Other Culture (film, media, fine art, exhibitions, other people’s writing etc.) – Page 2

Thomas Paine Lived & Wrote At 154 New Cavendish Street: Evidenced

154 New Cavendish Street (formerly 7 Upper Marylebone Street), 30 July 2025

An Open, Illustrated Letter To The Thomas Paine Historical Association & English Heritage

Synopsis: Previous research by the Thomas Paine Society in the UK identified 148 New Cavendish Street (Highwood House) as the site of the house 7 Upper Marylebone Street, occupied by Thomas Paine while he wrote large chunks of The Right of Man. (See Barb Jacobson’s otherwise excellent article in Fitzrovia News from November 2010). However, my subsequent research (2022 and 2025) has uncovered incontrovertible evidence that the numbering of Upper Marylebone Street in Horwood’s Plan, upon which the 148 New Cavendish Street theory is based, was in error. In fact, 7 Upper Marylebone Street is now 154 New Cavendish Street, one of the three original Georgian houses still standing on that block. That house should be eligible for an English Heritage Blue Plaque in honour of Thomas Paine. I urge The Thomas Paine Historical Association to liaise with English Heritage over this matter.

Half Of The Harris Family From Number 4. Dad, Grandma Anne & Uncle Michael, c1925.

My father’s family settled at 4 Upper Marylebone Street a few years after arriving in this country. My father was born in that house in 1919, as was his brother Michael a couple of years later. The “Harris” family moved south around 1930.

I started to take a look at my family’s history in 2022 and wrote a couple of pieces about it. One rather tongue in cheek piece about the difficulties of searching the 1921 census…

Meet My Father – Teodoro Rossiter, The Truth Uncovered, 24 April 2022

…the other, following a bit more research, tracing the family’s first migrant steps in this country, from Notting Hill to Fitrovia via Soho…

A Voyage Around My Harris Grandparents & Uncles, Summer 2022

While trawling all the available information sources for Upper Marylebone Street, now the eastern end of New Cavendish Street, I uncovered electoral rolls from 1935 and 1939. These provided incontrovertible evidence of the renaming and renumbering, as that was done between those two electoral rolls, as almost every house in that block (ironically, the one my family had lived in was empty in 1939) had at least one or two occupants who spanned those electoral roll years.

Mapping the two rolls:

1 Upper Marylebone Street became 168 New Cavendish Street – see Emma Chandler and Minnie Morris
2 Upper Marylebone Street became 166 New Cavendish Street – see John and Anna Bertha Sarah Wright
3 Upper Marylebone Street became 164 New Cavendish Street – see Charles & Clara Lohman and William Smith
4 Upper Marylebone Street became 162 New Cavendish Street – by inference, as empty in 1939
5 Upper Marylebone Street became 160 New Cavendish Street – by inference, as empty in 1935 and 1939
6a Upper Marylebone Street became 158 New Cavendish Street – see Dora Cante (Cawte) & Kathleen MacDonald
6 Upper Marylebone Street became 156 New Cavendish Street – see John William Hawkes & Pauline Hawkes
7 Upper Marylebone Street became 154 New Cavendish Street – see Hyman & Sara Gilbert, Charles & Florence Emily Jeanette Esser, George Henry & Elizabeth Emily Wheeler
8 Upper Marylebone Street became 152 New Cavendish Street – see Elizabeth Olwen & Ionwerth Lumley Jenkins
9 Upper Marylebone Street became 150 New Cavendish Street – see John Spenser & Annie Catherine Manning, and Frederick George Gransden.

Here are a couple of pictures I took in 2022 of the block of houses that was Upper Marylebone Street:

1 to 4 (plus the edge of 5) Upper Marylebone Street. Now 168 to 162 (plus the edge of 160) New Cavendish Street

Edge of 6, then 7 to 9 Upper Marylebone Street, then edge of Highwood House. Now edge of 156 to 150 New Cavendish Street, plus edge of 148 (Highwood House).

How could Horwood’s plan of 1792-1799 be in error? House numbering on Horwood’s plan is not 100% reliable and I believe this particular error is plain to see in the light of the other evidence I present:

Horwood leaves the three most easterly units on Upper Marylebone Street unnumbered, numbering the three most westerly units. Those three westerly units, together with an unnumbered unit from Ogle Court, subsequently became Highwood House.

It is clear from the renaming and renumbering in the 1930s that the three most easterly houses were numbered, 1, 2 & 3 Upper Marylebone Street. It is also more likely that unnumbered units were of lesser quality, more readily subsumed into a block of flats.

Barb Jacobson mentions evidence from tax records as well, which I have not seen, but it is quite possible that the three unnumbered units were part of the same demise as 9 Upper Marylebone Street – such detail would not be shown in tax records.

