Now that’s what I call a theorboQuintessentially French Baroque
This ensemble was recently involved in a French TV series about Versailles – said to be the most expensive ever made in France – here is a short musical extract from the TV programme:
Mercifully for the down to earth SJSS audience, Fuoco E Cenere did not ponce about in 17th Century wigs and outfits for our concert.
Here is a more down to earth vid and interview about Les Folies d’Espagne by Marais, which they did play on the night:
The highlight of this concert, for us, was the singing of the young guest soprano, Theodora Raftis. She has an outstanding voice and tremendous stage presence. She seemed a little overwhelmed by the occasion at first, but it was great to see her warm to her work and become the highlight of the show by the end of the concert. She was clearly well appreciated by the audience and her fellow performers. Remember the name: Theodora Raftis. Not much of her to be found on-line, but here is some Donizetti – trust us, she’s upped her game big time since this vid was recorded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sszddZG0cEQ
The Platters
No , we didn’t see a 1950s vocal group, but we did eat charcuterie and cheese platters with salad and a glass of wine between the concerts. I won’t dwell on the shenanigans involved in booking a table and arranging the platters – let’s just celebrate the fact that waiters David and Ramon did us proud and that we thoroughly enjoyed our twixt concert supper.
Paris-Madras
It was this second concert that really inspired me to book the evening – the notion of a fusion of French Baroque and Indian raga music. How on earth might that work? Well, it pretty much did.
Le Concert De L’Hostel-Dieu provided the baroque element. In truth, we got more out of the ragas than we got out of the Leçons de Ténèbres. The wonderful weather of the previous week had turned to miserable cold weather that day, so neither of us was much in the mood for the lamentations of Jeremiah. More seriously, we’d seen the Leçons de Ténèbres quite recently and didn’t realise that the concert would pretty much give us the whole lot un-fused with the ragas…plus ragas unfused with the lamentations.
…artefacts from the raga element
On the ragas, in particular, we liked the bansuri flute and the sarod. Soumik Datta, the sarod virtuoso involved, is far more rock’n’roll than the rest of the performers on show that night. Here is his showreel:
Below is the explanatory vid in French about the Paris-Madras project, in which you can hear Ravi Prasad sing and Patrick Rudant play his flute, as well as the baroque players of course:
The absolute highlight of this concert for us was the few passages when the musicians segued between the two styles and the ending when they all played together. Perhaps they judged the fusion to be risky, so they minimised its use, but to our mind it was a risk that came off big time and the fusion was the reason we went to see the concert.
Anyway, we came out the other side of the evening feeling very pleased with the whole occasion.
An unusual week to say the least. A short one, as the Monday was a bank holiday. The bank holiday weekend weather had been glorious – Janie and I had spent most of the weekend enjoying the benefits of the garden in good weather.
On the Tuesday (8 May) I was asked to join the senior doubles at lunchtime, while I had my regular court booked at 18:00. It was a beautiful day and I was busy writing my pamphlet on Bullshit jobs, so thought that a few hours writing long-hand would do the piece and my posture no harm. I was right.
On the Wednesday morning I went to collect my Estonian e-Residency card, so i am now officially an e-Resident of the Republic of Estonia. Once I had finished my heavy writing sessions, I looked at some Arvo Pärt music in the evening to celebrate my new status.
On Thursday I had a rather frustrating music lesson as my machine kept playing up – in fact all of my machines seemed to be on go slow for some reason. Then Janie and I went to the Pear Tree for dinner with Toni, John and Tom Friend, plus Deni & Tony. Excellent food and an interesting evening.
…before I went on to Lord’s, playing a good game of tennis at 10:00 and then sticking around for the cricket. Janie joined me for most of the final session of the day, before we both went to the Middlesex kit sponsors party, which was fun. Always a nice bunch of people there.
Not only all that, but I got a lot of work done that week too. No wonder I was well-tired by the end of it.
Attempts to get John Random (aka John Burns) to see some real tennis at Lord’s had not gone particularly well, previously, with John being called up to appear in a meerkat advert last time he was due to come see.
