One of the great things about being friends with someone like Rohan Candappa is that you get to see some of his creative pieces while they are works in progress.
…but not so far back that the term “back in the day” didn’t even exist…
…Rohan told me about a short performance piece he was working on, working title “The Last Man Cave”, which was about going to the barber’s. That idea would sound like complete rubbish coming from most people, but coming from Rohan, I guessed that he was onto something eentertaining.
Rohan also asked me to look at a short fragment of a female performance piece he had worked on with the actress Lydia Leonard, which he had given the working title “Pigeons” and had filmed:
I thought there was real merit in that fragment.
Rohan agreed and told me that he had expanded it into a complete but short work, working title: ‘And You Are?’, which he planned to have performed alongside his comedic barber’s piece.
Don’t be put off by the title “Trailer long” in the above trailer – it’s 74 seconds long.
That’s not long.
My hair is long…
…but that’s because I have an aversion to going to the barbers – an aversion formed when I was very small – a story for another time. Rohan’s barbers and bars stories are far more interesting than mine.
Based on the preview I, together with a few other lucky people, saw at the Gladstone Arms in November, One Starts in a Barber’s. One Starts in a Bar. is a really good show. It’s funny, sad and thought-provoking in equal measure.
28 September 2018 – Dinner With Deni, Tony, John & Kathleen
Early evening was my last game of real tennis at The Queen’s Club in my capacity as an MCC refugee:
Photo of me at Queens (from a different day) with opponents cut/airbrushed out
A fierce battle, it was, with a gentleman way above my pay grade, but through the wonders of the handicapping system we had a close fought match, which ended as a draw.
I thought 20 minutes would be more than enough time to get a couple of miles down the road to Deni & Tony’s house, but I hadn’t counted on the Friday night traffic combining with an accident nearby.
Yet, I arrived at the same time as Daisy, coming from the opposite direction and we really weren’t that late.
Plenty of time for drinks and nibbles before dinner.
Deni had gone to town in the kitchen, with a gazpacho soup and a salmon dish as the main. Desert was their favourite; profiteroles – it happens to be one of Daisy’s favourites too.
Tucking in good and proper
Lots of lively discussion too, trying to put the world to rights. John’s moderate views were somewhat tempered by his opinion that the only feasible route back to sensible, moderate politics might be barricades and politicians up against the wall and shot.
Everyone was on good form despite it being Friday evening and we were all surprised when the Cinderella hour struck and we said our goodbyes.
2 October 2018 Jamming Session & Dinner With DJ
Coincidentally I played real tennis (now back at Lord’s) before my next evening out; a jamming session with DJ at DJ’s place.
As I had all my tennis gear in tow as well, I decided to forego the electric instrument (which had sort-of been the plan), taking my baroq-ulele instead.
Electric-ulele – not selected for this match in the end
We tried amplifying the baroq-ulele for a while, which sounded rather interesting actually. We also mucked around with the strange assortment of songs I’ve been working on; then mucked around with a few of our favourites.
We still cannot decide which of us is ground control and which of us is Major Tom. It shouldn’t be that complicated, but it certainly is.
As always, we had a good chat and ate some good food too. An interesting bottle of Croatian red wine too – that worked wonders on my vocal chords.
4 October 2018 – Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner
It’s been a while since we had an Ivan Shakespeare dinner – this one had been rescheduled more often than a routine visit by a British Gas engineer. But at least an Ivan Shakespeare dinner is pleasant and worth the effort.
Actually not much effort for me. Jasmine had suggested we try Bill’s in Kensington, which, frankly, is a hugely convenient option for at least two of us; me and Jasmine. In truth, many of us are starting to find Cafe Rogues tedious, in terms of the food (ordinary), the service (poor) and the tedious, Byzantine rules for Christmas gatherings.
A great turnout this time, a dozen of us, including some new-old faces, such as Emma, Nelson, Neil and Sam. Plus many of the usual suspects. I mostly got to chat with Jonny Hurst, Barry Grossman, Mark Keagan and Nelson at my end of the table.
What, no quiz?
