I have scanned my hand-written cards which contain the entirety of the eulogy, including the crossed out bits that were edited out in the interests of flow and sticking to time. I hope interested folk can read my writing. If not, any half-useful Large Language Model worth its salt should be able to take the images and turn them into clear font text for you to read…well, in any case, you can enlarge the images yourself to scrutinise any bits that look interesting yet hard to read.
Professor Tim Connell had no idea what he was unleashing when he asked me to produce a party piece for the nascent Gresham Society Soirée.
I had no idea what sort of audience we might have, although Tim suggested that he was encouraging Gresham Society members to bring youngsters with them to give the event an age-diverse, party feel. That year, there were a few youngsters in the end.
Unaccustomed as I was to putting on party pieces at that time…a dozen or more years later I am far more seasoned at it…I fell back on material I had prepared or used in the past.
As a youngster myself, I had often used Any Old Iron as a party piece for entertaining old folk, as the old folk at the time that I was a young person were steeped in music hall material.
I had prepared a version of Any Old Iron with a rap break a couple of years earlier…for the life of me I cannot remember quite why…I think I had intended to use it at a Long Finance conference, as Brian Eno had been recommending that we break up the serious s*** with some musical audience participation. Hilariously predictable results ensued, not least a roasting in the Evening Standard…
…but I digress, other than to clarify that my Any Old Iron with a rap break (aka a vocal cadenza) remained on the e-jotter unused in 2009, until the Gresham Society Soirée of 2011. Here’s the very piece:
I decided to dress up in my most spivy outfit (see headline picture from the Lingfield races a few months earlier), including a Rolex-like watch and chain which I had given to my father in the 1990s and then re-inherited on his passing.
I also took a clutch of old pennies from my childhood old pennies collection, as I figured that the youngsters present wouldn’t appreciate what a weighty and princely-looking sum “tuppence” might seem unless they received some coin of the appropriate era.
I also decided, with the benefit of hindsight, unwisely, to involve the pianist, David Jones, not only in playing the piece for me (which of course he was able to do with ease and aplomb). Unbeknown to me at the time, David is a master of the party piece in which you sing faster and faster – in his case the far more difficult Elements Song by Tom Lehrer…
…I am digressing again…
…anyway, I asked David also to join in some business, which occurred to me as we practiced ahead of the show, where I would approach the piano and say:
Hit me!
…in the time honoured fashion to encourage a musician to play. The joke was that David was to feign misunderstanding the entreaty and pretend to throw a punch at me.
We practiced the manoeuvre a couple of times. My final note to David was that he would need to put more effort into the fake-punch and I would have to put more motion into the fake receipt of the punch to make the device look realistic.
But in the heat of show, as it were, David possibly over-enthused…or I under-dodged…such that I really did receive a punch from David, which made me stop for a moment and say:
Ow, that really did hurt
…before carrying on. I think the audience thought it was all part of the show, so they laughed just as we had wanted them to. The song went down well. The bruise wasn’t too bad. David is still talking to me…just about…but perhaps not so open to my last minute bright ideas for performance tweaks any more.
Also there was the backdrop of the riots that summer, which were unfolding as we arrived and during our stay, although leafy Harborne seemed unaware of or at least untouched by them.
Naturally Nigel and I made the most of it without Chas. It would be cruel to harp on about the extent to which we were nevertheless able to enjoy ourselves despite Chas’s indisposition. In any case, I doubtless harped sufficiently when I saw Charles again a bit later that season.
It must have been especially galling for Chas as I seem to recall he had gone to a great deal of trouble that year to secure our “honorary” front row seats, book nets, book rooms, book an Indian feast…oy!
I believe that I drove up that year having booked the extra night after the second day’s play. That might have been Nobby’s only visit to Harborne Hall.
Janie and I were struggling to remember all the details of this short break in Buxton with Chris and Hilary, in part to take in the Buxton Festival Fringe. Strangely, no photos.
I think we intended to walk but I don’t think we walked much, if at all. Perhaps the weather failed to smile on us.
Janie remembers speaking quite a lot with Todd at Nat’s Kitchen, before we stayed and also while we were there – he was helpful and full of advice. Perhaps I’ll be able to expand this entry when we do some archaeology on Janie’s diary.
I’m pretty sure there were one or two things that Hil and Chris were interested in seeing that we really didn’t want to do.
I have a feeling Janie and I went to see a folky-fusiony outfit in a basement bar type place one evening while Hil and Chris went to see a naff-sounding show which even they admitted afterwards had not been worth the candle.
