Eating Out – Page 9 – Ian Louis Harris

Three Seasonal Events In Four Days, 13 to 16 December 2016

First Of Three: Brian Eno Singsong and Party, Brian’s Studio, Tuesday 13 December 2016

The first of my “three dos in four days” was at Brian Eno’s place – I have been invited to such dos on several occasions now, often but not always at this time of year. I have known Brian from the health club (BodyWorksWest, formerly known as Lambton Place) for quarter of a century or more.

The party is combined with Brian’s a capella choir gathering, allowing neophytes and bathroom singers like me to have an occasional go.

I thought I arrived in quite good time on this occasion, but the singing was well underway when I arrived; the regulars presumably having made a punctual early start.

The songs chosen were quite relentlessly morbid at first. There is usually a fair bit of spiritual blues material, but this set seemed especially bleak, with unfortunate folk being hanged for crimes they didn’t commit and all sorts. It wasn’t too difficult to pick up on the tunes quickly enough – I suppose that’s why they choose this material for the more open sing-song, but it didn’t feel much like party music at first.

The last couple of numbers were a bit more lively – not least All I Have To Do Is Dream at the end, sung in a doo-wap style. It helped me that I was standing next to a couple of very able, presumably professional singers, upon whose rhythms and harmonies I could latch. A few people afterwards asked me if I was a professional singer, but I’m sure they must have been hearing the sound emanating from those guys, not me.

Brian said that he couldn’t hear me this time, which is a good sign; presumably therefore an improvement on last time. But perhaps he also was deceived by my co-location with the professional-sounding guys.

Anyway, as on previous occasions, I also found the rest of the party great fun, meeting and chatting with several very interesting people. I also danced a bit to some excellent party mix music, well designed for the purpose (mostly 1970’s dance, with some earlier and later stuff thrown in).

I didn’t stick around until too late – I had a scheduled client call quite early the next day – so (as on every previous occasion) I missed the blood, guts, ambulances and police cars stage of the party. Brian subsequently told me that the emergency services stage failed to occur this time, to his intense disappointment.

Second Of Three: Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 15 December 2016

Since around the turn of the century, when fellow NewsRevue writer, Ivan Shakespeare, tragically keeled over and died while jogging, several of us have gathered a few times each year to keep in touch and reminisce about our NewsRevue days. Just before his death, Ivan e-mailed a few of us suggesting that we should regroup for that purpose, but never lived to see his idea to fruition.

Quite early in the life of this occasional gathering, it became part of our tradition to play a comedic quiz or two towards the end of the evening. I think it was John Random who initiated that idea, but several other people, occasionally contribute a quiz. Gerry Goddin latterly contributes a variant in which we all have to try to write jokes on suggested themes and Gerry allocates points (or deducts points) based on how well the jokes go down, his perception of each joke’s quality and/or Gerry’s authoritarian whim.

For the December gathering in 2002 (I’ll get around to Ogblogging it in the fullness of time no doubt) I went into a local tourist gimcrack store and bought the cheapest, tackiest piece of porcelain royal memorabilia I could find; then I emblazoned it with a legend declaring it to be the Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Trophy. Since 2002, that trophy has been played for earnestly each year. Nine different people have held the trophy over the years; I am proud to be able to state that I was the 2004 winner.

Anyway, it seems to be getting harder and harder to find a venue that operates flexibly enough for a rather haphazard bunch of former (and in some cases current) comedy writers to gather in mid December. Café Rouge Holborn has become the regular venue for the past few visits, but it seems they tried to impose a Christmas season “pre-ordering” regime on us, which was somewhat beyond the capabilities of John Random’s organising and our ability to be organised by anyone or anything.

So, half-a-dozen or so of us had pre-ordered and Café Rouge assumed that there would only be half-a-dozen of us (despite John booking the table for 10); which proved problematic once the eighth and especially ninth person showed up.

To be fair the staff tried their best in what seemed to be chaotic circumstances and did relocate us to a table for 10 quite quickly.

