Category: Friends and Family Events

Dining Out & Partying, Late April & May 1998

Oast House Archive / The Fat Duck, High Street, Bray

We had a few weeks off from theatre in late April & May 1998, but Janie and I did a fair bit of eating and drinking with friends instead.

30 April 1998 – “John Boy”

That is all the diary says, but my recent experience trawling medieval household accounts records for relevant factoids has led me to use a similar technique for my own stuff. I figured, if I could find a restaurant record in my archaic personal accounting system for 30 April 1998, it would have been my turn and I would, in those days, have named the place.

Hadley House

…it says, which I figure must have been a visit to Wanstead to see John’s new place and try a local Turkish. Quite a good suburban meal, if I remember that visit correctly. The place only survived another 10 years without our custom.

Postscript: John White chimed in to suggest that the place wasn’t Turkish but “a bit of upmarket suburban gastronomy.” I’m sure I recall something oriental about it – perhaps it was full of eastern promise – or just reasonably close to John’s beloved Orient.

2 May 1998 – David Party

I’m not 100% sure that 1998 was the year that DJ shlepped us all out in grand style to the Fat Duck to help Kim celebrate her birthday, but I have a feeling it was around about that year. DJ never let on where we were going in those days, sending vehicles for us at an appointed hour, so even Janie’s diary is silent on detail.

If it was The Fat Duck year, it was for sure a fantastic meal. Heston Blumenthal had not yet gone into the more excessive realms of food fancies, but was already wowing the crowds with magnificent food served imaginatively.

3 May 1998 – Mum & Dad Lunch

In the same way as Kim’s birthday inevitably (in those days) meant an event around that time, mum’s birthday falling three days after Kim’s meant more dining.

Not so high-falutin’, my household records tell me that Mum & Dad joined us at Lee Fook for lunch – they both liked a nice Chinese. This would have been the Westbourne Grove incarnation of Lee Fook, where the chef was memorably named Ringo.

Here is a link to a subsequent review of Ringo Lo’s work.

9 May or 16 May 1998…The Latter, I’m Pretty Sure, Phillie & Charlie Staying At Janie’s Place

Diary confusion which i think was to do with a planned visit on 9 May being moved to 16 May, but for sure they came and I am pretty sure that Janie cooked something splendid rather than us going out on that occasion. In my diary for 16th it says “Duchess”, which might mean that Pauline joined us that evening but might also be part of the same diary confusion as Janie and I went to the theatre with said Duchess the following week. That event also might have been shunted a week.

Come to think of it, in those days Pauline would no doubt have joined us for that meal on 16th too.

Some Weeks Without Theatre, Music Or Overseas Travel, But With People, Late March To Early April 1998

Grand Hotel, Hove (public domain picture)

As we had planned to be away for most of March, but changed our plans due to Phillipa’s indisposition, we had a few weeks of relatively low key activity that spring. Yet we ended up meeting and seeing a lot of people.

Introduced To Nigel Hinks, 20/27 March 1998

I very rarely talk about work-related matters in Ogblog, but by my meeting Charles Bartlett (in Autumn 1997) and Nigel Hinks in March 1998, through The Children’s Society, a tradition that endures a quarter of a century later was established:

Guest Piece by Nigel Hinks: The Birth Of The Heavy Rollers Tradition, Edgbaston, June 1998, Including The Revelations And Acts That Led To The Birth

In the matter of being introduced to Nigel, my diary has clear notes. I had a meeting with Clive Timms on 20 March 1998, at which he gave me Nigel Hinks & Jeff Tye’s telephone numbers. I had an initial telephone call with Nigel the following week (27 March) and the rest, as they say, history.

Charles & Nigel 15 years later, Chester-Le-Street: Clive didn’t mention the singing

A Resourceful Party, Thanks To Rupert Stubbs, 28 March 1998

Then a Chiswick home, latterly a Maldon Tea House

After speaking with Nigel on 27 March I went to play bridge at Maz’s place (almost certainly with Andrea and Tessa on that occasion), then on to Janie’s place.

That Saturday lunchtime Janie and I went to a party on Rupert Stubbs’s Thames Sailing Barge of a home, Resourceful. This might have been my first “return to the scene of the crime that was Michael Mainelli’s stag night” since that night.

Harrendous, A Poem For Michael Mainelli’s Stag Night, 3 May 1996

Janie and I remember this party surprisingly well. Rupie was going out with a lovely lass by the name of Sophie at that time. The party was mostly populated by people we didn’t know – i.e. we only knew a few of Rupert’s friends before the party. Most of the party goers were either Sophie’s fun friends, whom we got to know by dint of the party, and a rather cliquey crowd of Rupert’s colleagues from Saatchi & Saatchi who were, to say the least, not quite so friendly.