For sure the food and service was better at Bill’s. The traditional “food half an hour later than everyone else’s” game for baiting Jonny Hurst is clearly just a Cafe Rouge Holborn thing; not a standard entertainment in all restaurants. Who knew?
John Random made an executive decision that the traditional quiz would not quite work with the ambiance – we were in a very central table position.
We are all keenly awaiting Graham Robertson’s “would I lie to you?” game, but we’re starting to think that he has sold our stories for megabucks to television syndicates in the Stans and has now fled the country with his ill-gotten gains. We don’t care, we’re having a great time at these dinners without Graham and his game anyway.
Seriously, I always enjoy these gatherings and others must also do so because so many of us have been coming back for more, several times a year, since not long after the turn of the century.
By the weekend, all the alterations were ready, so we ventured, on the Sunday, to Cavendish Square to collect the clobber, take it to the flat and clear out some of my old gear.
The items identified for the chop included, among many other things, a pink stripped shirt which was showing signs of wear and a pair of green corduroy trousers of seriously discernible vintage and wear. The charity shop seemed grateful for all.
Sartorially Antiquated?
Point is, I realised that those items, when combined with my purple Massimo Dutti jumper (not for the chop – there must be decades of use left in that garment)…
…were the very togs I wore on one of my last visits to see mum before she died – a visit that yielded one of my favourite anecdotes about that difficult time.
It was late December 2014. Mum had pretty much been unconscious throughout my previous couple of visits, including Christmas Day, when I visited together with Janie.
I was working at home between Christmas and New Year. One morning, I think the 28th or 29th December, when I called the hospital for my daily update, the nurse, rather surprisingly, said that mum seemed much better that morning and was sitting up and talking.
I asked if I could come and visit, despite the fact that it was not visiting hours, as she had been unconscious on my previous visits and I would like to catch a conscious phase if I could. The nurse asked how far away I was and, when i told her, said that I should set off straight away, to get there and have some time with mum ahead of the lunchtime rounds.
So I hurriedly threw on the purple jumper over my “schlock around working at home” pink shirt and green chords, then sped off in Dumbo towards St Georges.
When I got to the ward, mum was indeed sitting up and conscious. “Hello darling,” she said – immediate recognition although she had adopted terms like “darling” and “honey” about a year earlier, once the dementia had eaten away at her memory for names.
Then she looked me up and down, frowning.
“Oh dear, that jumper does not go with that shirt and those trousers. And couldn’t you even have brushed your hair before coming to see me? Oh dear.”
Yes, even on her death bed, with dementia ravaging her mind, my mum could still form a judgment on my appearance and dole out a tongue-lashing if she so desired.
It might sound strange, but it is one of my most abiding memories of mum; that exchange was quintessentially her.
Well ahead of time, DJ invited us to lunch at The Orange in Belgravia/Pimlico. We had been looking forward to the day for much of the summer.
We weren’t disappointed for sure. It is always good to see DJ, Kim & Micky. As it turned out, it was a beautiful late-summer’s day, sitting in a very airy, well-spaced restaurant upstairs.
None of us had eaten in the restaurant there before, although Micky had previously been to the pub. We were all most impressed by the food the wines and the service. Janie and I both majored on the Sunday roast beef with all the trimmings, as did DJ.
Kim and Micky furnished me with a thoughtful bespoke birthday card and gifts, one of which was a tee-shirt emblazoned with the same legend as the card:
DJ, Kim and Micky told us about the Dalmatian coast, which they had recently been exploring. We pondered the lack of Dalmatian dogs in Dalmatia and wondered whether a themed boutique hotel, Villa De Vil, might be a winner. I expect Dodie Smith’s estate might have a question or three to ask about that one.
We didn’t realise that there is a glorious upstairs terrace at the back of The Orange, acting as a sun trap in the late afternoon. But under the guidance of excellent, interesting and kind waiter Gareth, we took up residence out there for after dinner drinks and to carry on chatting.
On learning that there is no house guitar, we tried some a capella singing…very badly.
Gareth was not only a maestro at serving food & drink, he is also a selfie maestro. The photograph below, achieved without a selfie-stick, is clearly the act of an experienced, steady hand.