The Importance Of Being Frank was a bit of a compromise choice which I’m pretty sure we all went to see and found funny in parts.
We also dined at the Old Hall Hotel one time – I think Hil and Chris were staying there and I think that was the first night…but our memories on this one are not great.
The only other thing I remember is the backdrop of the trip supposedly being an opportunity for the workmen to finish off snagging Noddyland (Janie had moved in a few weeks previously).
We returned to find only a couple of items from the list done; the rest of the time they had no doubt spent, as they had spent most of the preceding weeks, giving priority to the next big job. It took tears to invoke enough shame and sympathy to get them back in to finish off in the following few days.
The main plan was to have a tapas meal at Barrica. Janie and I were perhaps inspired by the tapas at Providores a few weeks earlier, perhaps we were all inspired by Charlie’s suggestion that some of us might be eating more than others of us due to various lunchtime arrangements.
Anyway, we met for a drink first of all at the trendy MyHotel just the other side of Tottenham Court Road. It is now (2022) called MyBloomsbury. I went with some trepidation as, some months earlier, I had taken coffee there with Mary, debriefing after a meeting nearby. A miscommunication meant that both of us thought the other had paid and we had both walked out without paying. I discovered the inadvertent wrongdoing only come expense claim time at the end of that month.
I thought openness and transparency would be the best approach, so on arrival I informed the waiter of the mistake on the previous occasion and said that I owed the place for a couple of cups of coffee.
The waiter laughed nervously and told me not to worry about it. I think he thought I might be a dangerous lunatic.
Still, the place is indeed trendy so cocktail hour had the right buzz and the right sorts of drinks. I enjoyed a dry white wine as per usual.
Barrica’s food was pretty good, authentic Spanish tapas, although it seemed a bit crowded and noisy (I guess it was a Friday evening) compared with the other excellent tapas places I had previously tried around that area.
Very soon after Janie and I returned from India and Sri Lanka, Janie said that she wanted to start looking for a house.
Kim was a very helpful friend in the early stages of that process, spending time going around with Janie looking at quite a lot of unsuitable properties which helped also to sharpen the mind on what might be suitable. I would not have been a patient friend for that part of the process.
I had my first sighting of the house that was to become our Noddyland home on 2 April. Janie and Kim had seen it a couple of weeks earlier, I think, but it was not so easy for the agency to get us access via the tenants, so my visit with Janie took some organising. I recall seeing a couple of other properties ahead of seeing the actual Noddyland house that we bought.
We made an offer on the house within minutes of seeing it (2 April) and I realise, looking at the diary for the next few weeks, that we managed to get the trnasaction completed remarkably quickly. At the time, it seemed to be taking for ever, but that’s “impatient me” for you.
14 April 2011 – Yet More Mock Tudor – An Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner
Ivan Shakespeare
Ivan Shakespeare was the first of our NewsRevue gang to shuffle off this mortal coil [did you see what I did there?], in February 2000. We’ve been holding gatherings in his name, usually three or four times a year, ever since.
I have little on the record about the 14 April 2011 gathering. For certain it happened, as John Random, as usual, sent out reminders and I had correspondence with him before and after the event. Not least, John thanked me for a plethora of Indian language newspapers for him to use as teaching aids.
John’s post dinner round robin note did not name names of those who attended, nor of any who did not, so it would have been some but not all of the usual suspects. In those days, we still gathered at Cafe Rouge, Clifton Road…now long gone.
23 April 2011 – Return To Noddyland
That morning we met the charming Saffari couple who were selling us the house. Janie also arranged for someone (presumably Johnny Carpet) to come and measure up so I think we all sort-of knew for sure that the deal was going through by then, although there were still some i’s to dot and t’s to cross.
There was some peculiar business about a ransom strip in front of the gate that had been put there for conservation estate purposes but which had landed itself in some sort of legal limbo which meant that, technically speaking, The Queen might have inherited the right to squat outside and deny us access to our own house.
“One is so happy to be here in Noddyland”
We didn’t discuss that technicality with the Saffari couple that day; we mostly talked about what a lovely house it is…which it is.
The next day we went to Kim & Micky’s for lunch, primarily to help Kim celebrate her birthday a few days early. I should imagine they went off to St Trop for the birthday proper. We also almost felt that we were celebrating our house purchase, but not quite, because you don’t celebrate that sort of thing until the ink is on the contracts.