Still, I wanted more evidence from the Georgian period if I could find it. I turned to another great early trove of London street by street information: Lockie’s 1810 Topography of London.

Here is the relevant extract:

In other words, the small square behind No 10 Upper Marylebone Street could be found by passing three doors on the left after 9 Upper Marylebone Street. The three unnumbered doors were the three most westerly doors on the block, next to number 9.

I believe that all of this evidence is incontrovertible and points to the fact that the current house 154 New Cavendish Street is the house in which Thomas Paine wrote large chunks of Rights Of Man, as deliciously described in Barb Jacobson’s essay.

Sorry to be a Paine, but common sense suggests that we get this right…or even rights

I meant to write all of this up in 2022, but life intervened and other matters prevailed.

Then, in late July 2025, I met with writer Benjamin Schwarz to discuss life, the universe and everything at Lord’s cricket ground, like you do, only to discover that his son had roomed on that very block while studying in London quite recently.

I told Ben the Thomas Paine story and he politely told me off for not having written it up. Actually, in truth, I told myself off while telling him the tale and he agreed with me that I deserved telling off and that the matter needed putting right.

As it happened, I found myself very near the scene with a bit of time on my hands on 30 July 2025.

The Harris place, now 162, no longer boarded up in July 2025 – instead an art gallery named Night Café. My artist/photographer dad would have approved.

Two sides of 154 New Cavendish Street, now the Cracked Coffee Company

Thomas Paine would surely have approved of his former writing digs now being a coffee shop. It was in such places that his writings were most often disseminated in the late 18th century.

I felt an overwhelming need to break the news about 154 New Cavendish Street to the current occupants. The gentleman depicted on this page extracted from the Cracked Coffee Company website greeted me warmly on learning the news and happily sold me a coffee and a cookie.

It was near to closing time and I was interrupting a deep conversation between that manager (who turned out to be Romanian) and a rather excitable Russian mathematician named Yuri. They both seemed fascinated by the Thomas Paine connection.

We all three tried to debate matters of great social, moral and geopolitical import in the 30 minutes before closing time. We thought it was what Thomas Paine would have wanted. We even made some progress, or at least came to the conclusion that some social progress has been made since Thomas Paine’s time there in the 1790s and since my family’s time there 100 years ago.

I’m rambling.

To summarise, I believe I have uncovered incontrovertible evidence that the site of Thomas ‘Clio’ Rickman’s house, 7 Upper Marylebone Street, where Thomas Paine stayed and wrote the second part of The Rights Of Man in the early 1790s, is now 154 New Cavendish Street, which is the original Georgian building in which those important events occurred.

I believe that 154 New Cavendish Street should be eligible for an English Heritage Blue Plaque based on the evidence I have presented in this paper. I urge the Thomas Paine Historical Association formally to request such a plaque for that building. If I can provide any further assistance in this matter, please let me know. I’d love to attend the unveiling of the Blue Plaque, if the timing permits.

Postscript: Hair Today & Gone Tomorrow In 7 Upper Marylebone Street

When conducting my 2022 research, my cousin Angela, whose memory can stretch back to the 1950s and 1960s, reminded me that the Gilbert family, who lived at 7 Upper Marylebone Street, were great friends of our family and remained friends for many decades after my family moved on.

Angela remembers visiting the Gilbert family (or, as my father would affectionately call them, “The Giblets”), at 154 New Cavendish Street and believes that at least some of the Gilbert family remained there into the late 1950s or even the 1960s. Theirs was a barbershop, so it is very likely indeed that my dad’s haircut in the picture above, and that of Michael, were from that very shop.

That dad haircut would have been about 100 years before I sat in the same shop, drinking coffee and trying to put the world to rights through lively discussion.

Parenthetically, I don’t think the Giblets would have enjoyed cutting my hair when I was a child – I was a resistor from an early age:

On Return From Keele, “Hair Brutally Severed”, Early Summer 1982

Thomas Paine might have had a thing or two to say about forcing a kid to have his hair cut against his will.

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.” Thomas Paine. Don’t tell me he wasn’t talking about involuntary hair cutting.

Gresham Society’s Journey To The Underworld, AGM & Gresham College Provost’s Lecture, 18 June 2025

The irony of the Gresham Society AGM being held underground in the basement meeting room of Barnard’s Inn Hall, ahead of the Provost’s lecture entitled, Galileo’s Journey to the Underworld: The Case for Interdisciplinary Thinking, was not wasted on me.

