Actually this was a very good idea. The face-to-face “40 years on” reunion had to be cancelled this summer, so Rohan figured we should have a “40 years on” virtual reunion through the good offices of Zoom instead.
Of course, back in the day, nobody used the phrase “back in the day”…
I paraphrase Rohan’s remarks in the form of a quote.
37 of us gathered, from a cohort of some 120. That’s about a third of us, which, 40 years on and with some of our cohort no longer with us…is a mighty impressive haul.
People joined from places as far afield as Ontario (Paul Deacon & Rich “The Rock” Davis), New Zealand (The Right Reverend Sir Nigel Godfrey), Phnom Penh (Andrew Sullivan), Australia (Neal Townley), Barcelona (Duncan Foord), Crouch End (Rohan Candappa) and Penge (somebody, surely?).
It seemed like a recipe for chaos, yet somehow the mixture of untrammelled chat and a little bit of structured “go around the virtual room for a memory each” worked surprisingly well.
Some of the people are friends I have seen relatively recently, one way…
…but many of the people present I had only corresponded with on FaceBook or not at all in the last 40+ years.
The array of memories was varied and fascinating. A lot of stuff about teachers, good, bad and (in some violent cases) especially ugly.
Some observations especially resonated with me and stuck in my mind. Paul Romain illustrated through readings from his first and last school reports that he was a keen scout at first, but by the end at least metaphorically semi-detached from the school…if not detached and several acres from the metaphorical school. That resonated with my experience.
It also brought back to me my lingering grudge against my late mum for throwing out my old school reports (and indeed all my juvenilia from that period apart from my diaries) on the spurious grounds that “no-one would ever want to look at that sort of old rubbish again”. When I challenged this assumption, by letting mum know that I was REALLY REALLY upset that she had done this, she said, “how was I supposed to know that you cared for that stuff?”. To which my simple answer was, “if you had asked me BEFORE you threw my things away, you’d have known.” No, I’m still not over it.
“Renée is an enthusiastic, diligent lass, but she sometimes allows her natural exuberance to mar her judgement”
I think it was Jerry Moore who held up some editions of Scriblerus (the Alleyn’s School magazine), threatening to scan and circulate some elements of them. I do hope he does that. David Wellbrook mentioned his first toe-dip into performing Shakespeare and the rather damning review Chris Chivers gave of his performance.
That all brought back to my mind my own somewhat involuntary performance in Twelfth Night, I think the year after David Wellbrook’s debut. I remember Mr Chivers’ Scriblerus review of my performance as Antonio; in particular I recall pawing over it on a train with my friend Jilly Black, trying to work out whether he was praising me or damning me with faint praise. I suspect the latter, but I would love to see the review again now that I am older and…well, just older.
Indeed I considered sending my apologies to the virtual reunion and spending the evening wallowing instead. But I thought better of doing that and Janie encouraged me to give the virtual meeting a go…I could always switch off the Zoom early if I really didn’t feel up to the gathering…
…anyway, I’m so glad I did join the group, even if I wasn’t entirely myself throughout the evening. It was great to see everyone and I learn that there is every chance that many of us will be doing it again.
I guess I need to dig out those diaries again and see what else I can find!
Janie and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn that Mike Smith had died suddenly, on the morning of 12 November 2020.
I have known Mike since early 1995, when I went to visit him (and Marianna) at Keele University, at the behest of Michael Mainelli, in the very early days of our business, The Z/Yen Group. I have written up the very first 1995 visit – click here and below:
Michael, who had already known and worked on and off with Mike Smith for 16 years by then, was aware that Mike was possibly looking for a change and might be the answer to my skills shortages, especially when advising civil society organisations on matters information systems and/or informatics.
Mike was a terrific mentor and an exceptionally brilliant systems architect. Advisory work was less his forte. But through the triumphs and difficulties we enjoyed and endured together during those years, the important thing is that we had tremendous respect for each other, forming a firm and enduring friendship.