Here’s Rupie a few week’s later, at an early Z/Yen cricket match, donning whites in a Saatchi & Saatchi ad man stylee. The hat is an especially telling piece of non-cricket garb.

Anyway, the hospitality was lavish and there were plenty of fun people, so we had a really good time. We weren’t surprised when we learnt that Rupert had left Saatchi’s not all that long afterwards.

A Grand Time In Sussex, 3 & 4 April 1998

Records show that we stayed at The Grand Hotel in Hove – my first return to the place since my Geoffrey Boycott encounter there nearly 30 years earlier.

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

I think this visit was primarily to do with Janie doing a CPD course or joining a podiatrtist’s convention of some kind, but we were also able to combine it with a visit to Michelle & Neil’s [Epstein/Infield] place in Balcombe on the way back.

Central Balcombe Nigel Freeman, CC BY-SA 2.0

The hospitality will have been warm and friendly. I think that might have been the only time Janie visited Michelle & Neil’s place.

Lunch/Dinner With Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli Plus The Waste Land by T S Eliot, Wilton’s Music Hall, 3 January 1998

We weren’t expecting to see a show that day. Michael and Elisabeth invited us over “for the day” being a bit unspecific about the meal time, but suggesting that we might all take a swim in the pool of their newcapartment block. But, unbeknown to us, their plan was to serve an early meal and then pop out to see Fiona Shaw perform The Waste Land under Deborah Warner’s direction in Wilton’s Music Hall – within spitting distance of Michael and Elisabeth’s new place.

Good plan.

I recorded in my log that the piece was short and OK. I’ve never been over keen on The Waste Land as a piece of poetry. Fiona Shaw is of course marvellous and would probably hold one’s attention if reciting from the telephone directory.

Janie was intrigued by the T S Eliot aspect, as she had treated and continued to treat Valerie Eliot for many years.

Most interesting about the evening was seeing Wilton’s Music Hall, which had not been used for a performance for over 100 years and looked suitably distressed. I’m not sure that the health and safety brigade would today allow a performance in a place quite so distressed, but it was great to see it at that time. It has since been somewhat more revived.

Lyn Gardner warmed to the whole idea in The Guardian:

Waste Land Guardian Gardner Waste Land Guardian Gardner 16 Dec 1997, Tue The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

In the Standard, Robin Stringer reviewed the place with Nicholas de Jongh reviewed the show:

Wilton's Waste Land Standard Stringer de Jongh Wilton’s Waste Land Standard Stringer de Jongh 15 Dec 1997, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Charles Spencer in the Telegraph predictably preferred the poem to the place and grudgingly paid homage to Fiona Shaw:

Waste Land Telegraph SpencerWaste Land Telegraph Spencer 16 Dec 1997, Tue The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

David Benedict waxed lyrical about the whole thing in The Independent:

Waste Land Indy BenedictWaste Land Indy Benedict 13 Dec 1997, Sat The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A very memorable day and evening from our point of view.

A Few Poorly Explained Events In December 1997: Tropicana Restaurant With Bobbie & Roger, Bristol & Chinese Meal With Hussein & Saji, 5, 6 & 13 December 1997

Royal Swallow Hotel – Now Marriot Royal Picture by Elisa.rolle, CC BY-SA 4.0

The biggest mystery in this pack is the 5 December 1997 9:00 p.m. “Tropicana Restaurant with Bobbie & Roger”. Neither Janie nor I can remember Bobbie being with someone named Roger, nor can we remember a Tropicana Restaurant.

Not only that, but we checked in to the Royal Swallow in Bristol at 13:00 the next day, both having massages at 14:00 if Janie’s diary is to be believed…which it is. If I recall correctly, that was a treat to selves after a very busy time, which turned out to be a rather ordinary massage experience, a treat that we did not repeat at that place.

We’d have dined at Hilary & Chris’s place and exchanged Crimble presents, like you do…or rather like we did.

Chinese meal with Hussein and Saji (neighbours in Sandall Close) was, if I remember correctly, mostly me showing off my Chinese cooking skills after they had both admitted to knowing little about such cuisine the previous time we had dinner with them. I do vaguely remember that.

Lunch With John Random And Jenny Mill In Greenwich, “The Day That Princess Diana Died”, 31 August 1997

I remember this day very clearly, although I am sure there are many details the others can add. It would be super if John and Jenny were to chime in with their recollections.

Janie and I had arranged to meet John Random (a fellow NewsRevue writer) and his partner, Jenny Mill, in the Trafalgar Tavern for lunch. I suspect that plan was hatched when we gathered at the Canal Cafe a few weeks earlier – click here.

Janie and I had planned to take public transport to the north side of the embankment on the Isle of Dogs and walk the Greenwich Foot Tunnel – I think it had recently reopened after refurbishment back then.