Under normal circumstances, The Gresham Society AGM is held in the early evening, followed by a dinner. Indeed, last time, I ended up being the “guest” performer…I mean, speaker:

Singing…Or In This Case Speaking… For My Supper, Gresham Society AGM & Dinner, Guildhall, 11 March 2024

Obviously the Society couldn’t go through all that again, so they opted for high tea and some very interesting updates from the new top team at Gresham College: Professor Robert Allison, Professor Sarah Hart & Richard Smith. All had very interesting things to day.

Bob Allison, in particular, teased us with a potted academic biography – basically he is a geographer with expertise in landfalls and stuff like that – so what is the connection between that discipline and his accidental occasional career as an expert witness in high-profile murder cases? We managed to winkle out some intriguing answers.

There should be at least one Gresham lecture in those fascinating topics, although Bob show’s some reluctance, as Chairman, to step up to the Gresham College podium himself.

Tim Connell thought he was doing a smart thing by peppering the AGM material with the updates from the college top team, making it impossible for me to do my usual thing of timing the AGM itself and challenging Tim’s assertion that he can get the main business done in less than 10 minutes.

That was a shame, because I suspect that on this occasion Tim really did keep the substantive business down to less than 10 minutes. Tim missed a sitter by dodging the time & motion aspect.

Tim Connell missing a sitter on our visit to the Royal Tennis Court at Hampton Court in September 2023.

By the time we emerged from the Barnard’s In Hall underworld, after some high tea and further chat, the early evening was cool enough for some pleasant further chat in the courtyard before attending the Provost’s lecture. Most but not all of the attendees for the meeting stayed for the lecture, but some were unable to do so.

Professor Sarah Hart’s lecture was absolutely fascinating. If you missed it live, you can still of course see it. Indeed, if you visit the Gresham College website you can see lectures going back into the dim and distant past; even the couple that I gave “back in the day”.

Here is a link to Sarah Hart’s lecture on that site – Galileo’s Journey to the Underworld: The Case for Interdisciplinary Thinking – or you can watch the YouTube embed below:

Oh No! We Made An Exhibition Of Ourselves At The Tate Modern, Yoko Ono, 24 April 2024

More mummy than a Tutankhamun Exhibition

On a freezing cold Wednesday afternoon, Janie and I hiked to Bankside to see the Yoko Ono Exhibition.

Here is a link to the Exhibition Guide.

We liked the participation elements of the show and threw ourselves into those with reckless abandon.

Mucking about inside a black bag…or rather, “performing Bag Piece” as I should properly describe it, seemed like my idea of fun…

…until I realised that I needed to get up again and get out of the bag…

*Rescued by a helpful exhibition steward who also kindly consented to being photographed*

*Janie seemed more at home in a black bag*

Then on to an exhibit where you can draw (and/or photograph) your companion’s shadow on the artwork.

*Some wags might suggest that I look better in the shadow* *than in real life*

*A rare opportunity to vandalise an art work with both a hammer & the artist’s consent.*

*Has Janie missed me while I was messing with the art works?*

Then on to the refugee boat piece for some more graffiti art

Janie was then horrified to learn that our next contribution to Yoko’s art required us to eulogise our mothers.

*More messages of peace even in the lobby outside the exhibition*

And in the new swanky bar on the river side of the Tate Modern…

…a message in a bottle of ginger beer.

We enjoyed our afternoon. Shame about the rush hour journey home, saved by dint of using the Elizabeth Line westbound instead of the Central.

Immunotherapy With James Larkin, Gresham College, 15 February 2024

It’s been a while since I attended a Gresham lecture live. In Janie’s case, probably not since the most recent of mine…

…which took place before we met James Larkin in 2013 in the most stressful of circumstances, as Janie had a dismal diagnosis/prognosis of melanoma at that time.

The worst did not come to pass, against the odds.

We had been impressed with James Larkin and were keen to see what he had to say about developments with immunotherapies since our formal interactions with him on that topic.

Here is a link to all of the resources from this February 2024 Gresham lecture. Or if you just want to watch the vid, you can click the vid below:

A few of the usual suspects were at Barnard’s Inn Hall that night, including Basil and Lesley from the Gresham Society.

There was a drinks reception after the lecture, which gave me a chance to speak briefly with James. He hadn’t recognised us, unsurprisingly (just one consultation more than 10 years ago) but the dismal nature of that consultation clearly returned to his mind as we spoke.

So, she’s alright? Completely well?

James asked, looking at Janie with a slightly bemused expression on his face. Perhaps I was reading too much into it.

Anyway, fascinating talk.

There’s a panel discussion on this and related topics as part of the same series on 12 March – we’ve registered to follow that one on-line.