Mike also remained an associate and close friend of Z/Yen after moving on to form Medix, which at that time was a research business for the health sector based around some of Mike’s ingenious software. Mike retained the rights to the core of his research systems and latterly Z/Yen started to use them and worked with Mike again on various projects.
It was while Mike and I were working together on a project at Moorfields in 2014 that he sprung upon me the idea that I should learn to play a musical instrument for relaxation. He recommended the baritone ukulele. Then, one day, when we were meeting a senior Moorfields medic, Mike turned up with an instrument and presented it to me at the start of the meeting.
Janie and I were about to go off to Oman for a short break; Mike insisted that I take the instrument with me, despite my concerns about travelling with a loan instrument.
Janie and I were due to reciprocate the hospitality; we had a date in the diary for April, but of course lockdown put paid to that and we didn’t get to reschedule during this crazy on-off year, which is such a shame. But Janie and I are both grateful that our last memory of being with Mike is such a happy one.
But these are not normal times, so we needed to keep the little urchins away from our biosecure gates and door.
But we did put out an illuminated pumpkin for them to spot and one bowl of sweets atop the hedge for those bold enough to take anything at all from such an uninviting place.
I hope the “joke” involved in getting a “Keep Out – foot and mouth disease” sign for a podiatrist’s door isn’t wasted on you readers…it probably is wasted on many of the passers by, not least the local kids.
We’ve done our best this year. Hoping we can go back to the normal levels of pseudo-horror next year. The real horrors of 2020 are not fun.
Since then, friends of Gerry, not least NewsRevue alums John Random & Caroline Am Bergris, put in an enormous effort to ensure that we found out as much as possible about Gerry, who had no next of kin and had always been near-silent about his earlier life. John & Caroline also went through the arduous process of arranging a funeral when there is no next of kin nor a will.
Hence, some 10 weeks after Gerry died, we gathered. Ironically, we gathered at Hoop Lane crematorium, the same place we NewsRevue alums gathered 20 years ago along with Ivan Shakespeare’s nearest and dearest to say goodbye to Ivan:
As I reported in the above piece, we comedy writers were not sure how to behave at a comedy writer’s funeral. Could we make jokes? We got by. And sadly, we have had some more experience since, saying goodbye to several of our fellow funny people in the past 20 years.
But on this bright but slightly chilly autumn day in 2020, we gathered again not quite knowing how to behave. A socially-distanced funeral. No closeness. No touching. Gatherings of clans aren’t normally like this.
The celebrant handled the ceremony with great dignity and grace. He admitted that it was an unusual situation while putting us at our ease to find ways to pay respects and grieve as we saw fit, within the rules of course.
Caroline read one of Gerry’s favourite poems, Ring Out, Wild Bells, very beautifully.
Then John Random gave a very thoughtful and charming eulogy. John reminded us that Gerry was a “quickie specialist”, a commissioned writer for The News Huddlines. John also hinted at one of Gerry’s more edgy and long-running NewsRevue sketches. Gerry imagined an advert for Vidal Sassoon’s Wash & Go shampoo. There had been a tradition of Vidal himself advertising his own products, as the following real advert attests…
…although I don’t think any of the real ones were quite like the following joke advert. Gerry imagined Vidal appearing jointly with the foul-mouthed comedian Bernard Manning, with Vidal saying, “it’s called Wash…” before Manning chimes in, “and f*** off!”.
I parodied Gerry’s parody advert around that time, “Nosh & Throw” as an intro to my Princess Diana song, She Ain’t Heavy, She’s Bulimic:
I recall offering to credit Gerry for a share of the intro quickie, but he adamantly refused, claiming that the new joke was all mine and that my joke had given his joke an extended lease of life, as the show for many years ran the two as a mini-runner ahead of my song…
…until Diana died. Now they’ve all gone: Diana, Vidal, Manning & Gerry. But my point is that John reminding us all of that joke, brought to my mind the fact that Gerry had, in terms of sharing comedic ideas, a generous, collaborative spirit.