But poor Jonny Hurst ended up waiting for best part of an hour before any food was brought to him at all, at which point a starter and two main courses all turned up at once. I was half-hoping that Jonny would say, “do you know who I am? I’m Jonny Hurst, the chant laureate, that’s who”. Jonny might even have been forgiven for “doing a Jeremy Clarkson”…but Jonny is far too mild mannered and polite for any of that, even when he has a real hunger-on and everyone around him is tucking in. Respect.

Eventually we played the quizzes. Colin Stutt offered a small quiz to warm us up, but the main quiz, for the trophy, was a very imaginative effort from John Random which comprised 10 maps, each of which had a location marked with a year. We had to name the movie that was made in that year set in that place.

I was pleased with my 7 out of 11 (one map had two years and therefore two movies and two points) but Mark Keegan pipped a couple of us 7-istas with 8 out of 11 to claim the trophy yet again – his fourth victory in 15 years. Respect.

Gerry Goddin ended the evening with one of his joke-fest games with some especially harsh marking and the predictable result that Barry Grossman’s jokes pleased him more than anyone else’s – it is nearly always Barry who wins, very occasionally me.

A most enjoyable evening.

Third Of Three: Z/Yen Group Christmas Lunch at Watermen’s Hall, 16 December 2016

For the first time in Z/Yen’s 23 Christmases, we decided to do Christmas lunch rather than dinner this year.

Linda and Michael conspired to find a five course extravaganza of a lunch at Watermen’s Hall, which seemed just the ticket in the circumstances. It’s a comparatively intimate and relaxed atmosphere for a guild’s hall; but now that Z/Yen is that much smaller, our group wouldn’t completely dominate the room.

Michael pipped me an e-mail the previous weekend to ask if I would write one of the traditional Z/Yen singalong songs – normally but not absolutely always my gig.

(Previous Z/Yen Christmas events and songs will be Ogblogged in the fullness of time).

Anyway, the sight of the five course menu and the name of the Company that resides at Waterman’s Hall inspired a simple but effective song to the tune of Winter Wonderland – click here or below for a YouTube with Bing and lyrics.

But before exercising our lungs, we ate the following excellent five course meal, washed down with some fine wine and (for some, not me) port.

Z/Yen Group 2016 Christmas Lunch at Watermen’s Hall

(The Company of Watermen and Lightermen)

Menu

Torched mackerel, pickled and salt baked beetroot, horseradish crème fraiche

Smoked ham hock and chicken terrine, pickled apricots, watercress salad

Butter roasted Norfolk turkey, sage and apricot stuffing, bacon wrapped sausages, brussels sprout choucroute with chestnuts

Star anise poached pear, almond crumb, whipped clotted cream

Christmas pudding, brandy sauce

Michael kept me and Xueyi talking about GeoGnomo for a fair chunk of the meal, but otherwise we managed to steer clear of work chat.

Michael was also keen not to torture too many people with our song, but once there were only a few stragglers left (apart from we Z/Yen folk) we found a surprisingly receptive audience; indeed those Watermen and Lightermen joined in the singing with us, rounding off a fine afternoon.

♬ WATERMEN AND LIGHTERMEN AND Z/YEN ♬

( A seasonal song to the tune of ♬”Winter Wonderland” ♬)

VERSES ONE AND TWO

Mackerel torched, beetroot pickled,

Ham terrine, we’ll be tickled;

We’ll eat Christmas lunch, Z/Yen Group as a bunch;

Watch us put on weight at Watermen’s.

At the start, we’ll be perky,

By the end, stuffed like turkey;

Five courses of nosh, all terribly posh;

Watch us put on weight at Watermen’s.

MIDDLE EIGHT

After eating turkey laced with trimmings,

We’ll tuck in to star anise poached pear;

Christmas pud as well, you must be kidding,

The brandy sauce could be a warning flare.

VERSE THREE

Head for home, very slothfully,

On the trail back to Lothbury;

Let’s hope that we scoff…ing walk our waists off;

Walking all the way from Watermen’s.

(RISING/ROUSING FINALE): Let’s hope walking makes us Lightermen!

Too School For Cool, Edward Alleyn Club Dinner, 12 November 2016

Formal school alumni dinners are not really my kind of thing, nor are they Janie’s kind of thing. Indeed, both of us have managed to reach a fairly ripe (if not actually old) age without ever having attended such an event.