Naturally We Were FoodCycle’s Poster Children For Valentine’s Day 2024

No, we don’t know why we were chosen…

It might have had something to do with one of the FoodCycle head office communications team joining our shift at FoodCycle Marylebone in January. Soon after that, I had a message from someone else in communications there wondering whether we’d be prepared to be featured as a Valentine’s story.

It would have been churlish to say no.

We had no action pictures of us working together on FoodCycle in our FoodCycle shirts, except for some masked-up ones for the pandemic days. I asked if a sofa-selfie would do and we were told “yes”.

Don’t ask how many goes it took for us to obtain the half-decent picture that was used.

Here’s a link to the article on the FoodCycle site. If anything terrible were ever to happen to that link, click here for a copy.

Being FoodCycle, this story ended up all over social media on Valentine’s day. Facebook, Insta…

…we must have looked so down with the kids, me and Janie. We were super-excited.

MCC Library Book Club Evening At Lord’s, Yorkshire Grit: The Life of Ray Illingworth, With Mark Peel, 13 February 2024

It’s only partly about the food. Also the company and that evening’s book too.

Janie and I very much enjoyed a book club evening the previous year, when Jon Hotten talked about his book on Geoffrey Boycott:

Book Club Evening At Lord’s: Being Geoffrey Boycott With Jon Hotten, 28 February 2023

I should imagine that the library book club occasionally has evenings about books that don’t revolve around gritty Yorkshire cricketers whom I once met. But Ray Illingworth, like Geoffrey Boycott, had the joy of my company once. In Illingworth’s case, for considerably longer than my one-minute exchange with Geoffrey in 1969.

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

Indeed, I spent a couple of hours hours chatting with Ray Illingworth at Headingley in 2015:

A Visit To Leeds For Yorkshire v Middlesex, Headingley, 8 to 10 June 2015

Janie’s interest in cricket tends to revolve around the people, so these talks about biographies please her, as does the charming, relaxed atmosphere of a light meal and talk on a winter’s evening.

We were seated next to Alan Rees, who runs the library and who introduced the speaker, Mark Peel, who was seated to Alan’s right. It was fortuitous sitting near to Alan, as he can help me find some rare real tennis history books in the MCC’s extensive collection to help with my research. A really pleasant, friendly and helpful chap.

Alan looks remarkably calm in the above picture, although he confessed to Janie that he feels nervous introducing such evenings. Alan’s calm look in such a photo reminds me of the deceptively calm look on my face when I am doing something that makes me very nervous, such as riding an elephant.

The pachyderm image leads us nicely to the subject of Ray Illingworth, who must have been one of the thickest-skinned cricketers ever to play for Yorkshire and England…which is a cohort of especially hardened characters.

Of course I met Ray in his dotage, by which time he had softened in the way that legends often do. I told him, as I am now telling you, dear reader, that I started taking an interest in cricket in the early 1970s, when he was the England Captain. I couldn’t really imagine anyone else being the England Captain until, all of a sudden, in 1974, someone else was.

Mark Peel’s book, “Yorkshire Grit: The Life of Ray Illingworth” covers all of Ray’s life and career.

Image from and link to Amazon. Other sources of this book are available.

Mark’s talk was excellent. Lots of detail, lots of interesting anecdotes, all delivered with aplomb. Mark also answered all of our questions thoughtfully and in depth.

Undeterred by the “strangely reflected” pictures Janie took last time, she couldn’t resist taking some pictures pointing away from the Writing Room, where the meal takes place. Again, she obtained a rather weird effect but I rather like this one.

A very enjoyable and interesting evening.

Pomp Given The Circumstances: Mansion House & The Lord Mayor’s Show, 11 November 2023

Michael Mainelli takes his hat off to us

In truth, the pomp and circumstance of The Lord Mayor’s Show is not really “our thing” – neither Janie nor I had ever been before, nor had either of us even watched the show on TV.

But in these circumstances, with Michael being the incoming Lord Mayor and all, it seemed only polite to accept the invitation to see the show as a guest of The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress at the Mansion House.

Michael and I have only worked together for 35 years, ever since I was recruited by others as canon fodder against Michael in the late 1980s – but that’s another story…

Reduced To Tears By My First Consultancy Assignment, 27 January 1989

…as is the story of us starting Z/Yen together – Part Three of that story linked here and below.

Þe Chronique Of Primordyall Z/Yen: Þe Third Part: Windes Blast & Weder, Autumn 1994

But returning to November 2023, before the show, I wanted to show Janie the Z/Yen office at 1 King William Street, just around the corner from Mansion House, as Janie had not yet seen that “new” office. Nor had she seen the oft-mentioned roof terrace. It was also an excuse to make sure we would be on time, while still able to take some warm sanctuary indoors before the Mansion House opened its doors. At least half the Z/Yen team had taken a similar precaution.