John closed his enigmatic eulogy with another Gerry joke:
APPLICANT: Hello, is this the school of hard knocks?
ENROLMENT REGISTRAR: Yes it is.
APPLICANT: I’d like to enrol please
ENROLMENT REGISTRAR: (snarling) Well you can’t.
Gerry might well have enrolled in the school of hard knocks early in his life. We suspect so but don’t know for sure. Between his short youthful RAF stint in the 1960s and the late 1980s when he turned up as a writer – some quarter of a century later – there seems to be no record at all of what he did.
There was a lovely video to go with that song back in 2016, which John, Caroline, Helen and others managed to track down and show at the funeral, which was a very moving moment for me and I’m sure for others too. Here is the video with Donna Macfadyen singing beautifully and Gerry himself accompanying on guitar:
Then of course the inevitable committal and finally Helen bravely played Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life on the organ as we left the chapel.
Several of the NewsRevue “Class of ’92” gang were there in addition to organisers John and Caroline; Mark Keegan (& Victoria), Barry Grossman, Graham Robertson (& Sue), Colin Stutt, plus at least 10-12 people from other walks of Gerry’s later life.
Many went on to the Spaniards Inn to continue grieving in a socially distanced yet traditional aftermath manner. Someone else will need to write that one up if indeed it should be writ.
Well done John, Caroline & Helen; you gave Gerry a wonderful goodbye.
That was Simon’s, Janie’s and my conclusion a few days before this gathering, when we realised that Janie & I had been meaning to go and have a nosy at Simon’s house extension and makeover for ages.
Then, a few months later, Simon chose to show the world the wreckage that used to be his lovely house (and was soon to be his even lovelier house) in the video for his song, Make It Happen.
Anyway, it’s just as well we made the “let’s just do this” decision and hastily arranged to meet up that very Saturday…
…because if we had left it even one more week we’d have been unable to visit Simon’s household under the childishly simple rules of the Tier 2 partial lockdown.
Simon shows off the dressing room/walk-in wardrobe adjacent to the master bedroom – Simon looks blasé about it all while Janie gesticulates
We had the guided tour between the starter (pea and mint soup) and the main (roast lamb).
Simon looks a bit more animated when showing off his sound studio room, which is about the size of my “man cave” and/but has padding on the walls and the ceilingSimon: “It’s compulsory to have a chair that swivels around in one’s sound lab”
The house makeover looks terrific. In particular the loft extension that is Timothy’s studio, which I neglected to photograph…in part because I couldn’t work out how to do justice to that space with my phone camera.
After the lamb, we all enjoyed Janie’s apple strudel. Janie and I had felt badly about inviting ourselves around for a nosy and finding ourselves invited around for a meal. We felt as though we’d invited ourselves around for a meal, which is not the done thing. Simon’s wise suggested compromise was for us to provide a desert. Simon really likes deserts but doesn’t much DO deserts.
The left-overs of the large strudel can just about be made out at the far end of the table.
We talked about all manner of things. Old times, current affairs, putting the world to rights. We were on the verge of putting the world completely to rights when we realised that it was already far too late and way past all of our bedtimes, so unfortunately the world will now have to wait until after the tier-two-lockdown-that-isn’t-a-lockdown, when the solving of all problems can be resumed at our place.
Let’s be honest about this; Janie and I are not doing anything much that might be described as adventurous at the moment. This pandemic era is not that sort of era. We’re doing a lot of charity stuff. We’re keeping fit. We’re in good spirits. But we are not indulging in adventure.
…but this year, it was my birthday card that had all the excitement.
John phoned me on the morning of my birthday. I hadn’t twigged it before, but he and Mandy had taken the opportunity to have a short break up in Yorkshire. John informed me that he had sent me a birthday card but he didn’t know when it would arrive and that it might be somewhat distressed-looking, having been involved in a road traffic incident.