So when John called on the afternoon before our arrangement for 6 April, because he had a last minute call to be a 1940’s MP, we both thought the worst.
But in the end, as the call turned out to be 15:00, we still had time 6 April for John to see me play. As it happens, the contest turned out to form part of an unusual type of hat-trick. This was the second of three singles matches in a row in which my opponent had a double-barrelled name. Such names are not exactly rare amongst players of real tennis at Lord’s – but three in a row must be quite a rarity. In any case, I played well (by my own modest standards)…
Hopefully I have come on a bit in the 18 months since this photo was taken
…then John and I took some lunch at Mazi in Notting Hill Gate before he went off to be an historic MP.
I’d forgotten how good a place Mazi is – and so convenient for a local lunch. So when Stephen “Stentor Baritone” Barry got in touch on the following Monday with the good news that the Lord’s tickets we thought had got lost in the post had in fact been returned to him, I suggested we meet at Mazi for a quick bite on the Tuesday to avoid further possible postal misery. A very enjoyable lunch and a good chance to catch up, as we hadn’t seen each other for some months.
The Lord’s tickets in question are for Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nigel “Father Barry White” Hinks, who shall be joining me and Daisy (Janie) on the Saturday of the test match.
But Charley and I had/have some cricket to see in advance of that test match – not least and first up, the opening day of the season at Lord’s – now a traditional meet. I produced a picnic in my traditional stylee. Smoked salmon bagels, Iberico ham muffins and a fine Riesling (Alsatian on this occasion) forming the core.
Gawd it was cold at times that day. But we suffered for our love of cricket and sat it out at the front of the pavilion.
The MCC have been granted permission to use floodlights for the County Championship matches this year, which is a real coup and/but frankly overdue. I understand why local folk didn’t want untrammelled use of floodlights at Lord’s in the evenings, but they cause no disturbance during the day.
We’d probably have had no play at all without the lights and indeed, because it was so gloomy, only got a limited amount of play – about half the day’s play – even with the lights.
Middlesex had of course been inserted by Northants and I thought did well to battle it to 136/4 by the time stumps were drawn.
No shame there, though. John Random had been similarly “stitched up like a kipper” by it. Indeed it seems to have fooled most people.
I dare Ogblog readers who missed the posting over Easter to click through, watch the little vid and work out what was going on.
But enough of Lauds and back to Lord’s…
…play ended a little early and the day ended all too quickly, as always. I shall be joining Charley at Chelmsford next Friday, with the weather forecast suggesting a more pleasant climate for cricket than that gloomy opening day. But it had been worth it for the splendid company and the cricket, of course.
Simon Jacobs very kindly took time out from his hectic promotion schedule to meet me for dinner on Tuesday. Simon’s new single, Sore, came out three days later – today at the time of writing.
You can hear the song and watch the vid on the embedded YouTube below.
The first thing I feel bound to say about our evening on Tuesday is that the song Sore is most certainly not the story of Simon’s evening with me. Neither of us drank excessively, although we did share a bottle of rather jolly Alsatian Riesling, nor did we dance on any tables in a shirtless stylee.
Of course, what Simon did after we parted company on Holland Park Avenue is a matter solely for him, but I can report that the song and video were already in the can by Tuesday, so if Simon’s lyric is reportage, it is reportage of some earlier evening. Come to think of it, it could be reportage of a great many evenings at Keele “back in the day”. but that is an entirely different matter.
Anyway, we dined at the Ladbroke Arms, which had impressed me when I met Kristof there for a drink just before Christmas. I had resolved then to try the food some day soon – so when Simon suggested that I find a gastro-pub near me for our meet up this time, it seemed an ideal choice.
Click picture for link to pub’s site – photo borrowed from that site
The staff took my request for a relatively quiet, corner table literally, so we were in the snug back area in the corner, which actually is a nice quiet spot for a chat.
Simon and I discussed all manner of things, but clearly at the forefront of Simon’s mind was his music career, past and present.
“When I was very young, I briefly joined the Jackson 5”, said Simon.
Now I have known Simon since we were both 15 or so and this was the first I had heard of this matter.