*Janie loves a roof terrace: 1 King William Street does not disappoint in that regard*

Then Janie and I popped around the corner to the Mansion House. I suppose I’ll be popping around that corner a few times in the coming year. Following pre-show refreshments, in which we did not partake, Janie and I were stewarded to our pavement seats right at the front, underneath The Lord Mayor’s viewing position, next to Michael’s brother Kelly. I don’t think we’d seen each other since Michael’s shrieval ceremonies four years ago:

A Shrieval Day, Michael Mainelli’s Admission And Breakfast As Aldermanic Sheriff Of The City Of London, 27 September 2019

Janie, despite her stated lack of interest in pomp and circumstance, was irritated with herself for forgetting her phone and therefore being without a camera. I allowed her to use mine, on the proviso that she didn’t use up all my film. Janie, cognisant that phone cameras don’t use up film (she knows a thing or two, that lass), proceeded to take about 300 pictures, only 20% of which were fully deserving of the bin.

The weather absolutely smiled on the City of London that day. We have had a rather relentlessly wet autumn in 2023, so all assembled thought we had struck very lucky…except for the (surprisingly sizeable) minority who were convinced that Michael Mainelli is able to control the weather and therefore the crisp but sunny day was by design.

Regardless of how or why the weather ended up so good, it did make for an especially photogenic show. As did the fact that there was an even broader international flavour to the parade than usual.

If you want to look at all of the pictures, click here or the link below, where all are now safely stored on my Flickr account:

If you would prefer a brief highlights skim through eye candy and a few choice words, then read and look on.

*Evidence that I was there. Just one picture of me amongst the hundreds.*

*Xenia Mainelli (Michael & Elisabeth’s daughter) at the rear of this mounted troupe*

After the Armistice Day two-minute silence, the parade began. Here is a small sample of our (Janie’s) pictures.

*Janie formed a surprising fondness for the giant effigies Gog & Magog*

*I was able to explain the true and fictional stories of Richard/Dick Whittington to Kelly and Joan seated next to me. I guess Michael and Elisabeth knew I’d have my uses sitting there.*

*Listen up! The late Mayor’s key charity, The Samaritans – Janie is one of their listeners.*

*Vic Reeves aka Jim Moir with his arty crowd*

*A Lord Mayor’s Show delegation from Lagos for the first time*

*“Oh goody. Chigley…” said Janie at this stage of the show*

*A Mongolian themed troupe, for theatrical reasons I believe*

*Janie loved the Hong Kong dragons perhaps as much as Gog & Magog*

*Michael’s partial to a puffin. The Institute of Couriers pandered to that preference*

*Alderfolk – the boys and girls on the bus*

*90 minutes later, the pageant was over, once Michael set off for The Royal Courts of Justice*.

O farewell,
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife;
The royal banner, and all quality.

Then milling to get back inside the Mansion House, a light lunch and some socialising/chatting before setting off for home.

If you are keen to see the BBC broadcast of this event but don’t know where to find it – as long as you have found this piece within 11 months, you can see it by clicking here.

Or you can look at all of Janie’s 240 pictures by clicking here or below:

Gresham Society Soirée, Including Þe Fair Weather Canticle, 12 December 2022

Gresham Professors Singing The Gresham Professors’ Song, With Thanks To Basil Bezuidenhout for the pictures and the “live music” video

Was it really t h ree years ago that we last enjoyed one of these soirées? Yup. Last year’s event had to be postponed at the last minute.

The only good news about that delay was that the Gresham music professor, Jeremy Summerly, who was unavailable to attend in person last year, was available this year. Splendid news in particular because his deep knowledge about and insights into early music were especially welcome in the matter of the piece that I had “uncovered in autograph manuscript form”, just before the pandemic.

*Long lost medieval canticle? We’ll return to this later*

Fortunately for all concerned, we had professional musicians to entertain us for the first half of the show, before we Greshamistas got the opportunity to ruin everything.

Actually, before the professionals got the chance to entertain us, the noisiest amateur of us all, Michael Mainelli, piped us in to Barnard’s Inn Hall in the now traditional style.

*Michael at full blast. Thoir an aire* yer cluasan, folks

Someone once asked me if I ever duet with Michael. My reply:

What would be the point? You’d only hear Michael.

Mercifully for all our ears, the professional team of David Jones and Sofia Kirwan-Baez soon established a pleasant tone to proceedings, both treating us to their fine keyboard skills as well as their excellent voices, with Part 1 of the show.