John explained that he had stopped for fuel somewhere around Muker and put his mobile phone and my card on the roof of the car, making a careful mental note not to drive off before retrieving the phone & card…
…then he got distracted…
…then John drove off…
Excitement on the B6270 between Muker and Gunnerside; well shy of Crackpot
…until he heard a few “boomp” noises from the roof of the car and realised what must have happened. Apparently an expletive or two were the next couple of noises to be heard in the vicinity.
“worse than the door”
Meanwhile I was sitting in the flat, concentrating on John’s every word, my thoughts not wandering at all, thinking to myself that the punchline of the story must include the retrieval of the phone, because John was calling me from said phone…
…and the card didn’t look too shabby either
…and the card seemed to be minimally dishevelled; assuming the card before me was the original card from the story.
John continued…
…we drove back down the road towards Muker and as good fortune would have it, there was my phone in the middle of the road, undamaged…
…but no sign of your card…
…until we went a bit further back down the road and there was your card – also pretty much undamaged. It might have some tyre marks on the envelope though.
I told John that the card looked absolutely fine and that it had arrived a day in advance of my birthday, which is pretty good going given the adventure it had been through. I reported that the card was in good spirits and recuperating well at home.
I like to one-up John’s stories, so I thought I had better tell him the adventure of his birthday card, which I had posted that very morning.
I explained that I had gone to the local shop, chosen a card, returned home to sign the card, blown the dust off the little see-through-plastic bag which holds my assortment of postage stamps for just this sort of occasion, afixed an appropriate stamp and taken the card down to the post box at the end of my street, from whence it should have, by that time, been collected.
Your card should arrive at your house on the morning of your birthday, I said, but it seems that you won’t be there to receive it.
John explained that they would get home on the afternoon of his birthday. He also volunteered the opinion that the Yorkshire card story was a tad more exciting than the Notting Hill card story. I felt obliged, on this one occasion, to concede.
Anyway, John & Mandy’s drive home the next afternoon provided an excellent opportunity for Mandy, John, Janie and me to have a four-way catch-up chat and share a bit of the birthdays, albeit at a social distance.
Wendy, Mark & David saying, “hello in there”,Nightingale, 1979
Youth Club & Director’s Cut, 3 May 2020
These last few weeks we have had regular youth club Zoom gatherings on a Sunday, which have surprising amounts in common with the gatherings more than 40 years ago.
Sunday 3rd May was another such gathering. The soap opera that is the “social distancing rabbits” story (click link here or above if you are interested) took on yet another twist, as the buck appears to have broken the social distancing rules for a few moments; all that is required, apparently, potentially to initiate another brood.
Coincidentally, much of the discussion prior to the rabbit saga had focussed on offspring, be it children or grand-children, the latter being very recent or imminent in several cases.
Even more coincidentally, I was distracted for some of the Zoom on this occasion by virtue of having been invited to a Zoom Bris in Texas by another old BBYO friend, who became a doting grandfather a few days earlier. Having not experienced a bris since my own, I was intrigued and wanted to join the ceremony, which was timed to start at the same time as youth club. I followed the former surreptitiously on my mobile phone. It’s the sort of thing young folk do in face-to-face meetings, after all.
After the ceremony, I confessed to the specifics of my two-timing activity. One of our number, from the education sector, fretted about safeguarding issues arising from a Zoom bris. I felt bound to assure him and the others that all I could really see was doting parents, a blissfully unaware baby and a few other attendees. In short, I think the director/camera-dude said “cut!” at the vital moment.
I’ll give youth club my undivided next time. “Undivided what?”, I hear you cry.
