered Chihuly works and the beautiful gardens.
Not Chihuly, this work. Chihuly do you think you are, Ged?Eye candy galore.
Then home for some stretching and meditation with Lexi.
Did all this calm us down 24 hours after that tense cricket match? A bit…not completely. But it was a super day out.
This year, men’s quarter-finals day on No. 1 Court. Oh boy was Janie excited again when those came through.
Picnic duties for me once again, with the centrepiece smoked salmon kindly supplied by Helga from her local West Cork smokehouse.
We had such success last year getting to Wimbledon early, getting to see Cori (now Coco) Gauff play in a Girls’ Quarter-Final on Court 18 before our main matches, I suggested that we get to Wimbledon before the start of play this year.
On the way, we were joined on the District Line by this keen tennis fan who couldn’t resist eating his fill on the train before even getting to Wimbledon:
He got on at Earl’s Court and was still on the train when we got to Southfields
In fact, we ended up at the All England Club so early they wouldn’t even let us into the main compound for a few minutes – not until 10:30 – a lesson for next time, if there is a next time for us.
Still, that early arrival at least enabled us to get front row seats (actually second row, as the front row view is a little restricted) on Court 12 to see a Ladies’ Doubles Quarter-Final: Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Danielle Collins v Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu. The latter pair went on to be runners up this year but it was really the former pair we were especially keen to see.
So ready to watch tennisNot so ready to watch tennisLadies’ Doubles
We had plenty of time between that (rather short) match and the start of the No. 1 Court action, which enabled us to amble across the compound and take in the atmosphere before taking up our No. 1 Court seats.
Then to our seats on No 1. Court. Almost right at the back…
Must be one of the Backseat BoysThis must have been Janie’s fifth attempt at a double-selfie
Roberto Bautista Agut (our end) playing Guido Pella (hazard end)
That first match was a very good one. Bautista Agut always looked likely to win but was not so far ahead of Pella for the result to be sure until the very end – especially after Pella took a set.
During the innings break (between sets one and two) I took a long stroll to stretch my legs and stuff, running into Nick Compton (formerly Middlesex and England). We had a chat before wending our ways back to our respective courts.
It seems that we were missing some stuff on other courts and also missed out on Bautista Agut’s press conference after winning, in which he admitted that winning had messed up his stag do plans:
Sam Querrey (our end) against Rafael Nadal (other end)
The first set of the Querrey/Nadal match was excellent, but when Nadal eventually prevailed in that set, Querrey seemed to run out of juice for the remaining sets.
We didn’t stick around for the evening entertainment of old crock’s doubles – we felt we’d had a superb day and a sufficiency in having seen three good, week two matches.
Let’s see how Janie gets on in the ballot next time – she has been extremely lucky these past few years, only missing out completely in 2017. I hope she isn’t too disappointed if the balloting system doesn’t pick us again for a while. But I also hope that her lucky streak continues!
Exile. Banishment. There are no polite words for it. We cannot play at Lord’s for several weeks because the ground is hosting four days of world cup matches during that time. This expatriation applies to real tennis players and cricketers alike.
And we love Lord’s. We’d like to sing the praises of the place, but…
…how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
On the bright side, of course, we have other places to go and in truth they are not such strange lands. For realists, there is The Queen’s Club and Middlesex University. For Middlesex cricketers, there is Radlett and Merchant Taylor’s School (MTS), amongst other places.
…Janie (aka Daisy) and I had hoped to arrange a similar day at MTS. But Fran and Simon had other commitments on the Sunday, while Janie couldn’t free up enough time on the Tuesday.
Luckily, I was able to get enough work done on the Monday to free up the Tuesday for cricket.
So I arranged a game of real tennis at Middlesex University in the morning, with a view to getting from The Burroughs to MTS soon after 11:00. Here is a very short clip depicting real tennis at Middlesex University – actually taken by Janie on the Radlett day:
I liaised with Fran and Simon, working out that I was due to arrive a few minutes ahead of them, so I wandered around and grabbed some excellent seats alongside the Middlesex diehards, such as Barmy Kev, Andy Biggs, Keith Roberts, along with several others.
By the time I arrived, Middlesex had already lost a couple more wickets and the position looked very precarious indeed. By the time Fran and Simon arrived, the position was looking even more precarious.
This picture, taken by Janie, from Radlett a few weeks earlier
In that early part of the day, we all three thought we might well be about to witness a Middlesex loss and that we might not be around for too long. Nevertheless, Fran and I had both learnt our lesson ar Radlett and resolved to stroll around at regular intervals.
We set off for our first stroll around 12:30 and took a good 30 minutes to complete the circuit.
One of the wonderful things about outground cricket at Middlesex is that the players and club officials really do wander around and mingle with the spectators, giving the matches a festival feel.
