Category: Friends and Family Events

A Zoom With Julia Tisdall, Gerry Goddin’s Distant Cousin, 23 December 2020

It’s The Ogblog wot done it.

When I reported on the sad death of Gerry Goddin back in August and then subsequently Gerry’s funeral in October…

Gerry Goddin’s Funeral, Hoop Lane Crematorium, 15 October 2020

…it didn’t occur to me that there might be someone out there looking for the name Goddin for genealogical purposes. Not least because the search for any next of kin for Gerry had been in vain.

But a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, I received a note from Julia Tisdall, writing to me from Australia, whose great-grandfather was the brother of Gerry’s grandmother.

That makes Julia and Gerry second cousins once removed. (Some of my favourite people are my second cousins once removed).

Forgive the pun, Julia, but a second cousin once removed in the antipodes is a distant cousin in more ways than one.

Anyway, point is, Julia was thrilled and saddened to have found this connection but in such an unfortunate context. Here is an extract from her lovely note:

My great grandfather (Gertrude’s Brother) sailed to New Zealand back in 1913 and settled in Dunedin. 5 years later his sister Gertrude died of the Spanish Flu at only 32 years of age.

I suspect this was when my forebears lost touch with Gertrude’s husband and young son (Gerry’s father) Robert Percy Wilfred Goddin.

I am so grateful to see Gerry in Rainy Day Fellas. What a gem that is.

 It took my breath away, 1 , because it is so beautiful and 2 because the close up of Gerry’s hand strumming looked identical to my grandfather’s hand strumming.

For anyone reading this who hasn’t seen the video of Rainy Day Fellas, one of Gerry’s songs which was recorded a few years ago with Donna Macfadyen singing beautifully and Gerry himself accompanying on guitar:

“Rainy Day Fellas” (Live) from D-Sav on Vimeo.

Julia said that she would like to speak, so, one thing led to another and I managed to persuade Julia, who was until yesterday a “Zoom virgin”, to join a few of us on a Zoom call.

I was really glad that John Random,  Caroline Am Bergris and Graham Robertson were able to join the call. I didn’t feel I knew Gerry all that well; I don’t suppose any of us really knew Gerry well, but between us we knew Gerry from various aspects of his life these past 30 years or so.

Not just the NewsRevue part (although all of us are NewsRevue alums) but also Caroline’s long association with Gerry in the matter of poems and songs. I think/hope we were able to give Julia a fairly rounded picture.

And talking of pictures, John has rescued a few lovely pictures from Gerry’s flat, which I was able to share on the screen. Here are a couple of examples plus a third picture which is a link to a Flickr album with all 11 of the pictures:

GERRY GODDIN HEAD AND SHOULDERS AS A LITTLE BOY

So we were able to share a fair bit of information. Julia informed us that the family were to be found at 1 Ravenhill Road, Upton Park in the 1911 census. Not only did Gerry’s dad lose his mother to Spanish flu as a small boy, but Gerry’s own mum, Mona, died when Gerry was only six. By then they lived in Fairbank Street, Shoreditch, which I think has now been absorbed by the Provost Estate in now trendy Hoxton/Shoreditch.

The highlight of the 80 minute session, for me, was the moment when Julia picked up a guitar and played us a few bars of Rainy Day Fellas, with aplomb.

But actually the whole session was a highlight. I think everyone enjoyed the time together and we hope to have another session in the not too distant future. I know that Caroline, Helen and David are looking at some of Gerry’s other songs and trying to work out what to do with them. Once there is a bit of progress with that, it would be super to regroup with Julia and possibly some other members of her antipodean family.

In these difficult times, a bit of good news like this is something to hold on to. And while our lives comprise far too much Zoom and Teams, with far too little human contact (apart from funerals and queuing outside shops)…

…happenings of this kind make me realise that communications technologies – the Ogblogging, the ability to connect with people through social media, Zoom etc. – does enable many things that wouldn’t have happened otherwise at all.

Which makes me just a little optimistic that the post-pandemic new normal might just be the best of the too-virtual world we inhabit just now and the real world social contacts we crave.

On that positive note, season’s greetings to all readers.