Hitting The High Notes With Lydia White, 5 May 2020
Today was my second lesson with Lydia and I must say that I feel that I am making progress very rapidly. Not that I’ll ever be a great singer, but there are some basics of technique that are enabling me to get a lot more out of my voice for less effort. Most importantly, I am really enjoying the process of learning and practicing. Janie says she can hear a great deal of improvement, which is remarkable in such a short period of time…and given that Janie wears anti-noise earmuffs whenever I sing. OK I made up the bit about earmuffs.
Rohan, having funded season one himself, is trying to crowdfund season two. A link to the Kickstarter thingie can be found by clicking here or below:
You can help the project just by watching, enjoying and sharing the output with others who might appreciate it. But if, like me, you are also able to put your hand in your pocket a bit towards series two, that would be great for Rohan and the struggling artistes he is helping through this initiative.
Is It Lourdes Or Lord’s?, A FoodCycle Gig In Marylebone, 6 May 2020
Ged: You want us to deliver ALL these? Ali: (from a suitably social distance) Yup!
Daisy and I were asked to do another FoodCycle gig this week; in Marylebone this time. The church hall in which tireless volunteers such as Ali and Jenny assemble the food parcels is the Roman Catholic Church Of Our Lady, just around the corner from my own temple – Lord’s Cricket Ground – currently closed due to covid.
We met another volunteer, Connagh, who was taking the other batch of parcels that day. He was also a first-timer at this venue so we all three wandered around together (at a suitably social distance of course) until we found Ali & Jenny.
Ali & Connagh demonstrate the socially distant high five, aka the “high five meters apart”Ali, Jenny, Janie (Daisy) & Connagh. This could be a press picture or album cover for an early music a cappella quartet. I have named them “Pro Canteen Antiqua”
…decided that Lodge Road and then back past Lord’s was the best route. It wasn’t the best route for the food deliveries but it did give us all a glimpse of what we are missing.
There it is, up ahead…So near and yet so far; the gates are closed, even to us!Lord’s denied; Ged cannot contain his emotions
Actually the whole experience of delivering for FoodCycle is quite an emotional experience at times. One elderly guest on the Lisson Green Estate, I believe one of the regulars when the arrangement is for the guests and volunteers to gather for a weekly meal, was waiting by the entrance to her block and started to cry when we announced ourselves. She thought we were late (we weren’t) and that she had been forgotten (she hadn’t).
The reality of our food deliveries during the pandemic is that the food parcels can only help to meet part of the FoodCycle mission, which is to alleviate both food poverty and social isolation. Of course we understand why we can only deliver a tiny part of the social agenda, by engaging as best we can within the constraints of social distancing. But it is chastening to see how isolated some of the guests must feel at the moment. Still, the food poverty agenda is also extremely important and we encountered some other guests who have clearly fallen on hard times of late and just desperately need the food.
We’re doing another gig on Sunday, around White City/East Acton. I’ll add photos from there if I get a chance to take some.
Hello In There by John Prine, 9 May 2020
I thought I’d sum up this strange week with this beautiful John Prine song, Hello In There, which I have been unable to get out of my head since I learnt that Prine was ill, about a week before he died of Covid-19 in early April.
This charming, beautiful song is so much for our times. I can only try to do it justice.
Postscript: FoodCycle Around White City, Old Oak & Wormholt & Acton, 10 May 2020
Collecting the parcels: Janie (Daisy) with Fr Richard Nesbitt, Alannah & Francesco
Janie’s first gig for Foodcycle had been the project known as East Acton, which is initiated at the Our Lady Of Fatima Church in White City.
As we are now billed as a double act, seasoned operators at that, we get to drop 20 parcels at 10 addresses on our run.
Actually, this proved the least onerous run so far, partly because Janie had been to three of the locations before but also because the several drops to houses on the Old Oak and Wormholt were easier to navigate than some of the more modern estates.
Again, lovely, attentive people producing the parcels and helping us to load up the car. Fr Richard even wandered around to make sure the first drop, which was a new guest very near the church, went according to plan. Again extremely grateful and friendly guests who seemed so pleased to see us when we turned up.