Until this event.

This event was going to be different. Why? Because Chris Grant was the President of the alumni club this year and he wanted to make the event different. In any case, you turn up to events like this to support your friends when it is their gig.

The first I heard of the matter was the evening back in January when a gang of us gathered at Z/Yen to experience Rohan Candappa’s wonderful monologue, “How I Said F*** You To The Company…” and have a curry afterwards – click here for the Ogblog piece on that evening.

I explained to Chris that I don’t do weekend stuff without Janie, but that notion only reinforced Chris’s view that this year the dinner should be different and that he would actively encourage people to bring their partners.

To add to the “making it different” motif, Chris engaged Rohan to write and perform a short monologue for the pre-dinner reception. Chris also asked David Wellbrook to act as Master of Ceremonies for this additional feature.

The long and short of it was, I ended up being a bit of a cheerleader for the event amongst our generation – although it was naturally down to John Eltham to act as gang-leader for those of us from our era to book and sit as a gaggle.

We’re On Our Way

It seemed strange arriving at the school gates with Janie, but we had the good fortune to run into John Eltham and Steven Butterworth as we were walking in. The pre-dinner function was in a new Edward Alleyn Building, which didn’t exist when I last visited the school, many years ago.

Our rabble-rousing had born fruit, so I chatted briefly with several people from our era; David French, Paul Driscoll, Nick Jarmany, Nick James, Tim Moulson, Tim Church and several other people at that reception.

Rohan’s Bit

Rohan’s short monologue was good fun. A meander around the theme “South London, Nah Nah Nah”. The talk included some navel-gazing around the word south itself. Should it be pronounced “sarf” or “sowf” rather than “south”, for example. Is it merely convention that south is shown below north – after all, the world is a globe? Rohan’s conclusions or central theses (I am truly bigging up this talk, aren’t I?) were that:

South London is an edgy underdog that deserves our affection and support, even if some of us have long since migrated north,
we Alleyn Old Boys (at least the cohort from our era) formed exceptionally strong bonds of friendship which have kept us together and/or brought us back together across many decades and in some cases vast geographical spread.

Rohan teased us throughout his talk about a blue joke that David Wellbrook wanted to tell, much against Chris Grant’s better judgement. Rohan then nearly told the joke through audience participation, but concluded that South Londoners do not need to be told the punchline of the joke; they are edgy enough to work it out for themselves:

What do we want?

A cure for Tourette’s.

When do we want it?

…

If you want to read Rohan’s wonderful piece in full, he has kindly agreed to its wider circulation and it is therefore Ogblogged as a guest piece in its own right – click here.

The Dinner Itself

Then across to the school dinning room for the dinner. It seemed strange to be fine dining in that place, all done up to look sprauncy. Chris had chosen a very imaginative meal, based around curry, to symbolise the friendly informal meet ups that invariably end with a curry.

But this was a posh curry-based meal. A starter of slightly spicy scallops, enough to tell you that the meal was posh, that being the first of three interesting courses. Then cheeses, then coffee and petits fours. A well posh curry-based meal.

There were several toasts, speeches and club business in-between, mostly based on the traditional/regular/formal format of the club, I suppose.

Janie and I were honoured and indeed privileged to be seated next to Sir Nigel Godfrey. Sir Nigel, apparently, has recently received a gong for services to the New Zealand beauty pageant industry.

Ged and Sir Nigel Pontificating Nicaragua

Sir Nigel was wearing his Broach of Honour with pride that evening, but sadly he seemed to keep it covered up whenever Daisy was nearby with her camera. Perhaps he thought she might swipe the bauble if he left it unguarded even for a moment. How does he know that Daisy is such a scallywag?

Our table rapt with attention as Sir Nigel orates. Mr Wellbrook taking electronic notes, presumably

Daisy was also sitting next to Mr Wellbrook, who had been Master of Ceremonies earlier. I asked Chris Grant, “what did Daisy and I do to deserve the honour of sitting next to Sir Nigel and Mr Wellbrook?”, but I think Chris must have misheard my question, because he merely said, “there’s always one short straw”, which seemed to me to be an answer to an entirely different question.