Gareth also took a few pictures in a more regular or old-fashioned style, with the photographer excluded. A couple of those are shown below.
Many hours passed. It got dark. Eventually (at 21:00), the terrace had to close for regulatory/licensing reasons. Janie and I decided to call it quits at that juncture, leaving DJ, Kim & Micky to have “one for the road” by relocating to the pub’s outdoor seating, by the road.
The weather was much improved again today; yesterday was a weather blip. So we played tennis again at Leith Links in the morning.
Then off to have lunch at Marie and Joe’s new apartment in the south of Edinburgh, not too far from Summerhall and The Meadows. It took just over 45 minutes to get there door to door with a change of bus.
Janie insisted on taking some pictures along the way
We had a guided tour of the new place, including the new kitchen and en suite bathroom, which we were thus seeing before Linda Cook gets to see them; which is sure to be a source of much consternation.
Joe cooked a rather wonderful fish pie as the centrepiece of the lunch. We had a cherry roularde and some cheeses to follow, so that was us pretty much sorted for food today. Nice wines too.
It was really good to see Marie and Joe in their new home environment; when I saw them in Edinburgh last year…
We had some very interesting conversation about the festival, Edinburgh generally, politics generally, death, siblings, niblings, isms and anti-isms. You get the idea.
When lunch came to a natural end, I announced that I wanted to seek some indoor tennis shoes from Bruntsfield Sports in Morningside on our way back to Edinburgh. Marie and Joe volunteered to walk off lunch with us and chat some more.
It turned out that Bruntsfield Sports in Morningside doesn’t do those shoes; it is their branch at David Lloyd that sells them.
Still, we were by then near a convenient bus stop for central Edinburgh, so said a fond goodbye to Marie & Joe while stepping onto a bus to Princes Street.
We sought out the Apple Store on Princes Street in a vain attempt to get Daisy’s iPhone re-batteried (takes hours, we’ll need to do that in London). But I did procure the very iPad keyboard upon which I am typing right now, which should make my travelling blogs easier to write (i.e. wordier) in future.
On the way to Apple I spotted a show, Let’s Talk About Porn, at C, which looked interesting; a troupe of youngsters and plenty of time to faff around at Apple. Once I realised that’s we needed very little faffing time at Apple, I spotted another performance, The Roots Of The Blues, near to the C show (theSpaceTriplex) and just about enough time to pick up the tickets and fit both shows in.
So we ended up doing the very thing we promised we wouldn’t do; ran around like mad things fitting in a couple of shows at near-breakneck pace.
Both shows were worth it. The Roots Of The Blues was a mix of lecture and performance by Toby Mottershead. Charming, informative and he’s also a very able guitar player/blues singer. Toby’s slide guitar playing was exceptional and a new live experience for me and Janie.
Then up to C for the play Let’s Talk About Porn. This was a verbatim theatre piece, performed in a physical style by a very young troupe. “Sadly” we didn’t see the dour bar-tenders at the upstairs bar, but we did grab some water and did see the Flamenco duo from the previous evening sitting around before and after the play.
The play was good; we’d seen a fair bit of material on this topic before but it was an innovative, thoughtful, physical and interesting piece.
Then home, where we fancied little food and no booze – so we relaxed with just some toast and juice. Daisy managed to set off the smoke alarm by burning some toast – mercifully those things switch them selves off quite quickly and it was still reasonably early when that happened!
Escamillo Escapillo has, of late, expressed a preference for seeing the first day of a test match. That was not too difficult for me to arrange this time around, knowing his preference in advance.
Of course, he didn’t express a preference for “one of those test match days that ends up being rained off in its entirety but that keeps you in suspense for much of the day, because the rain is light and might just stop”. But that’s what we got.
Ironic weather this, given the weeks and weeks of relentless heat and sunshine that led up to the start of the Lord’s test.
King Cricket lampooned the day, while it was happening, with this piece:
Nigel’s take on the same non-event, linked at the end of the above piece, is one of the finest guest pieces on Ogblog.