Sofia has a fine operatic voice, which really came to the fore when she sang the Massenet and the Puccini. David always entertains, not least with his “party piece”, Lehrer’s Elements Song, in which he subtly switches from “Harvard” to “Barnard’s” for the punchline. Also a lovely rendition of Misty, although I can never hear that song any more without thinking of the Gresham Society visit to the London Mithraeum and my resulting Mithras version of that song:

The London Mithraeum With The Gresham Society, 15 March 2018

Part 2 of the programme was a different affair, of course, with some regular and irregular antics.

Tim Connell updated a couple of literary standards, deliberately lowering our intellectual and linguistic standards in so doing, aided and abetted by Frank Cox & Mike Dudgeon

Maths Professors Wilson & Hart taught us how to sing numerical carols. Turns out, it’s as easy as 1-2-3…as long as 4-5-6-7 and 8 are also in your repertoire, naturally.

*Tristis opus non est beatus*, as PC Wilson might put it.

As for my little offering, Þe Fair Weather Canticle, it had been long in the process between “rediscovering” and performing.

I supplied Professor Jeremy Summerly with a copy of the “autograph” and a demo recording, the latter you can see below:

Professor Summerly very kindly gave this opus more than its fair share of scholarly attention, helping the audience to understand the historical significance of my “discovery” with a professorial dissertation on the piece. Unfortunately, that mini-lecture, a masterpiece in its own right, was not recorded for posterity on the night, but I do have some of Jeremy’s notes, which I can share with readers:

Of necessity, discoveries of new sources in the field of early music are less and less frequent as time goes on. All musicologists dream of finding a source of forgotten music, even more so a fragment that might fill in significant holes in our understanding of music history.

Yet such a discovery has been made recently. It is hardly surprising that such a fragment might turn up on the site of a medieval coaching inn, and even less surprising that this inn should be located in Middle England.

The musico-poetic gem þe Fair Weather Canticle, like much early music, surprises us through its apparent modernity. Like the brightly-coloured decoration of a medieval ceiling, or the dissonant harmonies and boldly-contrasting texts of a medieval motet, there is something shockingly modern about this ancient canticle.

Scholars will need time to consider the implications of this newly-found piece within the pre-Baroque jigsaw.

Meanwhile, the words and music should be enjoyed for what they represent: a perplexingly polystylistic mesh of jumbled ideologies and opaque thinking.

Professor Summerly then went on to examine the words of the canticle, noticing some astounding…in some cases shocking…similarities between those words and the words of subsequently well-known songs from periods ranging from the 12th to 17th centuries. In one case, even the 20th.

Finally, Professor Summerly, being an expert on early music, provided some historical context to my performance on an original instrument, which he kindly described as:

a rare and fascinating example of a gittern-ulele, an instrument probably of similar vintage to the canticle.

The instrument has an exceptionally sweet sound in the hands of an appropriate musician…or so we are led to believe, if only such a virtuoso performer could be found.

In the right hands, this gittern-ulele would quite possibly be, to the guitar-family, what Paganini’s Il Cannone Guarnerius is to the violin.

As for the gittern-ulele performance you are about to hear, many of you will surely be moved to tears when listening to the sound of this extraordinary old git?”

It was hard for me to follow that introduction, but I tried, after a subdued start. Basil recorded the moment for posterity – for which I am grateful. It is not every day that my work is professorially conducted, but the triumphant chorus at the end benefitted greatly from Professor Summerly’s expertise, as I had my hands full at the time:

For those who would like to study the words or are crazy enough to try singing along with the vids, here are the words:

Sumer is icumen in, þe nymphs and shepherds dance
Bryd one brere, groweth sed and bloweth med
And don’t you know, amarylis dance in green–ee-ee-een.

Lightly whipping o’er þe dales, with wreaths of rose and laurel,
Fair nymphs tipping, with fauns and satyrs tripping
Mister Blue Sky is living here today hey, hey hey.

Mister Blue Sky please tell us why, you were retired from mortals sight, stars too dim of light.

Hey you with þe angels face, bright, arise, awake, awake!
About her charret, with all admiring strains as today, all creatures now are merry…
(…merry merry merry, merry merry merry merry, merry merry, merry, merry merry merry merry merry merry minded.)

Mister Blue Sky please tell us why, you were retired from mortals sight, stars too dim of light.

Hey there mister blue, who likes to love, lhude sing cuccu,
Nauer nu, ne swik thu, sing hey nonny nonny nu.

Mirie it is while sumer ilast, in darkness let me fast,
Flow my tears, fairwell all joys for years,
Never mind, I joy not in early, I joy not in early bliss.