Then Chris Grant made a short but touching and excellent speech, continuing the themes of edginess and especially the theme of enduring friendship.

The audience was then subjected to the Headmaster’s Savage response…

…correction…I never was much good with grammar, I should have paid more attention in English lessons…

The audience was then subjected to the Headmaster, Dr Savage’s, response. Dr Savage seemed keener on the friendship theme than the edgy theme. That is understandable really. Can you imagine the mischief that might kick off in the school and end up with pupils sent to the Headmaster’s Study, only to get the phrase thrown back by the miscreant, “but Sir, you told us that it is a good thing for us to be edgy”?

Dr Savage spoke very well and quite wittily, although I did think he missed a golden opportunity to pun on the pronunciation of Suffolk (from whence he hails) and Southwark, the borough in which he now heads a school. After all, the two place names, at least when pronounced by a native of the latter, are indistinguishable. (I think he might have been trying to make such a joke, but he got a bit confused and mentioned Norfolk, for seemingly no reason.)

In short, Savage is a talented speaker who prepares diligently, but he lets himself down at times through hurried delivery and under-rehearsal of the humorous lines. A-, could do better than this.

There is an official report and deck of photos for this event on the Alleyn’s School site – click here.

And Then Home

We thoroughly enjoyed our evening. Janie found the company delightful, both the old boys and their wives/companions, such as Lenneke (Chris’s partner) and Emma Jane Moulson. Similarly, I enjoyed chatting briefly with those two and at greater length with Victoria (Oliver Goodwin’s partner) as well as chatting with old school friends.

My only regret is that I barely got a chance to chat with some people I would have very much enjoyed catching up with properly, such as David French, Paul Spence and Nick Jarmany. Perhaps next time, although I hope our next time is a less formal gathering.

Next morning, there was no respite. Daisy and I got up to play tennis in our usual Sunday morning slot. Half way through the game, I realised that I had subconsciously donned a purple top and a purple bandanna. Purple. The Cribb’s House colour. Steeled by my renewed sense of tribal purpose, I naturally went on to win the set.

You can take the boy out of Cribbs House, but you cannot take Cribbs House out of the boy. — You can take the boy out of Cribb’s House, but you cannot take Cribb’s House out of the boy.

Dinner At The Twits, The Vaults, 20 October 2016

An unusual night out for us at The Vaults in Waterloo, engineered by DJ, who very generously sent us a couple of tickets fort his event as an impromptu gift.

Dinner At the Twits is a cross between an immersive theatre experience and a themed dinner party. Based on a grotesque Roald Dahl story, the conceit of the experience is that attendees are guests at the reconfirming of vows evening for the unspeakably awful couple, Mr & Mrs Twit.

You can read all about it on the official web site here.

Ged trying to look edgy (with only limited success) on Leake Street.

We got to the venue in good time, so we stopped off in the cocktail bar before the experience proper. The bar was a fun place and the cocktail mixologist did us proud…

cocktail-mystro-mixing-our-pre-show-cocktail — He’s got an “ology”; mixology

ged-not-so-sure-about-his-pre-show-cocktail — Ged “before”

…you get my drift.

Then on to the ghastly garden, where you are given another cocktail – a “sting and tonic” with nettles in it – plus you have to forage for appetisers (including bloodied hearts, burnt sausages and pigeon goujons) and mingle with the Twits and their monkey-like assistants.

Then the banquet itself, where the show continues and you eat a meal based around bird pie and a rather lemony trifle.

The plot of the show doesn’t really warrant extrapolation. Ryan Gilbey of the Guardian does a reasonable job of explaining the inexplicable. I nearly found myself in the role of a monkey ball, to be shot from a canon against one of the vault walls. Mercifully, we were rescued by a giant bird puppet just in the nick of time.

Yes, the show was a bit panto-like (what do you expect from Roald Dahl) but the food and beverage was very imaginative; the grotesque theming was very well done.

Just in case you haven’t had enough to drink by the end of the meal, there is an after show “upside down” cocktail bar as well. We had certainly been plied with plenty, so made our metaphorical excuses and returned to the relative safety of Notting Hill Gate, replete with food, drink and entertainment.

Thanks, DJ.