But while we were preparing to go out, the phone rang. It was my mum. My mum never used to ring on a Sunday morning – she would almost always wait for me to ring her.

Mum sounded distressed.

“It’s so awful, a tragedy,” mum said, through tears of anguish.

I thought something must have happened to my dad or some other close relative/friend.

“What’s happened, Mum?”, I asked. “Try to gather yourself and speak slowly.”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s happened’? You must know what’s happened. I know you don’t care much for the royal family…”

“…Mum, we’re going out shortly, we haven’t seen the papers or switched on the TV or radio this morning; just tell me what’s happened.”

Mum told me. Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed had died in a car crash overnight.

I told Janie.

Janie turned on the TV.

Time passed.

We set off for Greenwich much later than we’d intended – so the idea of using public transport and a stroll through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel went out of the window.

Plan B was to revert to the Janie norm – we got into the car and drove to Greenwich. By the time we found somewhere to park (we hadn’t thought about that bit)…eventually finding a place near the market but some way from the Trafalgar…then walked from the parking place to the Trafalgar…we were quite late.

John and Jenny were neither fazed nor surprised that we were a bit late in the circumstances.

I remember John and I bemoaning the fact that a rich seam of our topical comedy for NewsRevue had died in that car crash along with the victims of the tragedy. We also had one of those, “when, if ever, will we be able to make Princess Diana jokes again?” conversations.

We had a very good lunch and talked about much else besides the day’s news.

I recall the four of us having a bit of a stroll after lunch.

After we parted company with John and Jenny, Janie and I wandered around Greenwich market for a while, as the car was parked near there and we were in no rush to get home.

I remember buying a dozen or so CDs that afternoon, more or less doubling the size of my CD collection. I had only bought a CD player for the first time a year or so earlier. Being a reel-to-reel and records dude, I was wicked-late to CDs. I bought mostly sixties compilations that day, plus a few iconic albums; Pet Sounds (Beach Boys), Gift From A Flower To A Garden (Donovan) and The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff and others) to name but three.

I remember saying at the time (1997) that my previous visit to Greenwich was with my parents and must have been about 20 years earlier, but I was surprised and chuffed when I looked it up this morning (31 August 2017) and realised that my previous visit was exactly 20 years earlier; 31 August 1977. I have written up that mini break with my parents mostly as a photo piece – click here.

No pictures from the day that Princess Diana died, but here is one from the 1977 set. I couldn’t possibly have imagined what I’d be up to 20 years later, let alone 40 years later, when the following picture was taken.

Time Traveller. Me at the Greenwich meridian line 31 August 1977

A Visit To NewsRevue With Janie, John Random and Friends, 1 August 1997

I went to NewsRevue so often in the 1990s, I’d rarely even note it in my diary.

Thursday night was “writers meeting and see NewsRevue night” most weeks.

But on this particular week things must have been different, as John Random has recently (July 2017) sent me a note from his own diary, as follows:

IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY – SORT OF

John is such a nice chap, his note doesn’t actually ask me to upload the lyric so he can read it.

But I’m a nice chap too and I realise that a revisit to the lyric will please John, me and perhaps other Ogblog readers too, so “up it goes”…as Bill Clinton no doubt frequently used to put it.

Dinner At Les Porte Des Indes, With Kim & Micky, 28 June 1997

Photo of Les Porte Des Indes by trolvag, CC BY-SA 3.0

Crickey we were dashing about a lot at that time.

After taking The Duchess to see Carmen at the ENO on the Thursday evening, Janie and I both worked full days on the Friday (Janie starting crack of dawn) ending up in New Orleans (in Ealing, not Louisiana) for a late supper on Friday night…

…then tennis at 10:00 on Saturday (not much change there in 25 years except the location) blah blah.

But then we relaxed for an evening at La Porte Des Indes on the junction of Old Quebec Street & Bryanston Street – recently (25 years on) departed but a relatively new restaurant then.

Below is Helen Fielding’s review from when it opened the previous year:

La Porte Des Indes Fielding IndyLa Porte Des Indes Fielding Indy 17 Mar 1996, Sun The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Janie and I both remember our evening with Kim and Micky there as a fun, celebratory evening with good food and wine.

The place looked like this:

Picture by the (now defunct) restaurant “borrowed” as fair use via Open Table

Laurie Johnson’s London Big Band, Barbican Hall, 8 June 1997

This was a weird but memorably fun evening.

Janie had known Laurie & (especially) Dot Johnson for a great many years – the latter being one of Janie’s clients.

Laurie was very well known in show business and media circles, primarily for writing TV theme tunes such as the following, which Janie and I both remembered fondly from our childhoods:

In 1997, it seems that Laurie, in an attempt to stave off dotage, was launching an autumnal recording and touring career with a new combo; Laurie Johnson’s London Big Band.