This really is necessary and worthwhile voluntary work at the moment.
Kay Scorah (top left in the above picture) was “head girl” for this evening’s Virtual ThreadMash. She chose the topic of soft furnishings, perhaps thinking that such a topic might lighten the mood in these unprecedented, lockdown times. If you were to judge by my Tale Of Beany & Baggy piece and Kay’s Big Dog’s Big Question (below), you might conclude that Kay’s choice had succeeded in generating lighthearted pieces…
Big Dog was trying to sleep. It had been a rough night, with a great deal of tossing and turning and intermittent hugging. At one point he thought he was going to fall out of bed, but Seán, himself only half awake, had grabbed him just in time and held on to him tightly. Now, just before dawn, things had quietened down and the boy had released his grip as sleep took over. Lucky Seán.
Big Dog had a busy day ahead, and knew he needed the shuteye, but his mind was too active. That same old question spinning around and around in his head.
He felt the softness of the pillow under his cheek, and, opening his eyes in the brightening pre-dawn light began to count the stars in the pattern on the pillowcase. He’d heard of counting sheep – perhaps counting decorative fabric stars would have the same effect. But of course, thinking about the pillow only made things worse. Made That Question even louder.
Giving up, he opened his eyes wide and looked across the room to where Rabbidog and Blumberg seemed to be sound asleep on the chair. Rabbidog propped up on a cushion, Blumberg with his head on Rabbidog’s knee.
Rabbidog is called Rabbidog because no-one has ever worked out if he’s a dog or a rabbit. And Blumberg is called Blumberg because he was a gift from Jane Blumberg.
Not for the first time, Big Dog wished that he could move like the real dogs he had seen through the bedroom window. Or even like the small child now sound asleep next to him his head on the same pillow. He longed to jump down from the bed, run across the room to the others, jump up on the chair and ask them the Big Question. What are we, the fluffy toys? Are we toys, like the Playmobil and the Brio Train set? Or are we soft furnishings like the cushions and the blankets?
How could they sleep with this existential question unanswered?
The very next day, Big Dog was invited to dinner, and, at Seán’s insistence, given his own seat at the table. A couple of spare grownups were there, along with the mum and the dad. Their conversation turned to the question of gender and sexuality, to something called LGBTQ and the slow but welcome demise of the binary. And suddenly, although he didn’t quite understand everything that was being said, Big Dog realised that he was free! He need lose no more sleep over what he had thought was the Big Question. He could be soft furnishing AND toy. A place for Seán to rest his head, and a friend for him to play with and talk to.
Big Dog went to bed that night and fell sound asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. “Good night, big dog”, said the boy, resting his head on his friend’s furry back, “Sleep well.”
…and the surreal nature of some conversations continues unabated.
During the week most of my VCs are business ones, but we have implemented a programme of short “water-cooler” type gatherings for the Z/Yen team; one or two a day at the moment, to help people punctuate their working days with a bit of social interaction if they wish.
One topic which dominated the conversation last week was lentils. Linda, who has been laid low with suspected Covid-19, mentioned that she had made herself a pan-full of lentil soup for sustenance.
Janie picked up on this idea mid-week – her research suggested that lentil soup was almost certainly both a vaccine and a cure for Covid-19 (and many other ailments). So Janie promptly gathered together the necessary ingredients and made a large consignment of concentrated lentil gloopiness, good for many portions of soup and/or savoury breakfast mush with yoghurt.
I mentioned Janie’s research at the Z/Yen gathering on Thursday.
On Friday, presumably not wanting to risk being out-lentiled, Michael Mainelli showed us a 5kg sack of red lentils, which he had just procured during his “one-a-day” walk; on this occasion down Brick Lane.
Other brands of red lentil are available.