“I know it sounds strange,” said Simon, “because my name isn’t Jackson…”
“…also strange because I don’t recall one of the Jackson 5 being named Simon,” I chimed in, somewhat suspiciously.
“OK, name them all then,” said Simon, confidently.
“Michael, obviously”, I said tentatively, “Tito, Marlon…um…Jermaine…um…um…”
…”and Simon”, said Simon, who then embarked on quite a long story – 45 seconds to a minute – more than my full attention span anyhow – in which I thought he explained that, as a nipper, he imagined himself to have been asked to join his heroes in the Jackson 5 and managed to convince some naive fellow nippers in the park that Simon was now a Jackson.
“It is morally reprehensible to lie about one’s singing career”, I thought quietly to myself, “but if merely a pre-teen fantasy lived out in the park one day, I suppose it is just about forgivable after all these years”.
But when Simon sent me a kind note the following day, he included this factoid:
PS: Marlon, Tito, Jermaine, Simon, Michael… and when Jermaine stayed with Motown and the rest of us went to CBS, little brother Randy joined… it’s all on Wikipedia…
So is it true? Was Simon really a member of the Jackson 5 back then? Or was Simon guilty of generating a bit of early 1970s fake news, which for some reason (presumably to bolster his current musical career) Simon still seeks to perpetuate?
I decided that I would have to investigate this matter for myself.
My first ground for suspicion was that Simon’s surname is Jacobs, not Jackson, so how could Simon Jacobs possibly be “a Jackson”?
Well, actually, Wikipedia puts that matter into clear perspective. The original line up, known as The Jackson Brothers, included “childhood buddies Reynaud Jones and Milford Hite playing keyboards and drums, respectively”.
OK, so it was not unprecedented for a non-Jackson to join the Jacksons. But the Wikipedia entry for that group clearly mentions a brother named Jackie – the one whose name had slipped my mind (and presumably Simon’s too) – who was in the Jackson 5 throughout. So could the Jackson 5 ever have comprised six people?
That’s not quite as daft an idea as it sounds – we all know about the lesser-known fifth Beatle and the lesser-known fourth and fifth Marx Brothers. But the name “Jackson 5” does seem, at least to me, to have a cardinal-numeric requirement to it. When Jermaine left, Randy stepped in to keep the arithmetic pure to the eponymous value “5”.
Yet, even though I could find no textual evidence that the Jackson 5 sometimes exceeded five people, I did find, also through Wikipedia, the following fascinating piece of photographic evidence:
By The Jackson 5 (eBay front back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsNow sums is not necessarily what I do best, but I am pretty sure that there are six people in that picture which is clearly labelled “Jackson 5 1974” on Wikimedia Commons.
So perhaps Simon really was in the Jackson 5 at one time. I must say that, by the time I got to Wikipedia, all mentions of Simon were omitted from the Jackson 5 entry, but perhaps that is simply some sort of spoiling tactic by Simon’s competitors, who know he has a single coming out today.
So does Simon sound like a former member of the Jackson 5? Does Simon look like a former member of the Jackson 5? I am hopeless at judging these things and am open-minded, so I’m sitting well and truly on the fence for this one.
You, dear reader, should judge for yourself, by listening to Simon’s new single, watching the video and possibly then buying the single, e.g. directly from Simon’s site – click here:
Anyway, as usual, it had been a fun evening chewing the fat with Simon. Big tick in the box for the Ladbroke Arms food and service too.
And to reiterate, I was not sore the next morning…at least not until after I had played two hours of tennis from 8:00 a.m. straight through to 10:00. Then I was very sore.
The above photo of The Red Lion is courtesy of TripAdvisor
When the e-mail came through from the Keele Alumni office, suggesting an informal “Keele In The City” at The Red Lion on Parliament Street, the timing seemed perfect to me.
I expected, by chance, to be in Westminster that afternoon, a few hundred yards away from The Red Lion pub.
This photo of The Red Lion is courtesy of TripAdvisor
I e-mailed Bobbie Scully (who is often at work in the Supreme Court, across the road) and John White (who often hangs around in the Palace of Westminster lobbies) to see if they were around and/or up for it. John said no, while Bobbie said yes to meeting around there, but suggested that we make it a quick drink and then a longer meal to catch up after so long – good thinking in my book.