Lunch With Charlie and Chris, The Gate, Bryants Bottom, 8 October 2016

Our first opportunity to visit Charlie and Chris’s new home in Speen, to deliver housewarming presents (coffee machine being the main item) and have lunch nearby, in part also to celebrate Charlie’s birthday.

Big house, slightly reminiscent of the Cooper Close place in Chippy where Charlie grew up. Big garden too.

Lunch was at The Gate in Bryants Bottom, just a couple of miles down the road. A bit too far to walk on this occasion, as we were a little late and the weather was less than special. We luckily dodged the showers whenever we were getting in and out of the car.

Really nice pub grub at the Gate – most of us had the home made pies as mains, which were very tasty. Fairly quiet in that late lunch slot; a good chance for a proper catch up chat in a public place without needing to shout to be heard.

We were keen to get back to London before dark and the afternoon passed so quickly we all too soon realised that we would need to end proceedings if we were to achieve that aim.

There’s some beautiful countryside in those Chiltern Hills nearby; perhaps next time we’ll allow enough time for a country walk as well.

Middlesex CCC Annual Lunch and Player Awards, Lord’s Nursery Pavilion, 30 September 2016

30-september-2016-img_2313 — This photo belies the fact that I saw Angus Fraser smile more that day than I have seen him smile before in total over the years.

After a rather poor performance at real tennis in the morning, I stuck around and Janie joined me for the Middlesex County Cricket Club annual lunch and player awards.

A new format this year, apparently, this event has previously been a black tie dinner. We’d never been. Richard Goatley was keen to open the event up a bit and he chose a good year for that idea, as Middlesex won the County Championship a week before this event. Have a mentioned that before?

The event started with a Champagne reception on the Mound Stand Terrace – a wonderful location for a bright (albeit slightly showery) noontime gathering.

Then round to the Nursery Pavilion, which was set up for 400 or so guests to dine and hear tales of derring-do told by the actual derring-doers.

We sat with Chris and Shilpa, Richard and Tina, Alvin and Rowena plus Westy and Bridget, making a very pleasent table indeed.

The MCC staff were playing their annual end of season knockabout match on the Nursery Ground, as if to entertain us with some live cricket. That backdrop gave the whole event that sense of “cricket making all well with the world” that makes so many of us cricket lovers tick.

Amusingly, though, several of the big screens (where highlights were periodically shown) were on that window side, making people turn towards the Nursery Ground, perhaps fooling the MCC staff/players into thinking that they were more of an attraction than was actually the case. I did pop out on one occasion to lend moral support to Adam, who manages the real tennis and squash courts.

30-september-2016-img_2330 — The lads gather for a group photo

As always with Lord’s catering, the meal was remarkably good for a large-scale catered thing. The wine was plentiful. The mood was, understandably, relentlessly upbeat.

I’d left my real tennis stuff at the real tennis court, so once the event was over we wandered back round that way to get my kit. We ran into Adam again on the academy steps, enjoying a post match drink. Then when we got to the court ran into one of the real tennis regulars who had messed up his knee, so Janie proffered some sage advice.

By the time we got out of the court area, we ran into David Kendix who was taking the trophy back to the office for safe-keeping…at least that’s what he said he was doing. David and I were the only men at the dinner who had dared to wear celebratory light-coloured suits and loud-coloured shirts for the occasion; David could probably explain why that was less statistically unlikely than one might imagine. Anyway, we thought a joint photo with the trophy was in order in the circumstances.

30-september-2016-img_2340

David also very kindly allowed me a solo moment of glory with the prize.

ged-with-the-trophy

In short, Janie and I had a very enjoyable day at Lord’s.

A Musical Jam Followed By Dinner At Babylon With John and Mandy White, 17 September 2016

john-mandy-img_2235

We had so much fun last time John and Mandy came over with John’s cajón, we thought we must do it again this time. Between-times, I procured (at enormous expense) a tambourine and a pair of maracas, which I thought might work better than the spoons and ashtray percussion the girls provided last time.

I also had an exchange of correspondence with John, asking him to make some song choices for me to prepare.

Any Leonard. Ruby Tuesday by Melanie. Going to a go go by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles…

…John replied.