Naturally Escamillo Escapillo & I tried to make the most of it, which is not too hard to achieve with one of my picnics to hand. Posh Italian nibbles from Speck and a start on the very jolly bottle of Pinot Gridge courtesy of Escamillo Escapillo. Smoked salmon bagels and latterly prosciutto rolls helped us to get through the wine and warm our increasingly “resigned to the elements” hearts.
We had occasional “it looks like it is brightening up over there” moments but in truth Accuweather left us in no doubt that the intervals between showers were to be short and the showers long.
I think it was about 17:00 before the umpires bowed to the inevitable and we went our separate ways home.
Friday 10 August 2018
The forecast only looked a tiny bit better for DJ’s day. Still, I went through my picnic preparations and got to Lord’s quite early, watching tennis for a while. DJ texted me to say he expected to arrive around the start time.
When Jimmy took a wicket in the first over, I thought DJ might have missed one of the day’s major moments, but DJ came down the steps just after the wicket fell, excitedly telling me that he got to see it.
Just as well. About 30 minutes of cricket was all DJ got to see before the rain came. Then lots of rain. A bit like the September Test Friday last year…
…except this time the weather app warned us that there was torrential rain coming between 14:00 and 16:00; so DJ and I both bailed out ahead of that storm, with a view possibly to returning if, by some chance, the day were to clear up and they were able to get some more play in.
I got some work done – while doing so I kept an eye on proceedings. I also informed Daisy that I hadn’t drunk any alcohol, so was planning to drive over to Noddyland that evening rather than next morning.
The torrential rain was tropical style – the TV showed pools on the outfield – but then the rain stopped. An announcement came up on my screen to say “inspection at 17:00”;I guessed that meant possibly play to start at 17:45 or 18:00 – wrong! Play to start at 17:10…
…I returned to Lord’s, by jumping in the car and somehow found a parking space on St John’s Wood Road. So I got to see nearly 2 hours more cricket and finished my share of the picnic at the designated place. I did alert DJ, but he didn’t return.
Then, after stumps, on to Noddyland for a glass or two while Daisy ate her dinner.
Saturday 11 August 2018
Tennis first thing – I didn’t move so well despite the relative lack of sitting at the cricket. Massage with Lisa after that; much needed.
Then Ros’s visit. Ros is Janie’s very good friend from years gone by who has lived in Turkey for the last 25-30 years. We haven’t seen Ros for about 20 years. Facebook combined with Ros’s decision to visit Blighty reunited them/us.
Janie and Ros: reunited
Not 100% sure that this next picture is from the last time…but it was in Turkey and might have been the last time.
Mystic Ros reading the coffee grounds in Turkey, 1995: “I will visit you two at a place you will call Noddyland in about 23 year’s time”.
The weather was lovely, so we were able to take drinks and chat in the garden for some while, until Janie served up a splendid lunch of smoked salmon and Guernsey crab – the latter delicacy being a gift from Lisa.
Ros is an exponent of Bowen Technique therapies, which gave “the girls” a lot to talk about, while I joined in the conversation as best I could and kept at least one eye on the cricket.
Once the cricket ended, the combination of massage, wine and the gentle therapeutic conversation sent me onto the sofa and into the appealing arms of Morpheus.
I’m not entirely sure how much longer Ros stayed but I did wake up properly before Ros left.
Sunday 12 August 2018
Weather forecasts ahead of Sunday were not promising. I warned Janie that we might get nothing at all, but that we should be ready to go. Even first thing on Sunday itself , the forecast was aweful.
But then the wind direction shifted, such that the Thursday-like constant light rain looked likely to miss Lord’s for most of the day.
Daisy of course wasn’t ready for such a dramatic change of plan, so I jumped into Dumbo to get a good parking spot and get a couple of good (dry) seats in the Warner for us, suggesting that Janie & the picnic join me by Uber once they were ready.
in the end we got a super day of cricket in a very comfy spot with just a few short interruptions for drizzle.
Umesh Yadav continued to demonstrate his fitness at tea until the very last second
Nice people sitting around us, including an amusing gentleman from Oxford who had an aversion to the England team’s infantile nicknames and who seemed convinced (wrongly as it turned out) that Stokesy was going to go to jail.