ThreadZoomMash Celebrity Edition, Siddharta by Hermann Hesse In My Case, Plus Lots More Fascinating Contributions, 16 November 2020

Tonight, another of Rohan Candappa’s left-field ideas. Choose one page from any book of your own choosing; explain your choice and read out that page.

I railed against the Desert Island Discs idea a few months ago…

Desert Island Diatribe, A Performance Piece For ThreadZoomMash, Plus A Review Of the Evening,29 July 2020

…do I even need to explain that “choose just one page to read” meets a similarly febrile emotional push-back in my mind.

But I quite quickly settled on Hermann Hesse as my choice of author. George Elliot and Hermann Hesse are the only authors about whom I decided, on reading one novel, that I simply must try to read everything this person wrote.

Hesse’s novels are extraordinary and quite exceptional. I commend all of his novels to you. Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game are mind-blowing, but possibly not the place to start with Hesse’s work.

My first Hesse read was Demian. I picked up that novel, pretty much by chance, in a remaindered bookshop on the Charing Cross Road in the mid 1980s. Some of the fictional conversations in that book reminded me of conversations I’d enjoyed with Anil Biltoo, the school pal with whom I went to Mauritius in 1979 and through whom I met Fuzz, the subject of my first ThreadMash piece.

The Rohan Thing, My Short Performance Piece As Part Of Rohan Candappa’s Inaugural Threadmash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2019

Hesse’s evident fascination with Eastern philosophies and my desire to read more about them took me next to Siddharta. There are two parts to the book; I am going to read you the few hundred words that conclude Part One; a point at which Siddharta reaches a spiritual awakening such that he is, in a sense, reborn in Part Two.

I don’t personally believe in reincarnation, but I did feel a shiver down my spine while researching this preamble, when I read Hermann Hesse’s Wikipedia entry. Hesse died on 9 August 1962. That was the day that Anil Biltoo was born.

Anil Biltoo. Click here or the picture for the Project Gutenberg public domain version of Siddhartha in English

The Events Of The Evening

I went first, so (apart from a short introduction by Rohan before I did my bit), this piece is sequenced in running order sequence.

Kay went next. She read The Owl-Critic by James Thomas Fields, reading from a charming anthology she has kept from primary school. Kay might chime in with the details of the anthology, but I’m guessing it is out of print and hard to find. She had peppered the poem with musical notation as a child, which was a charming additional detail.

Flo read Last Of the MetroZoids by Adam Gopnik. It is a very moving piece about the art historian, Kirk Varnedoe, coaching a boys football team while dying of cancer. It is a very moving piece, which Flo read beautifully.

Next up was Jan, who (Rohan suggested) wanted to style herself as Constance DeVereaux this evening…perhaps an in-joke between “spice”. Anyway, Jan read from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (another book available in the public domain through Project Gutenberg). She read the bit where Jo sacrifices her glorious head of hair to raise money for the family.

Ian Theodorson read a passage from East Of Eden by John Steinbeck (link is to Wikipedia entry, as the book is still in copyright). Ian preambled his reading by explaining some of the biblical references/allusions involved, not least the Cain & Abel story from the Old Testament.

Then a brief half-time discussion. The topic that got the most coverage was about Little Women and books of that kind, specifically whether there is an equivalent literary genre that helps young men to understand their romantic emotions. We concluded that there is seemingly no such genre.

We then had an actual half-time break, but there was no evidence of anyone eating cut up pieces of orange. Nor, mercifully, did Rohan try to motivate us with glib words and phrases such as “momentum”, “play as a unit”, “give it 120%” or “leave it all out there on the Zoom screen”.

There was then a euphemism-fest, using terms such as “recharging my gadget”, when it was clear that people wanted a toilet break.

I used that time as an opportunity to show those who remained my proud collection of decomposing Pooh.

When it comes to decomposing Pooh…if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Rohan kicked off the second half by reciting the lyric of What A Fool Believes by Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins. There’s a bit of involuntary threading in there, as Kenny Loggins also famously produced Return To Pooh Corner, including Loggins song House At Pooh Corner. It’s a fabulous lyric which I looked at a year or two ago with a view to giving it the troubadour treatment; I might just about be able to sing it now.