Given the quantity of nutritional lentilly substances that Janie managed to conjure up with just 250g of lentils, I should imagine that a 5kg bag will keep the Mainelli family going, as it were, for quite some time.
I suggested that London might replace Chicago as the “Windy City” if we carry on escalating pulse purchases at this rate.
But these Z/Yen virtual-breaks are not all talk about legumes. Oh no. I mentioned my early music playing hobby the other day, only to learn that Juliet enjoyed seeing Joglaresa recently and wondered whether I knew the medieval song about the killer rabbit.
In my opinion, the animated pork chop is more miraculous than the non-fatal rabbit bone one, but my opinion on Santa Maria miracles is really neither here nor there.
Anyway, all this talk of rabbits brings us neatly back to BBYO youth club virtual gatherings, as we regrouped on Sunday.
Mark was able to join us on this occasion, whereas Ivor was not; nor was Wendy. Nine of us, there were. Martin ran two sessions for part of the meeting for some reason, but that doesn’t count as two people.
We learnt that no rabbit has been spayed since we last gathered but that the pair were being kept socially distant for their own sakes. This felt to me like a societal metaphor in these days of lockdown.
We then had a macabre conversation about furry mammal morbidity, with several inappropriate suggestions about carnivorous possibilities, tales of burying various furry mammals at various stages of rigor mortis, Fatal Attraction style possibilities…
…I mean, really. Shouldn’t we all have grown out of this sort of thing by now?
No.
We’re going to gather again next week. One of the more disciplined among us really should draw up an agenda and some etiquette guidelines…I’m not volunteering, just suggesting that somebody ought to…
The roll (l to r): Ivor (present) Sandra (present) Mark (awol) Andrea (present)
It was Natalie’s idea and rather a good one. Or maybe it was Andrea’s idea. Anyway, point is, our plans for a spring gathering of the old youth club clan are in tatters this year, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Only one thing for it: gather virtually, e.g. on Zoom (other video conferencing tools are available).
Natalie set it up and a good few of us joined in. Andrea, David, Ivor, Linda, Liza, Martin, Me, Natalie, Sandra, Wendy…
…I think that’s everyone from the old clan who came along on Sunday – apologies if I have missed anyone out. One or two wives/partners/children popped in for a while (Janie for example) or added colour to the proceedings through noises off or other such distractions.
Janie had never witnessed a video conference before and suggested that video-conferencing seemed a chaotic medium to her. I had to point out that video conferences can be highly disciplined and decorous. Had she ever experienced one of our youth club meetings, she’d realise that the chaotic nature of the gathering has little or nothing to do with the medium.
Simon wasn’t there to stick the boot in, but Martin was there to provide security
The conversation covered many topics, not just “what were you up to before the pandemic?” and “how are you coping with the pandemic?”
The Chatham House rule should apply to such gatherings, I feel, so I won’t attribute specific tales to specific people. But we are a communitarian lot, still, so we heard word from near the front line of health care, social services provision and education. Unprecedented times (as everyone seems to be saying right now) presenting immediate and urgent challenges to everyone, especially those working in civil society.
The most fascinating yarn, though, was a true story about rabbits. Apparently, if you put a male rabbit and a female rabbit into a household with children, you generate a myriad of soap-opera-like scenarios within just a few weeks, even if the children are given strict instructions to enforce social distancing between the rabbits. Children, it seems, struggle to obey such simple instructions with predictably hilarious and tragic results in equal measure.Throw Covid-19 lockdown into the scenario and you have a strange brew for story-telling – Beatrix Potter’s Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies meets Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
I do hope Zoom’s VC security is better than some suggest…I’d hate to think that the bunny community found out what’s been going on…
Word on the street is that our gathering went so well that we shall be gathering again very soon – i.e. same time, same day, the next week.
This really IS becoming a virtual youth club, even down to the weekly meetings. Soon we’ll need to reform a committee, start scheduling programmes and sending delegates to virtual regional, national and international shindigs…