We saw a great England win and then had the luxury of Dumbo just round the corner to run us home. We celebrated with a glass or two once we got back to Noddyland.
One of the very good things about real tennis is the extent to which it seems to be a community of enthusiasts. To such an extent that, when you meet and play realists from other clubs – as often you do at Lord’s – they seem keen to welcome you at their places.
Example: back in the winter, I played at Lord’s against Mark Bradshaw, a member at Petworth, who has quite recently taken up the sport more seriously having only dabbled previously – rackets was more his game. Mark said, after our good game, that Petworth was being refurbished at the moment but that he would like me to visit for a game once the refurb was done. I said I would very much like to do that.
I thought little of the matter again until I received, in the spring, out of the blue, a kind e-mail from Mark reminding me of our conversation and wondering whether I really was interested. The suggested timing, as it happened, worked out well for Janie, so we hatched a plan to go to both Petworth and Hove in a day, so we might visit Sidney and Joan later.
The plan soon became a reality. Janie and I half-planned to get to Petworth early enough to have a look at the gardens of the old house as well, but by the time we found the tennis court entrance (the postcode sent Waze and therefore me to the wrong entrance)…
I’ll Recognise The Entrance Next Time
…and then spent some time with a few of the charming Petworth Club members who showed us their mural (above) and the spelling challenges they faced with the donations board (below)…
He Who Would Valiant Be…
…we realised that a more realistic pastime ahead of my tennis match would be a wander around the village and the purchase of a plant or flowers for Sidney and Joan.
Petworth has plenty of art galleries and arty shops. Janie spotted some rather tasteful hand-blown coloured tumblers that she fancied as water glasses. By the time we had completed the non-trivial task of choosing each of the six she wanted – each was a different colour and had a different amount of bubbling-effect – it was time to move on to the next non-trivial task; choosing a plant or flowers for Sidney and Joan:
Choosing that splendid plant wasn’t as easy as it looks
Then back to the Petworth Real Tennis Club:
Can I hear banging on the roof?
It seems like a really friendly club. John Ritblat was one of the main movers and shakers in achieving the major refurb, which includes modern changing rooms and a charming kitchen and breakout area. The people who had been playing before us had brought a picnic lunch with them and were enjoying a convivial post-play repast while we played.
I found the Petworth surface very difficult to come to terms with in the first set, but made a bit more of a fist of it in the second.
Mark has come on leaps and bounds since we last played; his rackets background making him wicked fast around the court and able to get most balls, good or bad ones, back. My problems getting used to the surfaces were multiplied by his technique, in which he boasts the ball of multiple walls quite regularly.
Janie has a strange knack of shooting a little bit of video on points that I tend win. She very rarely captures one of my many losing points. She doesn’t delete stuff from the gizmo at the time; it’s just a strange statistical thing. So I can safely ascertain that I would win all my matches if she videoed all of them in their entirety. Perhaps I should kit her out with a proper video camera and have her with me for all my games…
…anyway, the match didn’t go my way at Petworth but we did get a good game in the end; the second set was tight.
Then lunch. Mark and Henrietta recommended The Hungry Guest which was indeed an excellent choice.
Mark certainly looks happy with his choice…
…in fact, everyone looks happy.
It is a glorious summer this year; the opportunity to eat and chat al fresco on occasions such as this is one not to be missed.
In fact, we ate and chatted so fervently, that we all lost track of time. Mark then suddenly realised the time and we hurriedly said our goodbyes to enable him to get to a 16:00 appointment.
Meanwhile Janie and I worked out that we really didn’t have time to take in the Petworth Gardens on this visit, so we had a coffee and mellowed out before hitting the road to Hove, for a family visit, privately Ogblogged.
Occasionally something really rather special emerges as a result of Ogblog. One such emergence, some months ago, was an e-mail out of the blue from Jon Gorvett, a friend from Keele University, who had stumbled across Ogblog and thus reconnected with me and with Simon Jacobs.
Anyway, subsequently one thing led to another, Jon eventually acquiesced to grace Blighty with his presence, so we (including Jon’s good lady, Stefanie) arranged to meet up for a meal together.