I especially liked that final idea. Very easy chords for me, too. Ruby Tuesday’s a bit slow for percussion, as is most Leonard (Cohen, John means). For some reason, I thought we might be able to speed up Sisters Of Mercy with its waltz rhythm. I also recalled that John knows all the words to Suzanne, so mugged up on that one too.

I prepared a few others, not least Give Peace a Chance, which Janie and I had seen at the Revolution Exhibition the previous week and which I had twigged was simple and very percussive. That worked very well.

As it turned out, Janie decided after a couple of the slower ones, to put on the 60s Tropical/Latin/Jazz set from the party for us to accompany, so for a while I had to try to work out keys, chords, words and rhythms without preparation and at speed. I didn’t do well at that, but it didn’t really matter; those lively tunes certainly suited the percussion instruments and at times I simply used Benjy the Baritone Ukulele as a percussion instrument myself.

Soon we realised that this music making was quite a workout; indeed John and Mandy jokingly complained that they were all dressed up for the evening but now wanted to shower and change.

But they didn’t do that; instead we all went off in John’s motor to Kensington, towards Babylon at the Roof Gardens. Bit risky booking that place in mid September, as a great deal of the charm was the idea of pre dinner drinks and post dinner digestifs on the balcony/terrace overlooking that beautiful garden. But we needn’t have worried, because the autumn weather smiled on us wonderfully that night.

Strangely, despite the gloriously mild evening and the fairly heaving place, not so many people chose to use the balcony/terrace, so we were able to chat and enjoy the atmosphere and the stunning view in relative peace. The restaurant itself was quite noisy. The food was good without being in any way exceptional. The staff were friendly and attentive; much better than most such gastrodome-type places.

We didn’t stay on too late; John and Mandy needed to get back to Saffron Walden, otherwise we might have all tried the club. But I’m pretty sure that club wouldn’t have been our scene. Bring back the old Town and Country.

In short, we had a great time – what else is there to say? We always enjoy spending time with John and Mandy; we’re already looking forward to doing so again.

More Real Tennis Than I Had Bargained For and a Surprising, Excellent Meal in Edgbaston, 1 & 2 August 2016

One aspect of real tennis at Lord’s that I omitted to mention in my piece last week – click here for that piece – is the propensity for one of the players to cancel at the last minute or even simply fail to turn up at the appointed hour. There is a strict rule that people must pay for such lapses, but some seem unconcerned about money. It almost always causes inconvenience to the staff (who then need to find a last minute opponent or in extremis play an unscheduled hour themselves) and sometimes disappointment to the other player(s), who had turned up expecting one thing and end up with another…or occasionally, if out of hours, with nothing.

However, the fairly regular scurrying around for a last-minute replacement does afford a fairly local newbie, such as myself, to benefit from quite a few free (i.e. funded by the offender) gigs.

On the evening of 1 August, for example, I had arranged to play at 19:00, after work: I had an excellent hour. One gentleman was waiting for his 20:00 match – his opponent didn’t turn up. Initially I offered to warm him up while he waited, but in the end we played a match. The handicapping system is a great help, up to a point, but he was a very sporty, experienced player – 30 handicap points ahead of me, which is out of range, really. It was great experience for me to play against such a player and I got better enough as the hour progressed for us to have some very good wrests (rallies in modern terms) in the end.

I was pretty worn out by the time I got home (I had also been to the gym that morning) and was wondering how I might get on playing again the next morning – a “pre-Edgbaston” idea. Actually, the body had calmed down by morning and I didn’t do too badly in my 10:00 hour. At the end of that hour, Chris Swallow asked if one of us could stay to help make up a doubles where one had dropped out at the last minute. My opponent couldn’t; I was in no rush, having demobilised the afternoon before, so did another two-hours-on-the-trot. Great fun, but 4 hours on court in the space of 17 hours is probably not ideal for an old git like me.

Half way to Edgbaston, when I stopped for comfort/petrol, I skimmed my e-mails and saw one from the MCC which read:

“you have caught the eyes of the selectors…would you be available to play real tennis for the MCC against the visiting Australians, The Wanderers, on 10 September?”