We soon encountered Dawid Malan and James Keatley, gaining some interesting insight into Dawid’s perception of how many runs Middlesex might need to have a chance to defend a total (a lead of 160 to 180 he said).
A little further on, Steve Finn similarly suggested that a lead of 170 would be enough, although Sam Robson alongside him was more nuanced with his answer…
…as long as Gloucestershire don’t manage a big partnership or two.
But at that stage, thoughts of such a lead were still hope not expectation, with Middlesex 7-down, and the lead crawling up to, then just past, 100. By the end of our stroll and lunch the lead had crept up to around 140.
Fran and Simon were surprised at how cosy and friendly the atmosphere is, perhaps attributing it to my involvement with Middlesex. While that is the case to some extent, I have found the outground atmosphere relentlessly friendly since long before I was involved with the club.
Putting ancient tales of Greek tragedy to one side, the mood at lunch amongst the Middlesex supporters was a real mixture of sanguine and resigned. As the afternoon went on, the clouds and the mood lifted to increasing brightness. With increased hope, of course, came some nerves.
Then when Middlesex were all out and had some 11 overs to bowl before tea, discussion of how many wickets we might “need” before tea to establish a foothold and to have a chance of completing the match that day. Two or three was the wisdom of the crowd. It looked as though we’d have to make do with two until the last ball before tea, which made three.
Tim Murtagh bowled beautifully that day and in so doing overtook Wayne Daniel’s record tally of wickets for Middlesex, which was a pretty impressive statistic to hear announced on the tannoy.
Richard Goatley and Angus Fraser held an impromptu members’ forum in the beer tent, at which they were apparently being bombarded with difficult questions about Middlesex’s tough start to the season. It was meant to be a tea interval thing but went on some time after that, during which time Middlesex continued to take wickets.
As one wag put it, there were some grumpy members in the beer tent complaining about Middlesex’s poor performance, while the team was turning around and looking like winning a tough match.
Richard Goatley is one of the world’s worst watchers of a cricket match when he has emotional skin in the game, so there was no consoling him with talk of 40/6…40/7 probably meaning that Middlesex was heading for a win.
In fact, Gloucestershire, in an echo of Middlesex’s innings, put on a bit of a rearguard at 7-down, so much so that the Middlesex regulars encouraged me and Fran to go for another long walk, as our previous walk had been so successful from a Middlesex point of view.
Don’t come back until Middlesex have taken another wicket…or two…
…was the message from the welcoming regulars.
A mini exile. But in any case, we were ready for another stroll and sure enough, we’d only got about 100 yards into our circuit when another wicket and then another fell.
When we got to the pavilion, at 9-down, I saw Angus sitting with his serious game face on.
Surely you can break a smile now, Gus?…
…I asked…
…not yet…
…snarled Gus, who then broke into that rare, full Gus smile.
Fran and I got back to our seats with the Gloucestershire final wicket pair holding on for grim death, but in truth the only remaining issue was whether they could survive the extra half hour or not.
Not. A splendid Middlesex win by the end of the day, having turned around a seemingly losing position an hour into Day Three.
I normally write more about the conversations than the cricket, but the cricket and ground vibe was so special this day. In any case Fran asked to redact several of the conversations. The non-redacted topics of conversation included:
Roy Hudd
Rod Hull
Barry Wood
Benny Howell
Benny Hill
Merchant Taylors’ School
cashew nuts
New Zealand v India at Old Trafford
rain in Manchester
the possible death of the adverb.
It really had been a very exciting and enjoyable day amongst friends. What with the real tennis at Middlesex University and the Middlesex cricket win at MTS, I had conducted myself very Middlesexly indeed, I feel.
A rare miss for us at the Bush Studio. Nothing wrong with this play or the production, but it simply didn’t float our boats. It sounded modern, witty, interesting from the description, but in truth it is simply the story of an extra-marital affair.
I got a bit more out of it than Janie did, in that I felt able to enter the couple’s world. But in truth the story was very simple and the characters were so much the architects of their own misfortune it was hard to sympathise with them.
Below is the trailer for this play/production:
We ran into a gentleman I know as a nodding acquaintance from the health club, BWW, who sat virtually next to us. I wonder what he and his companion made of it. I might one day find out.
Janie was underwhelmed by the acting. I thought both were fine, I think it was the roles that were underwhelming and that the man, Jon Foster, in particular did not seem especially well cast. We’ve seen him several times before when, in my view, better cast and therefore better able to shine.
What Janie and I both agreed was that we didn’t sense the sexual chemistry the play was supposed to conjure. But we did have Nuki afterwards, by which I mean, a takeaway meal from Nuki’s Thai Kitchen. Very tasty.