We settled on 35 New Cavendish, which I recalled from my previous visit with Janie, Chris & Charlotte, was pretty quiet. I thought our reunion would benefit from us being able to hear each other, which it did. The food is good at 35 New Cavendish, without being exceptional; the service is passable; the location worked well for all of us.
Thank you, Mr Waiter – top photographic work. L-R: Stefanie, Ian, Simon & Jon
Question for advanced students: identify Jon, Simon and Ian from this 1982 visual
The years seemed to peel away rapidly and easily. Lots has happened to all of us (and to the world) in the 30+ years since we last gathered, but it felt like a natural and familiar get together, despite the magnitude of that time interval. I certainly sensed that none of us have changed our world view or re-oriented our moral compasses.
As Simon said in a subsequent e-mail:
Inevitably, there was a sense of only scratching the surface as it’s an impossible task to meaningfully fill in the blanks of 30 plus years in an evening. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
Simon also expressed concern for Stefanie in all this:
I do hope Stefanie wasn’t too bored or bewildered… She didn’t appear to be, but then I’m not really in a position to know whether she was just being monumentally polite. It was very nice to meet her!
I echo those sentiments.
On learning that many people have Ogblog monikers – for example, Simon is known as “Awesome Simo” – Jon and Stefanie expressed an interest in acquiring Ogblog monikers of their own. I did offer them the opportunity to apply with their own choices of names, but the only thing that has been forthcoming so far is this super picture (below) of Jon drinking a pint in the Sneyd Arms at Keele, a couple of days after our gathering.
Later that same week, Jon sent us this snap from the Sneyd
So Ale-jar Jon and Sneyd Steff it is, unless or until they supply more suitable nicknames of their own.
Coincidentally, The Sneyd Arms does seem to have become a magnet recently for those nostalgia visits and photos amongst my old friends. Ashley Fletcher sent me this just a few months ago:
But I digress.
It was a very enjoyable evening at 35 New Cavendish with Jon, Simon and Stefanie. I very much hope, as Simon suggests, that we get a chance to do more than just scratch the surface of renewed acquaintance in the near future.
In fact, Janie and I were talking through a few ideas during the spring, but events intervened somewhat. John’s mum has been in hospital since April – indeed John had to cancel one of our midweek dinners because of that crisis – so Janie wondered whether they would prefer simply to come to Noddyland for dinner this time; making timings (and even the possibility of a last minute need to cancel) less of a stress.
John and Mandy jumped at the idea.
We reckoned that these two had not tasted Janie’s signature fillet of beef with wasabi mayonnaise, so we opted for that. My job…
…apart from making sure during the event that the beef is cooked to near perfect timing such that lovers of rare and well cooked beef alike get their wishes…
…was simply to get to the Ealing-ish part of town early enough to procure/collect the ordered joint of beef and then get to Noddyland in good time. Normally no problem on a Friday but one or two work matters tried hard to slow my departure from Cityland that afternoon.
But I managed to break free and get to Hook & Cleaver in reasonable time, where Jack sorted me out good & proper with a choice cut.
You don’t mess with these Hook & Cleaver Guys
The weather was set glorious, as it had been for several weeks, which made the dinner at Noddyland idea all the more suitable. We were able to spend most of the evening out of doors, retiring to the dining room only for the main course – which really was a magnificent joint of beef – and afters. The dessert comprised summer berries with some papaya mixed in, the health benefits of which John expounded upon with glee.
The earlier part of the evening was not only blessed with exceptionally good weather, but also with delicious breaded prawn tempura from Atari-Ya up the road together with some tasty wines. No-one was drinking all that much – John & Mandy needed to drive home that night in the circumstances and in any event on a hot evening quality rather than quantity was the order of the day.
It was a lovely opportunity simply to catch up with good friends, relax for an evening and enjoy good food and wine together in the homeliest of home environments. We can do something trendy and/or exciting up town next time…if we so choose.
…still refer to me as “young man”: Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall.
