No doubt a plan mainly cooked up by Janie and Kim and Phillie. Notes in Janie’s diary suggest that she took control of the arrangements:
9:30 to 5:30… Boat trip… £150. Nobby and Phil. Deposit £500. Ring Elisabeth Mainelli. Open cabin cruiser £150. Bray Boats. Nobby. [presumably the boat man, not my car, which was at that time, coincidentally, a Honda CRX named Nobby].
Janie, with Nobby, at his last resting place
Us lot. A boat. A river. What could possibly go wrong?
Actually, I don’t think anything went wrong. I think we had rather a splendid day out, in fact.
I did have a contretemps with a swan at one point…
In truth, I’m not at home on a boat
…but we resolved our differences and were able to share the river in harmony for the rest of the trip.
Micky – more at home on boats than mePresumably that’s Nobby, with Phillie and Janie supping wine beyondStunning river scenesCharlie & Phillie
Janie cannot really add to the memory pile, other than concurring that we all had a memorable and enjoyable day.
Update: Charlotte indeed remembers:
Oh my goodness, yes I do remember this.
I think it may even have been the trip where my Dad felt he was the boating ‘expert’ and got grumpy when Mum and Janie took control of navigating some of the Locks!!! He may have had a point though as I think mum’s shoe fell into the river as part of said activities at one point!!
But the most shocking point to make is WHAT was I wearing?! Honestly, that’s a crime against humanity!
In truth I remember little about this day out in London.
Charlotte, who was about 12 at the time, might remember it a whole lot better. I’m not sure that Phillie & Tony were with us for the outing, although I’m pretty sure that Phillie, if not both of them, joined us at least for the meal at Good Earth in the evening. Both my diary and Janie’s diary describe the outing as “Charlie”.
The London Planetarium was clearly something that Charlie was keen to see, so see it we did. Janie’s diary is full of copious notes booking the place up and arranging to park in Chiltern Street.
After that, the trail gets murky. Janie was clearly considering Planet Hollywood or The Fashion Cafe for an in-between stop off, but I have a funny feeling we ended up in Madam Tussaud’s, which came as part of the deal with the Planetarium. Possibly we snacked there (or at the Planetarium) for lunch, especially as we had a dinner booked.
I think I might remember having been at the Fashion cafe, especially if all of them supermodels were hanging around in there, as implied by this write up. I did used to see Claudia Schiffer in Moscow Road occasionally in those days – I think she had a pied-à-terre around there. But I digress.
I’m pretty sure it was the Knightsbridge incarnation of The Good Earth that we tried that evening and jolly good food it was too.
Update: Yes Charlie does indeed remember more than us!
Charlie writes:
Wow, Ian, thank you for sending me that diary reminder from 1998. I remember it so well…even to the extent of Janie doing my hair in an ‘on the side’ ponytail and me wearing a hideous luminous yellow jumper ?
It was a wonderful weekend; we did Planetarium and M Tussauds followed by lunch at Fashion Cafe. I’m not sure mum did join us for dinner in the evening as I have a memory of going to tennis with you both on the Sunday and me having a tennis coach. I think you both also bought me some Speedo swimming costumes?!!!!!!!
So we did go to the Fashion Cafe, but I guess the supermodels weren’t there that day. Still, it’s just as well we went when we did, because the Fashion Cafe apparently opened in London in 1998 and went bust in 1999! The global story is of an even more spectacular failure.
The tennis coach would have been Jeremy or Shola, probably the latter, at Lammas Park in those days. It was Shola who introduced me and Janie to Boston Manor.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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 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.”
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.
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
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
Friday August 1st. Newsrevue. Especially good was Ivan’s Alice in LabourLand and Ian Harris’s Me and Paula Jones about Clinton’s sexual harassment case. Ian and Janie were there, as were Barry and Ali Robertson
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
