Category: Friends and Family Events

We Partied Like It’s 1999…Because It Was December 1999

Sailing Barge Lady Daphne, Photo by Jtaylor100, CC BY-SA 4.0

“Surprise” Party For Elisabeth Mainelli, Lady Daphne, 2 December 1999

Janie has written directions to St Katherine’s Dock in excruciating detail in her diary for that event. I merely wrote “surprise! boat”.

I have a funny feeling that this surprise party was not the best kept secret in the City that year. I sensed that Elisabeth feigned surprise rather than was seriously surprised.

It would have taken quite a ruse to lure her to the boat in December on the evening of her birthday without some suspicion arising.

Still, I recall that it was a good party.

Caroline’s Engagement Party, The Ruts, 4 December 1999

We moved our Hedda Gabler theatre tickets from the Saturday to the Friday in order to attend this party.

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, A Version by Frank McGuiness, Theatre Royal Plymouth At The Richmond Theatre, 3 December 1999

I hope Caroline and Alan appreciate being given priority over Francesca Annis for our Saturday night entertainment.

*Spoiler Alert* The Caroline and Alan story had a happier ending than Hedda Gabler.

Joking apart, it was a great party as I remember it. Caroline’s mum went to town producing amazing grub for the party and there was a very happy buzz about the evening.

Z/Yen Seasonal Event – Park Inn, Wellington Terrace W2, Preceded By Drinks At Ian’s Newly Refurbished Flat, 17 December 1999

Sofa, so good – the living room in my flat

This was one of the more memorable Z/Yen seasonal events…but mostly for the wrong reasons.

Firstly, there was a mad rush to get my flat ready to accommodate the drinks party at mine ahead of the dinner at The Park Inn. Gavin’s snail-like progress was doing Janie’s and my head in – it would have been TOO embarrassing to have had to relocate the drinks because the flat wasn’t ready.

At one point- I think it was the preceding Friday as Janie and I both took that day off for this purpose – Janie even ended up on her hands and knees helping Gavin to varnish the floorboards – subjected to the indignity not only of doing the work for which we were paying but being bossed around by Gavin in the style that had put off his many attempts at engaging assistants:

GAVIN: NO! Don’t do it like that! Do it like this!

JANIE: Does it really make a difference, Gavin? I can’t see the difference and we need to get this finished.

GAVIN: NO! NOT LIKE THAT!

To add to the problematic nature of this event, several member of staff went down with an especially nasty lurgy in the days running up to the event. I think in the end only about seven or eight people attended, one of whom was Linda Cook who turned up despite feeling under the weather and ended up crashing out on my (brand new) bed and then going home rather than staying for dinner.

Fortunately, we knew May at The Park Inn so well that the constantly reducing of numbers and the eventual relatively small table was all handled with her usual professional and service-oriented demeanour, so all who ate, ate well.

No quizzes and no Secret Santa yet. Linda got into her stride from the early 2000s onwards in those regards.

Michael wrote the song that year…

Toil and Play

God rest ye Z/Yen par-tic-i-pants,
There’s no point in dismay
Remember Christmas parties
All end in disarray
Don’t save yourself from whiskey’s pow’r
You might as well a’stray

O tidings of bromo and fizz
Bromo and fizz
O tidings of bromo and fizz

From year to year we reappear
And wonder all the same
How business so chaotic
With such an awful name
Can still inspire Nippon songs
And ever-woeful games

O tidings of toil and play
Toil and play
O tidings of toil and play

But when to Ze-e-Yen they came
Where their dear project lay
And found us all hung-over
But still prepared to pay
We found our invoice quick and fast
And saved ’em from May-Day

O tidings of toil and pay
Toil and pay
O tidings of toil and pay

Only Michael could choose the words “bromo and fizz” to replace comfort and joy. It seems that Bromo-Seltzer has a long and (in)glorious history in song lyrics. Who knew? (Well, Michael did, obviously). Perhaps you had to be there…or to have sent a sick note at the time…to get the gist of that song.

Wanton disregard for puns and comedic timing

An Attractive Young Note In Janie’s Diary, But Not In Mine, 14 November 1999…Or Do We Mean 12 November 1999

In Janie’s diary for Sunday 14 November, but not mine, the following reminder – presumably based on me saying to Janie, “let’s not forget to listen to…”

The Attractive Young Rabbi. Barry Grossman. 11:30 Radio 4.

Word must have reached me through the NewsRevue community that Barry Grossman’s radio series, The Attractive Young Rabbi, was about to broadcast.