13 May 2011 – Sealing The Deal With Ink & Tapas
The diary note says:
5.00 Brian Fraiman => tapas
Janie and I went to Brian’s office to scribble on various pieces of paper to make the house purchase happen. Brian declined to join us across the way at The Providores & Tapa Room, where Janie and I celebrated properly on a glorious spring evening by eating some tasty tapas and enjoying a couple of glasses of wine. The tapas int his place was a sort-of Kiwi fusion with Spanish tapas style and was very good indeed. I think Johnboy and I went there to try the restaurant proper some months or possibly more than a year later.
This visit to the Royal College of Music (RCM) was my first proper excursion visit with The Gresham Society, following my initial singalong taster session at Wilton’s Music Hall a few weeks earlier.
For me, it was especially fascinating to see the fine collection of musical instruments, some very early, not least because Janie and I listen to a lot of early music. Subsequently I have become a (very amateur) practitioner of early music myself, although only with my voice and my mock Tudor instrument.
My mock Tudor baroquelele – strangely not in the RCM collection
I think the Gresham Society crowd went on to enjoy libations somewhere near the RCM, whereas I had other fish to fry that evening.
A Tribute To Ken Campbell
I was a long-time fan of Ken Campbell and his superb comedy work. Janie less so.
This early evening round table discussion at The Royal Court worked out very well for me, as I was able to fit it in between the Gresham Society Visit To The Royal College Of Music and our dinner engagement with Charlie & Chris.
Chris had said that he would be unable to get to The Henry Root in South Kensington for dinner until about 7:30. Janie was keen to have a drink and a chat with Charlie “before the boys get here”, so the plans were well set.
Or, if that link ever fails, here is an upload of the download, as it were:
ROYAL COURT ROUNDTABLE TRIBUTE TO KEN CAMPBELL
Dinner With Janie, Charlie & Chris At the Henry Root
Unfortunately there was no recording, upload or download of the sparkling conversation in The Henry Root when Janie, Charlie, Chris and I gathered there later that evening.
The Henry Root, which was a rather jolly bistro restaurant named after William Donaldson’s wonderful letter-writing character, is now long gone. It was Ok; Janie and I dined there more than once in those heady days of the early teenies.
That particular evening with Charlie and Chris was an especially good one, as I remember it.
I only vaguely remember this small client do on the embankment.
26-27 March 2011 – Hotel Du Vin (Hil & Chris) Sergio’s
A trip to Bristol to see the in-laws (and possibly their boys). We stayed at the Hotel Du Vin – which we liked in its earlier days, when the staff were friendly and they would park our car. Sergio’s is an Italian Restaurant in Bristol which was well located for our choice of hotel.
28 March 2011 – Seaxe Club AGM.
No doubt there will have also been an excellent discussion forum with a couple of young Middlesex CCC players and some of the coaching staff that evening – as was/is usually the way with the Seaxe Club.
1 April 2011 – Kim & Micky dinner
It looks like we went to their place on this occasion.
…my first working day back in fact – we had a Z/Yen team symposium that afternoon followed by an evening of entertainment courtesy of the Gresham Society at Wilton’s Music Hall.
Very convenient for Michael and Elisabeth Mainelli, this, as Wilton’s is next door to them. It is a fabulous venue, steeped in history but, at that time anyway, in a very dilapidated state.
I think this was a proto Gresham Society event, probably connected to the AGM but before the latterly traditional AGM & Dinner. I also think this might have been a prototype of the thing that became the Gresham Society Biennial Soiree, as the first of those recorded in my diary was later that same year.
Anyway, this event, as I recall, was primarily a Gilbert & Sullivan evening, hosted by Professor Robin Wilson (who is an expert on Savoy Operas as well as mathematics) and mostly comprising performers from his associated choirs and musical troupes.
I seem to remember being required to sing along a fair bit and I think this might have been the first time (but certainly not the last time) I heard the Gresham Professor version of “A Policeman’s Lot”, both in English and, naturally, also in Latin.
I don’t remember how many of us retired to Café Spice Namasté after the Gresham Society do – quite a lot of us I think. In those days Café Spice was quite near Wilton’s – in Leman Street I think or at least very near there. I felt very at home in there having just spent a month eating Southern Asian food.
A very good evening – for me a rather jolly way to return to the world of work.
I can’t remember exactly who was there that year, but Kim & Micky for sure would have been there. Gary & Clifford too, I’m pretty sure. The Selby couple were usually there back then. Jeff Harvey occasionally joined us, sometimes with his latest squeeze, sometimes without.
A bit ambitious, going to the movies after one of DJ’s lunches. No wonder neither of us remember all that much about it. Good movie, I do remember that much.
