We were having a pretty shitty Christmas break, with mum in hospital since just before Crimble (and, as it turned out, never to come out). Our main respite had been some reasonable weather that at least enabled us to play tennis in the mornings, as reported on Facebook at the time – see below:
At the end of that long weekend (the Sunday I think) we went to the Park Royal Vue to see Paddington- click here for the IMDb resource on that movie. Janie warned me that I would probably blub at the scene where Paddington loses his old uncle and moves on from his family – she was right as usual.
Still, lots of laughs and fun in Paddington. I loved the way that there was a calypso band on every street corner in this version of Notting Hill, in contrast with the ubiquitously pale look of the neighbourhood in the eponymous movie.
Yet we craved some high culture and had been eyeing up the Allen Jones as high on our list for the holiday season, so we took some respite on New Year’s Day and went to see the Allen Jones in the afternoon.
We were treated to a drinks reception, a talk by New York economist Nouriel Roubini who had many interesting insights into the post 2008 crisis world.
Then a delightful recital performed by the City Of London Sinfonia with Dame Felicity Lott. Writing this up more than three years later (February 2018), I nevertheless can report on all the pieces we heard…
…because my memory is so superb…
…especially when supported by some scribbled notes on my programme:
Elgar – Serenade For Strings;
R Strauss – Morgen!;
Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending;
Schubert – The Shepherd On The Rock.
No video from the actual evening, of course, but below is a short video of the City of London Sinfonia performing something else (a charming Mozart presto) somewhere else…
…and here is a live performance of Felicity Lott (with a different lot in a different grand setting) performing Strauss’s Morgen! which will give you a reasonable idea of the sounds we actually heard:
If anything ever befalls the Gresham Society site, you can read my words on this scrape here.
This was my first visit to the Wallace for several years – Janie and I went in 2008, primarily to see an Osbert Lancaster exhibition – click here or below:
I’m not sure quite what put us on to this superb movie, but we booked an all-too-rare showing of it weeks in advance at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. I suspect this was our last visit there before the closure for major redevelopment of the site.
It is a most unusual, true story. The American singer-songwriter, Rodriguez, was for some time billed as “the next Dylan” (the kiss of death for many a career) but vanished into obscurity.
Unbeknown to him, he was a cult, underground figure in South Africa where his music was extremely well-known and where he was believed to have died. After South Africa emerged from the apartheid era, some fans tried to track down Rodriguez’s story, discovered that he was still alive and the rest is history.
Afterwards we went on to Haozhan chinese restaurant for dinner – we felt this place had gone down since our previous visit, but still was a good enough and convenient place to end an enjoyable evening.
…Janie and I saw a different exhibition from the rest of the people on our pre-Christmas Dinner works outing.
Below is the trailer vid for the Shunga:
We really enjoyed this exhibition.
I sense that the Z/Yen team enjoyed El Dorado too.
Z/Yen Xmas Dinner At Sardo In Grafton Way
The whole event was themed as “Gold” in honour of the El Dorado aspect. Almost everyone wore something gold.
Sardo was a Sardinian restaurant, rather a good one, which itself had a somewhat gold look to it.
I crafted a seasonal song to go with the gold theme:
DRESSED UP IN GOLD ( Sung to the tune of “Silver and Gold” )
VERSE ONE – SILVER AND GOLD – ORIGINAL VERSION (by Johnny Marks) Silver and gold, silver and gold Ev’ryone wishes for silver and gold How do you measure its worth? Just by the pleasure it gives here on earth Silver and gold, silver and gold Mean so much more when we see Silver and gold decorations On ev’ry Christmas tree
VERSE TWO – BITCOINS AND LAND – LONG FINANCE VERSION Bitcoins and land, bitcoins and land Long Finance topics are bitcoins and land How do you measure their worth? Just by the value they gain and disburse Hedge funds and bonds, hedge funds and bonds Seem such a bore when you show Bitcoins and land valuations In each portfolio
VERSE THREE – DRESSED UP IN GOLD – Z/YEN VERSION Dressed up in gold, dressed up in gold Z/Yen folk this Christmas are dressed up in gold How do you measure dress sense? Not by this sartorial elegance Shrouding in gold, shrouding in gold Might cause some people offence (If) Z/Yen folk wear such decorations At normal Z/Yen events
Once people got their heads around it……the singing went rather well.
We have loads of pictures from this event, which I have uploaded to a Flickr album for ease of navigation – click here or below:
I went to a private viewing of this exhibition, thanks to Tony Friend of College Hill (latterly Instinctif).
It was a very convivial corporate hospitality event in that grand foyer of the British Museum…
…so much so, that I felt very much in the minority when I took a good look around the exhibition. There was plenty of time to eat, drink, be merry and see the wonderful show.
But back to our Midlands and the North trip. We started with a couple of nights in Nottingham, in order to enjoy the second day of the county cricket season as guests of Nottinghamshire CCC. I wrote up our Nottinghamshire day, 11 April, for King Cricket – click here for that King Cricket (cricket-free) report.
Then on the 12th to the village of Wormleighton, in Warwickshire the spiritual home of Janie’s family. No-one knows how the family came to have that name. Probably because someone in the dim and distant past came from there and probably not because Janie is descended from the Spencer family (which pretty-much owned the village), despite the Churchillian and Princess Diana resemblances in Janie’s family.
For the uninitiated, Ged and Daisy are our pet names for each other and have been so for over 20 years.
We stayed at Wormleighton Hall, which is a rather grand farm house just outside the village – formerly the squires residence I shouldn’t wonder and now the home of the tenant farmers who make the whole thing work commercially by running the place as a small hotel as well as a farm. Lovely family; into all the local countryside stuff. We visited the Mollington point-to-point which they were attending on the 13th and took some excellent pictures of the local tribes at leisure.
Sighting of local tribesfolk at the Mollington point-to-point
On 14th we went to Chipping Norton to visit brother-in-law Tony and his lovely second wife Liz.
Hockney says you cannot properly photograph these Wolds scenes
On 15th, off to North Yorkshire, driving the eastern-side to see and photograph Hockney country before reaching The Star, where we stayed and ate in great style for a few days.
Farndale, the lower, less visited part
On 16th we went on a Farndale walk in search of daffodils, surprisingly successfully as the cold start to the spring had delayed the daffs, but they were just starting to show well our day – good fortune.
17th we drove South-West to Saltaire and had a look at the town and some art gallery-style Hockney stuff. 18th we spent at leisure and walking around the Star’s vicinity (Harome).
19th we drove home. Middlesex were again in action against Derbyshire (Day 3) and as we drove home we realised that an improbable early result to the match was on the cards. After stopping off at the house, I went on (alone) in the car to catch the end of the match and witness a Middlesex win – here’s the card. Quite a week for us and for Middlesex.
.jpg)
.jpg)