As it turned out, my afternoon meeting in Westminster was somewhat curtailed, so I sloped back to the flat for a couple of hours, waving at the pub as I descended into the underground, then sloped back to Westminster early evening.
I hadn’t seen Steve for ages. He wasn’t an official photographer for this MBS visit, but apparently he had been the Prime Minister’s official photographer for the general election. He told me one or two things about our dear leader that didn’t surprise me but still horrified me. The word “chaos” is the one that sticks in the memory, perhaps due to frequent repetition.
I returned to Westminster about 18:50, some 20 minutes after the appointed hour with the Keele Alumni but 40 minutes ahead of the sort of time I figured Bobbie might show up.
Derby Street – the side road on one side of the pub – was chock full of police vans, which were themselves ram-packed with policemen. I recalled the wise words of Malcolm Cornelius, formerly of the Keele parish in our day:
“it is extraordinary how many policemen you can get inside one of those vans”.
I wondered whether the police had been tipped off about the Keele Alumni gathering. Facebook, after all, is said to be a fine source of security intelligence. The Keele Alumni announcement was full of key words that might trigger security concerns for the authorities…
I wandered through the pub in search of the basement, then saw the roped off stairs, jumped the barrier, went downstairs and found it was all locked up. Confused, I wandered back through the pub and then got caught up in a massive swarm of policemen on Parliament street, all heading from the vans towards Downing Street.
Now dazed as well as confused, I was unwilling to go back inside the Red Lion, which was absolutely heaving with people – unlike my previous visit there, to decompress after the Payroll Giving Awards. 2011 I think that was, when we held the event at Number 11 Downing Street and I met GOD – I’ll certainly retro-blog that evening in the fullness of time.
Seconds later, a drove of legal-looking folk marched purposefully down the side of Derby Street. Although I recognised no-one, the look and demeanour of this flock could only possibly have been the Keele Law Moot lot.
I joined the throng, as the advanced members of that party threw aside the basement rope and stormed the basement.
“I tried that five minutes ago – it was all locked up down there”, I said, dolefully.
“Oh, don’t worry, they’ll soon negotiate our way in”, said a cheery member of the moot party…
…which indeed they did. Very rapidly. Of course they did. They’d just been mooting all day.
I was assured that no actual donkeys were separated from their actual hind legs in those negotiations. On reflection, by the standards of mooting in the Supreme Court, persuading a publican to open his doors and sell drinks to thirsty Keele Alumni was probably not an especially tough argument to win.
So we were in.
I didn’t recognise anyone, but soon I was approached by a gentleman named George who had studied Psychology and Sociology in the 1970s. We chatted for a while as the moot brigade got their drinks orders in and started to quench their debate-weary thirsts.
Soon after that, Zoë Hollingsworth from the Alumni team came up to me. She had clearly mugged up on some of my post Keele activities and we chatted about charities a bit – a shared interest.
Then a very pleasant surprise – Andrea Woodhouse (formerly Collins) showed up; unexpectedly (to me), although she insisted that she had mentioned her intention to visit on her Facebook page. Perhaps I live on Facebook less than most people, but unless a Facebook posting specifically hails me, I’m unlikely to see a friends posting, unless, quite by chance, I am on-line around the time it is posted. But no harm done – it just made it a nice surprise for both of us on the evening.
Then Bobbie showed up.
Then we all chatted and drank for a while – drinks gatherings are a bit like that.
Around 20:00, Bobbie and I figured we should go and claim our Roux At Parliament Square table, so said goodbye to the drinks party. A shame in a way, as it was a very jolly, not overly noisy and not over-crowded gathering. We’d have enjoyed meeting some more of the people there.
Still, Bobbie and I really wanted to catch up with each other – we hadn’t had a chance to do that for a long time – so a quiet restaurant with some fine food and wine was probably a more suitable setting for that.
Out on the street, the police vans had all gone. The mean streets of Westminster had returned to a more tranquil state – perhaps those dodgy-sounding key words from the Keele Alumni message had now been reinterpreted as benign. Bobbie and I strolled the couple of hundred yards to Roux.