John read a nerve-jangling passage from Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. It is a heart-stopping true story about a pair of mountaineers in the Andes who survived a disaster in almost-impossible circumstances. It was made into a much-lauded documentary film some years after the book came out.

Jill read a passage from The Book Of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith. She read the piece about amae, a Japanese emotion which is hard to translate into English. “It means something like the pleasure that you get when you’re able to temporarily hand over responsibility for your life to someone else”, to quote Tiffany herself from this rather fascinating interview with her about the book.

Adrian read an hilarious piece from March Of the Lemmings: Brexit In Print & Performance 2016-2019 by Stewart Lee. The passage Adrian read was a sequence of thank you letters to brexity aunts for their brexity Christmas presents. I learnt that we should all have an Anderson shelter for Brexit; who knew?

Terry read a passage from The Big Book: Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, explaining after his reading, in no uncertain terms, that this book saved his life.

Geraldine read us three Robert Frost poems. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it has dawned on me the morning after, that The Road Not Taken, one of Frost’s best known and most debated poems, is a fascinating echo of the East Of Eden “free will” debate regarding the Cain & Abel story from Ian T’s reading. Geraldine read one other poem the title/detail of which has escaped me (she might chime in with the title), plus The Gift Outright, which Frost recited in person at John F Kennedy’s inauguration.

Perhaps they should book Stewart Lee to recite some fitting words for the outgoing president at Joe Biden’s inauguration, if the narcissist-in-chief bothers to show up.

After the event, a few of us stuck around for some further discussion, although it soon descended into weird debates about matters such as the relative merits of Michael Mcdonald & Malcolm MacDonald, two people who are surely very hard to distinguish from one another.

I have had this problem myself in my time. Who hasn’t?

Just one more parting thought, brought to mind by the thought of stories we loved as children and our parents’ influence. I am blessed to still have many recordings of my parents reading to me. I have several still to go through and upload to Ogblog, but one in particular, from when I was five, remains charming and is a complete story. I uploaded it a few years ago and several friends told me that they have played it many times over to their children. Hare And Guy Fawkes by Alison Uttley:

Hare And Guy Fawkes, Daddy Reading To Me, 5 November 1967

A Virtual Gathering Of People Who Left Alleyn’s School In 1980, 12 November 2020

Blame Rohan Candappa.

Rohan Candappa: “I have another idea…”

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”…

…and back then a Zoom was an ice lolly, not a meeting.

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…

Ghosts, ThreadZoomMash Performance Piece, Plus Reflections On The Evening, 21 October 2020

…or another…

An Award-Winning Evening During Which I Hung Out With The Alleyn’s Old Boys Crowd, Sripur Restaurant, 6 December 2018

…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.

I have to be honest about this; I really was not in the mood for a reunion come 19:30 on 12 November. I had received some horrible news just a couple of hours before the event; the sudden and totally unexpected death of a friend, Mike Smith:

A Personal Tribute To Professor Mike Smith, 12 November 2020

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!

A Personal Tribute To Professor Mike Smith, 12 November 2020

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:

The Day I Saw Slade & The Smiths At Keele, 10 January 1995

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.

We dipped our metaphorical toes in the working together water in the summer of 1995. Then, in 1996, Mike moved down to London, taking an employment contract with Z/Yen for “most-of-a-post”, while retaining an element of academic interest through a part-time professorship at QMW (now Queen Mary University of London).

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.

A Short Break in Oman, Zighy Bay, 1 to 12 March 2014

That was me up and running…or do I mean “up and strumming”? I know Mike was thrilled that I took to the instrument with such gusto.

Indeed, the last time we saw Mike was at the start of this ill-fated year, 2020, when Janie and I went over to Mike & Marianna’s place to have dinner with them and the kids. Naturally it was also a musical session.

A Gentle Start To 2020, Including Music & Food With The Smiths & The Neighbours, Early January 2020

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.