What do you mean, you missed it at the time and now can’t get hold of it?

What do you mean, you heard it at the time but can’t remember it?

It’s there to be heard on the Internet Archive if you now where to look. Click this link, for example, and you’ll find the first series.

Tracy-Anne Oberman was also a NewsRevue (or more specifically, SportsRevue) alum, so this series was definitely a tribute to our NewsRevue “Class of ’92”.

Class Of ’92 Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 5 October 2017

There’s Barry in the Guinness World Record photo, with specs, holding the award.

I enjoyed listening to The Attractive Young Rabbi again. It is quintessentially BBC Radio Four comedy.

Postscript: Barry Grossman Writes…

Thanks Ian, except you and Janey [sic] must have missed it because it was actually on Friday, the 12th of November.

And there were no i-players, BBC Sounds or internet archives in those more innocent times. Perhaps you taped it on your reel-to-reel tape recorder the size of a house and listened to it on the Sunday.

I responded to Barry as follows:

Weird but clearly true that the broadcast was on the Friday not the Sunday, yet the note is unquestionably written in the Sunday section of Janie’s diary. 

My guess is that Janie wrote the note there because the Friday page was completely crammed with patient appointments.  The Saturday block is covered in notes about something completely different and unintelligible.  So the only space for an additional note on that page was the Sunday block. 

Quite right that there was no public domain technology to help us listen at an alternative time, but Janie did have a midi hi-fi thing in the maisonette that would enable you to record onto cassette from the radio.  I was out visiting clients that day, but she would have been able to press the record button on her midi gadget at the appointed hour.  My guess is that the note was a reminder to do that.

No gargantuan reel-to-reel tape recorder available at that time – that device lives in the flat and the flat was being refurbished that autumn.  Probably just as well – Janie was reluctant enough to press a “record” button on a bog-standard midi system.  My reel-to-reel would have seemed like something out of Mission Impossible to Janie…

… https://youtu.be/4y9NtHlJvbY …

…which would have made listening to the recording on the Saturday or Sunday…impossible.

Bank Holiday & Birthday Treats: Dinner At Nobu & A Party At Lammas Park Tennis Courts, 28 & 29 August 1999

Nobu Tuna Sashimi Salad by Tzahy Lerner, CC BY-SA 3.0

Janie’s treat to me, I suppose: a slap up meal at Nobu in Mayfair, which was all the rage back in the late 1990s and priced accordingly.

We were there just a couple of months after Boris Becker’s now famous tryst in the broom cupboard, of which we were blissfully unaware when we visited.

Everyone who was anyone dined at Nobu back then…and so did we. I recall the meal being fabulous and I also realise that it was the first (but far from the last) time I tasted black cod in miso sauce. Exquisite.

Lammas – returning to the scene some years later

Back then we played tennis at Lammas Park Tennis Courts every weekend – much as we now play at Boston Manor. It was run by a chap named Larry and his belle, whose name escapes me. When things went awry between those two (not long after this party) things went rapidly downhill at Lammas Park until we had long since escaped and then the place got taken over by Will To Win (or initially one of its predecessors).

Anyway, this bank holiday party was billed as “party – bring wine”. Which we did. It was informal and fun I’m sure.

“Move Geddy To Country Quarters”, 15 August 1999

The Country Residence

Having berated Daisy for her diary entry from four days earlier which read “leave London for Peter’s party” (in Streatham)…

The Day That Dad Turned Eighty And We Threw A Party For Him After Celestial Bodies, Like, Totally Eclipsed His Special Day, 11 August 1999

…I discover in Daisy’s diary, unquestionably in my handwriting…

Move Geddy To Country Quarters

(Ealing)…

..immediately after, in Daisy’s own writing, “10:00 Shola tennis”.

We were having a bit of tuition from Shola that summer at Lammas Park. This paid dividends for us in ways we would never have expected, when the Lammas Park set up went tits-up a few months later and Shola helped us to find “refugee status” at the then yet to be refurbished Boston Manor courts, where we play to this day (25 years later).

But I digress.

Move Geddy to country quarters was a temporary measure. I had bought the Clanricarde Gardens flat that summer and arranged for the very talented (but ultimately volatile) Gavin to refurbish the flat for me.

This was to be a bit of a tester for me and Janie. We’d been going out together for seven years by then. Could we live with each other for six weeks. I mean, it was only going to be for six weeks…

…but naturally those six weeks turned into four months…

…those are other stories.