The food at Roux really was superb. They sort-of specialise in tasting menus, but I didn’t really fancy those and Bobbie was happy to go along with a more regular choice of dishes, so we had:
Dorset crab with Apple, Fermented chili, Dashi (Bobbie’s starter);
Pork cheek with Carrot, Ale, Mangalitsa black pudding (my starter);
Venison with Savoy cabbage, Pine, Alsace bacon (Bobbie’s main);
Halibut with Cauliflower, Grape, Tarragon (my main).
Dig those mains – mine in the foregroundA closer look at Bobbie taking a closer look at her main
We even both had a desert. Wines by the glass to complement the food.
It was great to catch up with Bobbie – no excuse really for leaving it so long but we have both had a lot of family stuff to deal with over the past few years, not least conclusive parent stuff.
Bobbie insisted on picking up the tab, noting that she (and Dave) had enjoyed our hospitality several times in succession…
…then Bobbie suggested that, on that basis, she probably should have taken Janie out to dinner rather than me.
I passed on that last reflection to Janie, while showing her the above photos.
Janie expressed envy at the sight of the meal and agreed with Bobbie that she has suffered an injustice…
…I don’t yet know how Janie expects me to redress this matter, but no doubt I’ll find out soon enough…
…I might need some of those Keele moot people to help argue me out of this tight corner.
Heck, but whatever the penalty, it was worth it – a most enjoyable gathering and then dinner.
Thank you, Keele Alumni team, for setting up the evening.
It was John’s turn to chose and mine to pay – John almost apologised for booking a place we’d been to before; The Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell. That place needed no apology for a revisit – I remembered it being excellent.
John suggested that we meet at Ye Olde Mitre, as he had some vital business to conduct in there ahead of our evening. This idea also seemed like no hardship.
I had a very interesting audience with Nathan Myhrvold that afternoon, before getting some bits and pieces done at the office and then joining John in The Mitre.
John’s vital business seemed, to me, to be a few beers and a chat with some friendly colleagues, at least one of whom I had met before. Actually I had a feeling I’d met both before at one time or another.
Vital business concluded, John and I then strolled from Hatton Garden to Clerkenwell proper for our dinner.
Cornish brown crab rarebit, yuzu guacamole, shichimi – my starter
Lime leaf & red chilli marinated chicken breast, braised rainbow chard, crispy salsify, black garlic & ginger dressing – John’s main
Red wine & star anise braised ox cheek, truffled celeriac puree, mange tout, runner bean & turnip salad, lemongrass & Aleppo
chilli dressing – my main.
We talked about all sorts of things, like we do. I should write up the highlights…
…or should I? That would be predictable almost to the point of being dull. I’m always writing up the highlights. This time, here are the lowlights.
John informed me that he would be going to see Leyton Orient play in the FA Trophy that Saturday. When I playfully quipped that, like him, Janie and I had nothing better to do that day, John informed me that it was only £10 a ticket and that Janie and I would be most welcome at Orient.
I explained that Janie feels cold at Lord’s in June and that she is probably, if such is possible, even more averse to football than I am.
John and I then hatched a small practical joke along the lines that I really wanted to go to this football match…which, as I suspected, didn’t work very well, as Janie knows only too well that I’d be hard to persuade to the football even for a very big match on a very warm day.
John and I then swapped school play stories for a while. John had played Private Hurst in Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance at school. John especially remembered finding the scenes between Hurst and Annie very difficult for his (then) shy nature:
Fair use image from stage play uploaded for a non-profit, educational purpose – for source & more details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sparky_and_Annie.jpg
I think Hurst would be the deep-set eyes geezer watching on from behind in the above image – that Hurst bears more than a passing resemblance to John, as it happens.
When I got home, I read the play for the first time in decades. I reckon John’s shyness in the liaison scenes would have worked fine. My reading of the Hurst character is that he projects himself as a soldier who is/has been a womaniser, but the character is in the zone for his mission during the play, with no interest in the attentions of poor Annie.