Socially Distanced Halloween, 31 October 2020

Janie normally likes to go to town for Halloween in Noddyland, as reported in several previous posts, such as this one from last year…

The Amsweetyville Horror, Halloween Night In Noddyland, 31 October 2019

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.

Gerry Goddin’s Funeral, Hoop Lane Crematorium, 15 October 2020

I reported on Gerry’s passing in a short obituary piece a couple of months ago:

Remembering Gerry Goddin, Comedy Writer & Man Of Mystery, Who Died 10 August 2020

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:

The Passing Of Ivan Shakespeare, 3 February 2000

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:

She Ain’t Heavy, She’s Bulimic, NewsRevue Lyric, 15 March 1993

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.

In later life, Gerry wrote songs as well as comedy, as I found out about four years ago. Gerry had introduced me to Helen Baker a couple of years earlier; Janie and I would go to Helen’s wonderful Mousse wine tastings. Gerry popped up at one of those evenings with a song that was targeted for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Mousse Wine Tasting Of Syrah Wines Plus Gerry Goddin’s Unexpected Foray Into the World Of Eurovision, 2 November 2016

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:

"Rainy Day Fellas" (Live) from D-Sav on Vimeo.

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.

A Prescient Visit To Simon Jacobs’s Place, 10 October 2020

Let’s just do this thing as soon as possible.

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.

We’d known all about the makeover for many months. I saw Simon in late 2019, choosing a venue strategically placed between our two pads for convenience, little knowing that I was dragging him all the way to West London, while he was in fact taking refuge from the builders at his mum’s place in Pinner.

Half Way There, Living On A Prayer, Dinner With Simon Jacobs, The Pembroke, 3 December 2019

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 ceiling
Simon: “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.

It was a super evening – thanks Simon.

A Birthday Card Adventure With An Old Muker, 28 & 29 August 2020

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.

This time of year, John White and I often get together for our birthdays; mine the day before his. Last year, for example, we all did this…

Dinner At Kitty Fisher’s With John And Mandy, 28 August 2019
…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.

Youth Club, Charity Work, High Notes & More, A Surprisingly Diverse Week Of Activities, 3 to 9 May 2020

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.

Virtually Going Back To Our Roots, A Streatham BBYO Youth Club Reunion On Zoom, 29 March 2020

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

Talking of hitting high notes, I have started taking some singing lessons with Lydia White via video conference. Actually this is something that John White and I had talked about some time ago, when I learnt that John’s daughter Lydia, as well as progressing her show business career in musicals…

Rags The Musical, Hope Mill Theatre, 13 March 2019

…was also giving singing lessons. Meanwhile, Lydia’s career had just taken an unexpected, fortuitous leap forward into a leading role, when lockdown came, bringing that opportunity to an end after just a few shows.

Anyway, it turns out that Lydia is a very good singing teacher and that, although she hadn’t tried giving lessons by VC before, that she can provide excellent coaching that way, much as Ian Pittaway helps me to progress my instrument playing, mostly through remote lessons.

A Renaissance In Baritone Ukulele Lessons, Stourbridge, 3 July 2017

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.

Here is a link to Lydia’s singing lesson site.

Another Plug For Rohan Candappa’s Lockdown Theatre Company, 6 May 2020

I have previously plugged Rohan Candappa’s wonderful philanthropic yet artistically excellent project, the Lockdown Theatre Company.

This week’s production, Diff, is right up there as a piece of writing and performance:

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”

We then drove off. While we were waiting for the sat nav to get its bearings, Dumbo (who loves visiting Lord’s more than anything)…

Lord’s net practice report

…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.

Big Dog’s Big Question by Kay Scorah, Guest Piece From Virtual ThreadMash, 22 April 2020

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…

…but you would be SO wrong. David, Julie and Flo produced pieces that were so dark, I’m thinking of sending them to the government’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, suggesting that he examine these ThreadMash pieces as evidence of mental health issues arising from lockdown.

But for now, dear Ogblog readers, you are spared the darkness and lockdown anxiety.

I am delighted that Kay has, once again, (click here to read The Gift from last year), submitted one of her pieces as a guest piece for Ogblog. So I am proud to present:

Big Dog’s Big Question by Kay Scorah

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.”