A very pleasing surprise. My reply:

The only criterion I can imagine might have caught the selectors’ eyes was my avoiding the need for a stretcher after two consecutive days of unexpected two hour slots.

Or perhaps it helps the handicapping to have a novice in the squad.

Still, I am flattered and absolutely delighted to accept the invitation to play that day.

I met up with Nigel at the Eaton Hotel and we went out for dinner quite early, both hungry and quite tired. We intended to go to Bengal Delight again, as we had enjoyed that place so much last year. We walked along the Hagley Road, got so far we realised we must have passed it or that it had gone. Checked on the smart phone and discovered that 207 Hagley Road is now a new Persian Kitchen and Bar, Colbeh (unrelated to the Bayswater Persian of that name).

I shall review the meal in full on TripAdvisor when I get home and add a link. Suffice it to say here that the food was really excellent; outstanding in fact. We were well looked after by a proud new proprietor and we really do wish him and the place well. In any case, it was great to catch up with Nigel over a meal again the night before the match.

So the headline is a little deceptive; it was a surprising, good meal because we set off for an Indian meal, which we expected to be good, but instead ended up enjoying Persian cuisine at that location, which was truly excellent. One of the joys of life.

Youth Club Alumni Dinner at Bill’s in Covent Garden, 28 July 2016

The last two or three years we’ve been having youth club (Streatham BBYO) reunion gatherings at Bill’s in Covent Garden. Having done nothing of the sort for well over thirty years, it suddenly and seamlessly felt like something that several of us actually really like doing.

The previous gatherings have been late May, to coincide with half term (several of our number being tied to school holiday times) but that week didn’t work for a great many people this year, so we shifted to the “schools out” week in July instead.

Slightly depleted in number, nevertheless seven of us gathered; Andrea, me, Linda, Liza, Mark, Martin, Sandra. Very pleasant it was, as indeed it has been previously.

We discussed old times, new times, in-between times and of course recent political events.

It’s amazing how much we slip back into club mode when we meet; of course we all have very different lives now, yet we are unquestionably in many ways the same old group.

The time passed very quickly and when the out-of-towners shot off to make sure of getting the last train, the west/north-west London contingent decamped for a drink/coffee and a few more minutes of chat before going home.

A very enjoyable evening.

Dinner with John White at Six Portland Road, 26 July 2016

It was Alistair Little (aka Big Al DeLarge) who recommended Six Portland Road to me when we were at Lord’s together in June. He said the menu looked really interesting and the reviews read well, but he hadn’t yet had a chance to try it. I immediately thought it sounded just the ticket for my next meet up with John White.

So it was.

John was able to get away from his desk in good time, so he popped round to the flat first. I showed him my baroq-ulele (he had previously only met Benjy the Baritone Uke) and I demonstrated the sweet, quiet quality of the mock-baroque instrument.

Then we went to the Uxbridge Arms for a quick drink on the way to Portland Road. I find it hard to believe that John and I had never had a drink in there before, but it is possible. We rarely meet around my way.

Then on to Six Portland Road, where the food and the wine was wonderful. I felt a bit fishy, so I started with a scallop & pancetta starter and went on to a brill dish with a crab what-have-you. John also felt mainly fishy, but he tried a ham hock terrine followed by a cod dish, his main being lighter than mine.

Great food. Interesting wine list too, with helpful staff to navigate us through the list.

Fay Maschler has given this place a rave review – click here – deservedly.

Ditto AA Gill behind that pay wall.

Real punters on Trip Advisor also seem impressed, as indeed I believe they should be.

It was John’s turn to pick up the tab. Pricey for a local, but then the locale is Holland Park. Certainly much better value than the City eateries.

Meanwhile John and I of course gave Brexit and Corbyn a good airing, with a fair bit of spleen to vent on both of our parts of course. It’s been that sort of month. At least we had both got past the “total sense of humour failure stage” which made discussing the subjects bearable.

In truth it is always good to chat stuff through with John and I hope we’ll be able to get a four-way meal and chat together with Janie and Maddie very soon.