Not exactly the Stanislavki or Lee Strasberg way to achieve the desired effect, but as long as the young woman was showing the requisite enthusiasm, I should imagine that John’s lack of electric response would have made those scenes worked better than John imagined.
Perhaps John is now planning to reprise his role as Private Hurst using “the method”; that might explain him conducting his vital business in traditional taverns like Ye Olde Mitre.
However, the later scene which, as John described it, went as wrong as any scene in any school play could possibly go wrong, was so amusing a story I laughed long and loud. I felt bound to insist that John write it up as a guest piece for Ogblog and now feel bound to pre-announce it.
No rush John, no pressure.
Anyway, once again we’d had an excellent meal at the Modern Pantry. The food we think is outstanding. Perhaps the service was a notch below the level I remembered from the first time, but that might have been caused by as little as being as little as “one down” on staff, which can happen to the best of places.
The urgency, it seems, was that Rohan had read a super review of this place and thought , “I always read these super reviews and never actually try these places. This time, I really must…”
Yes, Rohan, I was there for you. I just hope that you would be there for me in a similar emergency.
Indeed, Rohan’s stipulations went beyond the location…
we’re having Yum khao tod, Peek gai sai and menage phuket. They’re three small plates from the menu. You can choose the rest.
Actually, when I looked at the menu, all three of those starters were probably the very ones I’d have chosen, so I suggested that we both choose the mains, which was an equally easy task – we both liked the sound of the stuffed squid with mushrooms and the slow-cooked pork belly.
In truth, it was a near miracle that we were able to eat the Peek Gai Yud Sai – stuffed chicken wings.
When I pointed out to Rohan that this Thai restaurant was possibly the only source of Kentucky fried chicken wings in London…
…while he was eating his Peek Gai Yud Sai…
…Rohan couldn’t stop laughing for quite a while.
In truth, the culinary highlights were:
Yum khao tod starter, which was a sort-of sophisticated Thai-style chat;
Moo hong – Phuket-style pork belly.
But of course the highlight, more than chewing the pork belly fat, was chewing the fat conversationally with Rohan. A bit of reminiscing. A bit of swapping notes on the stuff we are writing.
Rohan clearly appreciated the fact that I had responded to his emergency call, as he presented me with a kindly gift – a book named Pop Sonnets – click here.
I’d like to show the image of Pop Sonnets cover, but sadly that image is subject to copyright, so all I can do is encourage you to click the above link and show you the image and vid below:
As we left Supawan, Rohan and I took a look at Keystone Crescent – click here – an extraordinary place – which I took to be late Georgian but is in fact as recent as 1855 – not that much older than my own place.
A fun evening – happy to have been able to help in your time of need, Rohan. Any time…within reason.
So Janie was very excited when Marc tipped her off to the idea of a December festive dinner indoors.
Not quite the magical atmosphere of summer dining in the garden itself, of course, but an excellent opportunity to get together with Kim and Micky during the festive season.
It was a super meal; similar in cooking style to the summer fare but using seasonal winter ingredients.
Here’s the menu:
From coincidence corner, a fellow member of Bodyworkswest, a gentleman named Lance, was sitting at the next table to us. We all had a chat for a while.
Micky won a tiny pack of cards in his cracker, so we played poker, black jack, beat your neighbour and snap for a while. Micky wanted to play canasta but we’d need to mug up for that game.
You get the idea – we had a very good time. Kim and Micky are really looking forward to trying the summer experience at the Chelsea Physic Garden next season…as are we.
In any case, herring didn’t form part of the Noddyland meal, which comprised smoked salmon nibbles followed by Janie’s (Daisy’s) famous wasabi beef fillet dish and finally danish apple cake. We hadn’t seen Jacquie and Hils for over a year; it was great to see them again and have a chance to reciprocate Jacquie’s warm hospitality.
As usual, Daisy had massively over-catered, so I was able to lunch on some left over beef, sauce and potatoes couple of times during the week, including Thursday…
…which was probably just as well, given the tardiness of the Cafe Rogues meal in Holborn that evening, at the comedy writers Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner.