Dot kindly invited us to the 8 June concert and the star-studded after show party.

We were among the youngest people in the audience that night. Actually, I think our combined ages at that time (75-ish) might still have made us among the youngest people at the show that night.

Titter ye not, people – lounge music was “a thing” that year. Further, one of Laurie Johnson’s recordings with that new combo, Theme From the Professionals, had been in the pop charts during the preceding few weeks, making the event far more of a hip event than any of us might have imagined:

Janie and I, seated among the guest celebs in that central block of seats deemed the best in the Barbican Hall, enjoyed watching the bobbing heads of the elderly concert-goers in front of us, making micro-movements in recognition of the swinging beat of the music.

Indeed, for years…nay decades after the concert, Janie and I would mimic the uber-syncopation, not least the cymbal beats, of the Big Band’s rendition of the This Is Your Life Theme:

That one seemed to go down especially well with the elderly bobbing-head brigade.

The after show party was very enjoyable. I guess that we technically met a great many celebs: Laurie Johnson, Ron Moody, Jack Parnell, Don Lusher, Kenny Baker, Benny Green and Tommy Whittle were all on the bill…

…as was a lovely young woman named Alexia, who was a singing waitress at a restaurant that Laurie and Dot liked. They had taken Alexia somewhat under their wings and were promoting her through this show/tour.

Clipping from The Evening Standard 19 June 1997

We had a long chat with her – she seemed a really delightful young person – and resolved to try her Ripe Tomato eatery. To our shame never got around to eating there. It has only recently (25 years on) closed down and is only a few doors down from the All Saints Road location where we find my [Harris] family during the first world war, soon after arriving in Britain.

We didn’t meet John Dankworth & Cleo Laine that evening, much to Dot’s chagrin, as she seemed very keen for Janie to meet them, but for some reason (health we think) they were unable to attend. Nor was Lionel Bart there, possibly for the same sort of reason.

I do however remember chatting at length with Herbert Kretzmer, who was a good friend of the Johnsons and was very interesting company for quite a while at that function. Fellow lyricists and all that – me and Herbie had a great deal in common. 😉

Go on, bob your head gently to the swinging strains of the This Is Your Life theme again – you know you want to:

A Crazy Fortnight, Then Up To Stratford-Upon-Avon, 6 to 18 April 1997

The Shakespeare Hotel by Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0

After our mega trip to the Middle East, our homecoming and then The Homecoming…

…the sort of fortnight that looks, twenty-five years later, like an utterly mad way to over-fill one’s diary and hare around the country like a mad thing.

A tour for Barnardo’s. with whom I was working quite a lot back then, took in Yorkshire, Wales and Barkingside in the space of a few days, interrupted only for some meetings with other clients and a foreshortened weekend which included dinner with Janie’s lovely neighbours, Hussein and Saji on the Saturday.

I guess the frantic aspect of the work was somewhat self-inflicted, as I had arranged a proper long weekend in Stratford only a couple of weeks after returning from a three-week holiday.

Our main purpose in Stratford was to take in a couple of plays, which I shall write up individually and separately. On this slightly extended visit I do recall also having the time to have a proper good wander around the town and take in some of the touristic sites we wouldn’t normally find time to see when visiting Stratford for the theatre.

Was I welcome in these places or was I Bard?

We stayed on until Tuesday 22 April and went to a Seder (perhaps at Jacquie’s, perhaps at Mum & Dad’s) the evening of our return.

A Few Diary Notes & Memories About Evenings, Second Half Of January 1997

Photo by Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0

18 January 1997: John Random (Burns) & Jenny Mill At Sandall Close

I think this was the first time we had dinner with those two. Janie dutifully wrote in her diary “fish only, no meat” so my guess is that we did indeed eat fish.

Who would have thought that, inadvertently, we’d see those two for a meal almost exactly 25 years later, but we did indeed go to their place in Bromley for a super meal on Sunday 16 January 2022.

24 January 1997: Bridge At Maz’s Place

I’m guessing here, but the four would probably have been Maz (obvs), me (also obvs), Andrea and Tessa at that time.

I think Maz was living in Becklow Road, Acton by then.

The eating and drinking will have been as central to the evening as the bridge, if not more so.

25 January 1997: Dinner At Stuart & Cathy’s Place

Stuart Kent (“Little Mick” Kent, my dad’s cousin’s son) and his partner Cathy Andrews.

They lived in Muswell Hill in a rather eccentric-looking penthouse apartment designed in an uber-1970s garish style, which they had inherited from the previous owner – an unusual look they clearly liked & had enhanced.

Very pleasant evenings, all three, I’m sure.