Coping, coping…

The Day That Dad Turned Eighty And We Threw A Party For Him After Celestial Bodies, Like, Totally Eclipsed His Special Day, 11 August 1999

Dad partying like it’s 1999…because it WAS 1999

It was Dad’s eightieth birthday. I asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted a party.

Mum said he didn’t want a party.

MUM: You don’t want a party, Peter. What would you want a party for?

DAD: It’s my eightieth birthday. Ian’s asked me what I want. I want a party. I haven’t had a party before. I’ll probably never have a party again.

ME: You want a party? You shall have a party.

Janie and I organised a party. Our household records indicate that we ordered wine to be delivered from Oddbins and pies to be delivered and served by The Pie Man – much as we had done for “The Duchess of Castlebar” (Pauline’s) 70th a few weeks earlier:

Dinner With The Family: A 70th Birthday Do For The Duchess, 3 July 1999

My diary reminds me that I went to a lunchtime party at Theodore Goddard’s offices (at the invitation of Graham Stedman) to witness the total solar eclipse, which the celestial bodies had obviously arranged to honour my father’s 80th birthday.

I think I made my way to Woodfield Avenue by public transport from that party, while Janie brought the car having spent the earlier part of the day working. I’ll rephrase that: I spent the earlier part of the day working by dint of being “looked after” by our company lawyers, while Janie had a more regular working morning in the company of several pairs of feet.

In those days, Janie obviously still thought of crossing the river to visit my parents as a major expedition beyond her normal boundaries. Her appointment diary entry reads:

3.00 pm – leave London for Peter’s party.

…in Streatham, which, apparently, is not in London. Anyway…

…the party went swimmingly well.

I’m struggling to remember who was there and we only have a handful of photos from that party, which were in “Mum’s Photo Box”, identifying only a few of the guests.

Pam and Michael Harris were there, as evidenced pictorially. The neighbours were there, in the form of Eardley and Adrienne Dadonka, plus John & Lily Hogan. Peter Harris (no relation) from next door confirms that he was away, unfortunately. Norman and Marjorie Levinson were there, the pictures prove. I remember Lionel and Dina Aarons being there. I’m sure that Stanley and Doreen Benjamin would have been there if around, as would Malcolm and Delia Cedar, John & Angela Kessler (my cousin, Dad’s niece), Len and Jacquie Briegal (cousins and close friends from Mum’s side), plus Leatrice Levene (Arnold had recently died back then). But I have a feeling quite a lot of “the usual suspects” were away.

I think there were about 20 people there all in all. The size of the crowd didn’t matter – Dad was no Trump (a little August 2024 topical joke there, as I write 25 years after Dad’s event). Dad had a great time as evidenced by the couple of photos I have inherited. I wonder who took them? They are the only pictures I have of the Woodfield Avenue living room from that angle, pretty much as it looked for most of mum’s life and nearly half of Dad’s.

I’m so glad that we did throw the party Dad wanted on that auspicious day. Dad wasn’t really a party person, but most of the time he did know how to have fun.

I know who took this picture of Dad: Me. August Bank Holiday Weekend, 1977.

Dinner With The Family: A 70th Birthday Do For The Duchess, 3 July 1999

Pie depicted – Alpha from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0

Judging by all the scribbles in Janie’s diary, she put a heck of a lot of effort into arranging a family do at Sandall Close for her mum, Pauline (Duchess of Castlebar)’s 70th birthday.

The out of town bits of the family will have stayed at local hotels.

The menu and arrangements look to me as though she got Murray Tollemache aka The Pie Man to cater this one. He was certainly one of our favourite dudes for Z/Yen functions at that time and the order list of pies is a bit of a giveaway.

Strangely, 25 years after the event (and many more years after Murray started The Pie Man business, he’s still going strong under the name TPM Catering.

Most of the family probably appreciated the effort that Janie had gone to. The Duchess almost certainly didn’t.

Coincidentally, Janie and I went to see Dinner With The Family with the Duchess the following week.

Dinner With The Family by Jean Anouilh, The Questors Student Group, 10 July 1999

Michael & Elisabeth For A Japanese Meal, 20 February 1999

OK, it won’t have quite looked like this

Janie has never kept a narrative diary. But the wonderful thing about Janie’s diary is that she makes copious notes in the diary around her plans, especially if she is preparing a meal and going to specific places to buy specific ingredients.

This meal was Japanese food and Janie no doubt used the services of our now regular sources in Noddyland, such as Atari-Ya, to source sashimi and tempura as noted in her diary.