I suppose you can chat, drink and even be ruined while you wait for food
To add insult to indigestion, four of us were served our deserts some 30 minutes after everyone else. Jonny escaped this time, but I was caught twice – along with Jasmine, Barry and John for the lengthy dessert desert.
Still, everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Nine of us gathered this time; me, John Random, Jonny Hurst, Jasmine Birtles, Colin Stutt, Hugh Rycroft, Gerry Goddin, Mark Keagan and Barry Grossman.
Jasmine and John brought crackers. John Random’s were very special; he had doctored some real crackers, emblazoning them with a picture of Michael Buerk and describing them as Moral Maze crackers.
With Jasmine’s crackers, we played our regular Christmas game of trying to work out the feed line from the punchline of the corny cracker jokes…with limited success this year as the jokes were so corny. Examples:
A. A monkey burp.
Q. What’s silent and smells of banana?
A. Mrs Sippi
Q. Who is the most famous married woman in America?
But John had doctored his crackers with moral maze dilemmas to replace the corny jokes. Example:
Q. What do you get if you cross a sheep with a kangaroo?
A. A series of far-reaching ethical questions that go to the very heart of modern genetics.
Tut tut if you read that question and thought the answer was, “a wooly jumper”.
Jasmine and John pulled……which left Jasmine grappling with a tricky moral dilemma.
Traditional quizzing after dessert…or in the case of the four of us sorely neglected souls…during the dessert.
Colin Stutt again did a warm up game, taking the best jokes from the fringe for the last few years and seeing if we could remember the punchlines or construct good/better punchlines ourselves. I reckon I did a reasonable job on 10-12 out of 30 of them, actually knowing the answer to only a couple.
Mark, the holder of the Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Trophy, naturally led the main event quiz. I’m usually in with a chance when Mark writes the quiz but so are one or two other people. In a close run contest this year:
I scored an impressive but ultimately inadequate 55…I coulda been a contender but all I got was a one-way ticket to Palooka-ville;
Jonny Hurst stormed through to take the trophy with a breathtaking 58.
Mark had bubble-wrapped the trophy for safe-keeping……let’s hope that Jonny also treats the magnificent artefact with the respect it deserves.
Yes, the place was ridiculously noisy. Yes, the service was poor, except when it was terrible. But at Christmastime, almost everywhere is thus. These Ivan Shakespeare gatherings of good old friends are always lively, witty evenings that make me happy; that is the bit that really matters.
How Tom kept the event secret goodness only knows, but Toni was genuinely surprised to see us sitting there in the restaurant waiting for them when she and Tom arrived; she genuinely thought she was going out for an evening just with Tom.
Unexpectedly, a cast of thousands…well, eight actually. From left to right behind me and Janie: Lisa, Toni, Sophie, Claire, Mike and Tom
On our previous visit we’d enjoyed some sort of special set meal based on some award-winning dishes. On this occasion we tried a more regular style of Oklava set menu (if you can describe any of this food as regular):
A couple of unusual looking wines caught my eye; so unusual that the waitress suggested that I taste them before choosing them. The white was a dry muscat; perhaps she thought I was expecting something sweeter but it was in fact more or less what I expected and a very interesting wine.
The waitress warned me that the red, a blend of noble grapes, was quite a lot sweeter than one might expect. On that description, I anticipated the taste of communion/kiddish wine – heaven forbid – but of course it was a very interesting blend, a little sweeter (perhaps through the riper Turkish growing conditions) but well-suited to the Turkish style food.
The food was excellent again at Oklava. The chilli roast cauliflower was a highlight for me (Janie didn’t like that one much), but the pomegranate glazed lamb breast and yoghurt was a hit for both of us.
Boys talk? Claire can hardly contain her excitement while Mike and I hold forth, hence the half-closed eyesGirls talk? Actually I think this was Toni’s “happy birthday to you” momentThanks to Janie for the pictures…apart from the top, waiter-assisted one, with all of us.
It was a superbly convivial evening. Lisa, Janie and I hadn’t met Mike, Claire or Sophie before, yet it felt like a gathering of eight long-standing friends from the word go.
Well done and thanks, Tom, for gathering all of us together; it was a very enjoyable evening.