Mister Blue Sky please tell us why, you were retired from mortals sight, stars too dim of light.
Ba ba, ba ba ba ba, ba ba, ba ba ba ba, ba ba, ba ba ba ba, ba, ba x2

After the show, there was plenty of time for eating, drinking, chatting and making merry, as is the case at any good soirée. The Gresham Society Soirée is certainly always a good one.

Prized Evenings Of Crisis, FoodCycle & Kitchen At Holmes, Late July 2022

Listening up at the Crisis do with Al & Tracie

Crisis Do At The Design Museum, 25 July 2022

Janie and I were so pleased to be invited to this Crisis event – a thank you to us 2021/22 Crisis At Christmas volunteers. I wrote up much of our volunteering experience at the time – click here or below.

Santaphobia, Sartorialism, Keele Connections And Several Crises At Christmas, 4 January 2022

Our extended volunteering for several weeks into January was unfortunately foreshortened (although only by one shift) when I tested positive for Covid after what should have been our penultimate shift. Which meant we hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye properly to several colleagues.

Further, we had heard such great things about the outcomes from this year’s Christmas initiative, we were keen to learn whether the new delivery model would be repeated in 2022.

Tristia and Matt express thanks and bring positive news ahead of 2021

Janie and I wondered whether we might also run into Kathy & Caroline from FoodCycle at this event, as we knew that both of them do Crisis, although we hadn’t shifted with either of them at Christmas. Almost as soon as the speeches finished, those two sought us out:

Not sure what Mike just said, but no-one, least of all Mike, seems pleased in that instant

It wasn’t all bearded, long-haired, bright-shirt-wearing hunks named Ian

We had a very enjoyable time. Afterwards, Janie and I treated ourselves to a shawarma supper takeaway from Ranoush. It would have been rude to walk past the place on the way home, after all.

A Prize Dinner – Kitchen At Holmes, 29 July 2022

Back in the mists of time – before we did our 2021 Crisis at Christmas volunteering, I went to a really charming Baker Street Quarter Partnership event, which was, in part, a fundraiser for Marylebone FoodCycle…

Drinks Reception In Marylebone Winter Garden Portman Square, Baker Street Quarter Partnership, In Aid Of FoodCycle, 2 December 2021

…and won a dinner for two courtesy of Kitchen At Holmes in the fundraising raffle.

Janie and I had not got around to booking that evening, as I pointed out every now and then when I stumbled across the envelope/voucher in my in-tray. We agreed that we really shouldn’t push the “valid until November 2022” deadline and that a summer Friday evening out rather than in would be a treat for us.

This meal certainly was that.

Please explain the difference between chanterelles and girolles, Genaro.

Genaro looked after us extremely well throughout the meal.

The food looked amazing and tasted just as good. We photographed the food like a couple of youngsters.

In fact, if it is culinary eye candy you are after, you can click the link below and see all the foodie pics we took:

Janie started with the lamb kofte, depicted above, while I started with a tuna tartare dish. Janie then moved on to fish – sea bass, while I enjoyed a veal steak. The chunky chips were a delight for us to share, as were the carrots & purple potties, also depicted above.

Of course a raffle is all luck but, as the organisers said at the Baker Street Quarter Partnership do all those months ago, it was really nice to have FoodCycle volunteers win one of the high-end raffle prizes

Our deserts – we sort of feel we got our just ones

We were really impressed with the food, service and ambiance in Kitchen At Holmes – here is a link to its website.

It was a very enjoyable evening out and a good way to end a week during which FoodCycle had featured in three of our evenings.

An Afternoon Of Bare Peng Tings In Spitalfields & Whitechapel, Alternative London Street Art Tour, 22 July 2022

Janie and I were super excited ahead of this one. During lockdown Janie had taken to fine art and had been reading up on graffiti art/street art. This Alternative London street tour, with an opportunity to try out some spray can art at a workshop afterwards, seemed like a very good idea, so I snapped up a couple of tickets for an alternative Friday afternoon off.

We were part of a group of 12 to 15 people, most of whom were tourists from outside the UK and very few of whom seemed to come from anywhere near Janie’s and my age range. Unlike my visits to Lord’s lately, no-one addressed me as “young man” on this afternoon.

Janie and I went mad with our camera-phones. We took nearly 140 pictures between us and if you want to flick through them all, unedited but in time sequence, this Flickr album (here and image below) has the lot:

I’ll pepper this account with some highlight pictures, which should give you a reasonable idea.

The Walking Tour

We started in Fashion Street, where there were many superb street art works, including this one, which had recently acquired its tears and farewell messages:

The above two pictures also Fashion Street, with moving stories to go with them

Of course you cannot completely separate the street art from the migrant-adopting history of the East End. It was interesting to see and discuss the Brick Lane Mosque (formerly Synagogue, formerly Huguenot Church) in that context.