No doubt much saki was imbibed to help such dishes go down.

This will have been a rare evening out for Michael and Elisabeth at that time, as Xenia was just turned one. I cannot remember whether a babysitter was involved or whether they brought the infant Xenia with them. At that age, probably the latter.

Tony & Sheila Shaw For Dinner At Clanricarde Gardens, 13 February 1999

Dumbo latterly shows off my pad in Clanricrde Gardens

I rented my flat in Clanricarde Gardens between 1988 and 1999. The story of me finding the flat is writ – click here or below:

Flat Hunting In Earnest, 23 to 25 November 1988

I was on very good terms with the owners, Tony & Sheila Shaw. They also very much took to Janie.

By early 1999 I had decided that it was time for me to buy a flat and that I would buy one very much like the flat I was renting from Tony & Sheila…if not, that very one.

We invited Tony & Sheila around for dinner and I told them of my plans.

Tony & Sheila told me that they half expected to be hearing that news and that they wondered whether I might wish to buy that flat from them.

Hence we hatched a plan to get a few independent valuations, average them and transact privately…

…which we did.

Simples.

A Wild Time In Late December 1998: Three Events

Photo by Richard Bartz, Munich Makro Freak, CC BY-SA 2.5

Michael Mainelli’s Birthday Party Aboard Lady Daphne In St Katherine’s Dock, 19 December 1998

Fret not, we were below for this party

Quite a big do. This was Michael’s 40th. Live music if I remember correctly. All the usual suspects were there. And us.

In those days you didn’t take a gazillion pictures at parties. Perhaps someone did take pictures, but I don’t recall seeing any from this party. If Michael and Elisabeth have some and want to provide digital versions thereof, I’ll gladly put a few of them into this article.

We ate, we drank, we danced, we made merry. it was a party.

Christmas Lunch At My Parent’s Place, 25 December 1998

There’s little in the diary about this, other than a tell-tale note that the taxi would cost £32, which was almost certainly an Ealing to Streatham price in those days.

I suspect that Jacqueline, Len and Hils were there that year. I also suspect that this was one of the last times, if not the last time, that my mum did Christmas day at Woodfield Avenue.

It will have been turkey for main, I’m pretty sure.

A Wild Boar Dinner At Sandall Close, Sunday 27 December 1998

The tell-tale note in Janie’s diary is an order for a rack of wild boar from Harvey Nicholls “for next Sunday”. This was one of Janie’s specialities at that time and boy was it good. We have never since found a source of excellent wild boar rack since Harvey Nicks stopped doing it.

The cast for that evening (again made clear from Janie’s diary) was Kim & Micky, Anthea [Simms] & Mitchell [Sams], plus Rupert [Stubbs] & Ana. Janie rather impressively remembered that Ana was Ana Limbrick, who (as well as dating Rupert at that time) was, indeed still is, a physiotherapist to whom Janie occasionally refers clients.

It will have been a jolly evening, despite the fact that several of the guests no doubt said “what a boar” when praising the meal.

“8.00 John & Mandy For Dinner + Lydia”, 25 September 1998

John, Mandy, Me & Janie in August 2022

While researching Janie’s and my historic visit to the Donmar Warehouse…

The Blue Room by David Hare, (adapted from Arthur Schnitzler), Donmar Warehouse, 26 September 1998

…the evening that Nicole Kidman and I had our magic moment ‘n’ all…

…I came across the above headlined diary entry the day before.

Delving into Janie’s diary for more clues, I discover that Janie “collected wild boar” on the Thursday when in town (that would have been from Harvey Nicholls in those days) after collecting red cabbage and marinade from Waitrose first thing.

Wild Boar at Chicos – JIP, CC BY-SA 3.0

Strangely, just the other day (25 years after the above wild boar evening), Janie and I were discussing our inability to get wild boar any more . [Insert here your own joke about me having progressed from wild boar to wild bore in the space of 25 years.]

Less strangely, we’re still very much in touch with John and Mandy 25 years later…

…and still in touch with Lydia, who has been giving me singing lessons since the pandemic and whose career as a singer/actress is now burgeoning, as she has just started a run for the RSC as Miss Honey in Matilda The Musical at the Cambridge Theatre.

From www.uk.matildathemusical.com

I think this wild boar dinner visit might have been the first time that Janie and I met Lydia.

In the coincidence department, the Cambridge Theatre (where Lydia now resides) is within spitting distance of The Donmar Warehouse in Earlham Street, where 25 years earlier, Nicole and I…

…I’m not boring you, am I?