Bread Ahead Half Day Traditional French Baking Course, Borough Market, 20 May 2016

“What a monumental fougasse, Ged,”…I think that’s what she said

It doesn’t seem like nearly a whole year since DJ, very generously, gave Daisy this birthday present. A couple of half day baking course certificates for the Bread Ahead Bakery School.

By the time we got around to thinking about booking something, then realising that the conjunction of the course that we fancy with the dates that we can do and the availability of places on a course that we fancy on a date that we could do…

…you get the picture. So there we were on a sunny Friday in late May, just a few weeks ahead of Daisy’s next birthday, heading for an afternoon of baking in Borough Market.

I had in fact taken the whole day off work, playing a couple of hours of real tennis in the morning. I should have learnt my lesson a few weeks earlier about playing two consecutive hours of that game; that’s a bit more than my body fancies these days and once again the physical fatigue set in a few hours later.

Still, we were in good time getting to Borough, but I forgot to take into account Daisy’s excitement at seeing that sort of foodie market. “We’ll be late for school – we can come back and look at the market after class,” I said. That was a wise suggestion for several reasons, not least because later we would be armed with loads of bread in search of yummy stuff to eat with bread tonight.

Our teacher for the day was none other than Aiden Chapman, a self-confessed dough anarchist and bread revolutionary. This man has a passion for artisanal bread-making and a visceral hatred of the sliced white factory loaf. A little reminiscent of the real ale campaign back in the day; indeed he even uses the term “real bread”.

From what we could gather, Aiden Chapman is one of the architects of the Bread Ahead baking courses but he only occasionally delivers them, although he is the very teacher depicted on the promotional picture we were given with our certificates last year:

We are in a class of 12 to learn traditional French baking. We are to make a campagne loaf, a baguette and fougasse. We start with the campagne loaf, which takes the longest to bake. Mercifully, we are provided with a small chunk of (one day old) mother dough to use as part of our loaves, otherwise it would have needed to be a two day course.

Soon enough we have measured and added the flour, salt, water and yeast to make up the complete dough. Then we kneed the dough. All by hand, of course. At this juncture, my fatigue really kicked in, although I didn’t realise it at first. But while all the others, including Daisy, seemed to be getting exactly the texture and consistency Aiden described, I just seemed to be pushing my messy lump of stuff around the table and getting my hands covered in bread-making ingredients.

“Use the heel of your hand and really stretch that gluten,” said Aiden…

…”try standing up and doing it”…

…”like this,” he said, taking over my bundle of disengaged ingredients and with a few swift movements of his hands bringing it together as something a lot closer to everyone else’s lump of dough.

After I spent a couple more minutes emulating the teacher’s firm movements, while mumbling under my breath to Daisy that I didn’t suppose anyone else in the class had exerted themselves to the tune of two hours on the real tennis court that morning, my lump of dough looked pretty much like everyone else’s, although my hands still looked the most anarchic of the lot. Perhaps I was taking the teacher’s ideas about dough anarchy to new hands-on levels.

Next up, baguette dough for both the baguette and the fougasse. The base or “poolish” for this dough is a much easier consistency than the mother dough for the campagne loaf. Also, I suspect that the learning from the first experience helped greatly with the second. This time, I felt the consistency of my dough change in keeping with Aiden’s timings and the look of my fellow pupils’ dough. “I’m proud of you, Ged,” was one encouraging remark from teacher Aiden. “You are a complete master baker”…at least I think that’s what he said.

Anyway, the second dough was for both the baguette and the fougasse – it had never occurred to me before that these two very different breads could come from the same dough – small differences in how the dough is rested, shaped and treated before baking making all that difference to the final result. So we rested, shaped and baked our baguettes and fougasses after rescuing our campagne loaves from the ovens.

At the end of it all, we had all made three mighty artisanal breads to take a way with us and got to try Aiden’s example of each with some strong-tasting country butter and pesto.

Daisy and I then whisked around Borough Market buying some cheese, charcuterie and fruit before heading off to the pictures with all our foodie possessions.

It was a great fun afternoon.

First Of Three: Brian Eno Singsong and Party, Brian’s Studio, Tuesday 13 December 2016

Second Of Three: Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 15 December 2016

Third Of Three: Z/Yen Group Christmas Lunch at Watermen’s Hall, 16 December 2016

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