It also dawned on me that we were walking streets (and due to walk streets) close to the locations I have recently been researching regarding the early years of my mother’s Arkus/Markus/Marcus family in London. More on that later.

Some of the most spectacular street art in the area emerged during (or just after) lockdown, when artists needed an outlet for their outpourings and many building owners presumably thought, “why not?”:

Extraordinary and exceptional skills needed to produce works like these

We wandered a bit further east, around Princelet Street…

Janie was already getting funky with the art, snapping Princelet Street through the looking glass

We then wended our way to the open space around the old Truman Brewery, where a great deal of street art and graffiti art resides.

Lots of symbolism…Banksy himself had a hand in the car…

…Gary tried to explain some of it to me – it reminded me a bit of situationism

This concrete sculpture was simply stunning

Then back along Hanbury Street..

In Hanbury Street, Gary pointed out the utterly compelling Libreria bookshop and then didn’t stop to give us time to have a look around – you cannot do things like that to me!

In the few moments I grabbed in the shop, the attendant spotted my Middlesex CCC shirt and engaged me in conversation about that as well as books. I’ll have to go back, I suppose.

At the end of Hanbury Street, we were on the corner of Spital Street, where my Great Uncle John (Johnny) lived and worked as a cabinet maker at the turn of the 20th century.

On Heneage Street we rather liked the Up Yours street art piece.

We SO nearly ended our tour prematurely in there

Then back to Brick Lane…

…more or less completing a circuit before ploughing south towards Whitechapel.

A wonderful, almost new, symbolic piece by an artist of Bangladeshi origin

We said goodbye to the few walking tourists who had chosen not to try some spray can art – the rest of us ploughed on towards the Hessel Street studio.

A Brief Arkus/Markus/Marcus Family Tour

We walked along White Church Lane and then past Back Church Lane – the latter (No 132) being the residence of my Great Uncle Max & Great Aunt Leah Markus at the time of the 1901 census – just a few years after Max arrived in London and while he was still labouring in the tobacco industry and dreaming of returning to his chosen profession – violinist.

Modern buildings & street works where 132 would have been

When Max first arrived, in the late 19th century, he lived at 1 Matilda Street, where the rest of that enormous family (including my grandpa) still resided in 1901.

No longer there, Matilda Street has been absorbed by council housing buildings on the block just south-west of Gary’s Alternative London studio…

…how weird is that?

Especially weird, as I had resolved to have a wander around those very streets only two/three months ago when cousin Adam and I were looking into that chunk of family history with musical absurdist Ron Geesin – long story.

Turn It Up To Max & Spit: The Baltic Origins Of My Mother’s (Marcus) Family Revealed

Of course I hadn’t yet got around to taking that stroll (I spend so little time in the City these days) and it hadn’t occurred to me that we might be close by, when I booked this experience.

Also coincidentally, btw, Cousin Adam had his own large-scale adventure with street art some 40 years ago, although Gary categorised my description of Adam’s giant mural in Covent Garden as public art, not street art.

But let us return to Whitechapel and spraying paint around.

The Studio Session

Gary made us all mask up and glove up (thank goodness) and then taught us how to spray paint on walls/boards rather than ourselves (useful skill, that, when spraying paint).

These pictures taken just before we all masked and gloved up

Keeping us away from the stencils until we had “mastered” the basics, we were charged with making a rectangular base and graffitiing our names. This, even I could do quite well.

Quite well, although my street art name should really be Ged

Even the use of the larger stencils was within my skills grasp with relative ease – the trick being to spray enough but not too much.

It was the attempt at some detailed lettering with stencils that confounded me, with more red paint on my fingers and blotching that corner of my masterpiece than actually communicating words. I wanted to spray “Media Kills”, but I think I’ll stick to the keyboard for such detailed messages.

Janie chose, instead, to “give it large” with the visual imagery, absorbing some of the existing images into her own creation, which, I am reliably informed, is very street.

So there you have it – Janie shows big idea talent at this art medium while I scratch away thinking that words are necessary in all cases.

We’d had a wonderful afternoon. Although we haven’t travelled to far-flung locations now for years, this experience transported us in far-flung cognitive ways.

And for those who think that the words are unnecessary for this experience, there’s always the Flickr album with all the pictures from the day:

An Open, Illustrated Letter To The Thomas Paine Historical Association & English Heritage

Postscript: Hair Today & Gone Tomorrow In 7 Upper Marylebone Street

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Crisis Do At The Design Museum, 25 July 2022

A Prize Dinner – Kitchen At Holmes, 29 July 2022

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The Walking Tour

A Brief Arkus/Markus/Marcus Family Tour

The Studio Session

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