Janie and I ended up going to both of those places on the same day, but sadly, no-one referred to me as “young man” in either place. Perhaps our mistake, in this regard, at Lord’s, was to take the youngsters, Charlie and Chris (Lavender & Escamillo Escapillo), as our guests. These terms are comparative, after all. In other regards, however, this was not a mistake, because we all four had a most enjoyable day at Lord’s.
Janie and I got to Lord’s really early, to secure enough seats in Janie’s favourite pavilion spot; the upper sun deck. And in order to achieve that, we both got up ridiculously early. Janie was on picnic duty for this one – never a quick and dirty process in the morning however much preparation can be done the day before.
Janie had sourced quite a lot of the food (and indeed other weekend food) at Finn’s – which seemed most appropriate with Steve Finn skippering Middlesex for this match.
Steve Finn congratulating Max Holden for his fine bowling. Holden can bowl – who knew? Image embedded from Middlesex CCC Website
So the picnic basically comprised some cheesy biscuit nibbles, ham rolls, sweet nibbles, beef rolls, carrots, tomatoes and grapes. A bottle of Vouvray and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Yummy.
Our little group got quite jolly and at one point there was a round of hat swapping, which left Chris looking a little unusual in Janie’s big colourful floppy sun hat. I primed my camera for a photo, but Chris felt that, as I am a captain of industry, it would be best not to have a permanent record that showed me to have been in Chris’s company…or something like that.
A suitably sensible-looking photo
The occasion was, in part, timed to coincide with Chris’s birthday. He mumbled about producing a birthday honours list, on the basis that, if the queen could have such lists, why couldn’t he?
Meanwhile Charlie (the only one of us not drinking) occasionally went into schoolmarm mode in a vain attempt to restore decorum. She seems to quite like that role these days.
Also meanwhile, Middlesex bowled really well, we felt. At no point did Australia really get away and we kept revising our estimates of the potential Aussie score downwards. Nathan Sowter took an absolutely stunning catch to secure the first wicket and perhaps settle the nerves of some of the younger players such as Barber, off whose bowling that catch was taken.
The Middlesex batting looked a little weak on paper for this standard of opposition and so it proved on grass. It’s a shame that one or two of the more senior batsmen didn’t dig in a little more, which might have given the less-experienced players a bit less to do. Still, young Holden batted beautifully and the Middlesex players for sure did not embarrass themselves. They gave the Aussies a good workout and the crowd a good match to watch.
The weather smiled on us – the sun was out much of the time but not too hot – it was warm throughout the day, even when the sun went in.
We sat and chatted in the members’ lounge for a few minutes after stumps, to let the crowds subside then walked together to St John’s Wood before going our separate ways; the youngsters further north-west, while we went two stops south to Bond Street and on to “The Wig”, to see Django Bates Belovèd and guests play jazz.
An interesting mix of bluesy, Charlie Parker type jazz and more modern, experimental (almost free) jazz – the latter type pleasing us (especially Janie) less.
Below is a vid of the trio performing without guests.
One of the guests was an incredible saxophonist, Marius Neset. Below is a vid of him performing, but not with Django:
I liked the female vocalist, Claire Huguenin, more than Janie did – I thought her vocals added subtle texture to the music, whereas Janie felt that her voice got lost in the instrumentation. Below is a vid of her performing with her own crew:
Django Bates traditionally wears hats and has adopted the beanie in recent years. His beanie on the night had a sort-of blood and vomit colouring that might have been in honour of the MCC and our earlier visit to Lord’s…
…but on the other hand the colour match was almost certainly a coincidence.
One thing I do realise about no longer being so prone to the description “young man” is that days that start early and end as late as this are no longer in my comfort zone – nor Janie’s. We were ever so happy at the end of a successful and enjoyable day, but also ever so knackered…
…and both of us feel some sense of trepidation about taking our aching backs onto the tennis court…we’re leaving in five minute’s time as I write.
Postscript 10 June
Well, Janie managed to get her body moving again marginally better than I did. But as we came off the tennis court after a long session trying to get moving again, we saw Gerry – an elderly Irish dog-walker, with whom we quite often converse.
Good morning to you, young man, good morning young lady,
said Gerry. So there is a third place where we might still, just occasionally, be addressed in that manner – Boston Manor.
