Category: Work Life

A Hat Trick Of Seasonal Events, London Cricket Trust Dinner, Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner & Z/Yen Team Lunch, 11, 12 & 13 December 2019

It seems churlish to complain about too many nice events, but this particular week really did include a surfeit of them for me.

I had already enjoyed the Parasite evening at Curzon Mayfair…

Parasite by Bong Joon-hu, Film Preview & Panel Discussion, Curzon Mayfair, 9 December 2019

…and the Z/Yen 25th anniversary party at The Old Bailey…

25th Z/Yeniversary Alumni Function, The Old Bailey, 10 December 2019

…and it was still only Tuesday.

The three events described in this piece were the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the same week.

London Cricket Trust Dinner, Three Cranes, Wednesday 11 December 2019

Duncan Jenkinson, Andy Griffiths, Leshia Hawkins, some bloke in pink Middlesex kit photo-bombing our picture, Ivan Thomas and Me, 16 July 2019

No photos from this event, but the above photo and link is from one of the highlights of the London Cricket Trust’s year – A B de Villiers opening our Deptford Park facility in July.

We thought it would be a good idea to have a meal together after the Trustees meeting this time. We have been gathering now since 2017 planning non-turf pitch and net facilities for London’s parks, without ever breaking bread together…until this evening.

The Three Cranes location in the City worked well for me, giving me the opportunity to clear some work at the office (yes, believe it or not I did also do some work in this event-filled week) before the Trustees meeting at the Three Cranes, which was followed by the joyous meal and libations.

This evening was an excellent opportunity to all get to know each other a bit better. Not just we Trustees, but also the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) people who have been working tirelessly on our intiiative (and participation cricket more generally), plus Ed Griffiths and his team who have been doing so much wonderful pro bono work on behalf of the LCT over the years.

One of many good thoughts that emerged from the evening is that we still haven’t actually watched any professional cricket together; we’re hoping to put that right during the 2020 season.

A very enjoyable evening.

Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner & Trophy Match, Spaghetti House Holborn, Thursday 12 December 2019

It’s been a big year for anniversaries. Not only the Z/Yen 25th (the alumni party for which is linked again here and at the very start of this “hat trick” piece)…

…but also the 40th anniversary of NewsRevue, which had its alumni event during the summer:

NewsRevue 40th Anniversary Party, Show & Smoker, Canal Cafe Theatre, 18 August 2019

One NewsRevue alum who, sadly, only just made it a few months beyond the 20th anniverary of that show was Ivan Shakespeare. We “Class Of ’92” types who were NewsRevue contemporaries of Ivan meet on an irregular occasional basis, three or four times a year, to keep in touch with each other, eat, trade jokes, share bizarre quizzes and also to remember Ivan. We’ve been doing that since mid 2000, a few months after Ivan died.

In the seasonal version of our gathering, the stakes increase markedly and we play one of the quizzes for The Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Trophy. I am proud to be the donor of the original Memorial Trophy, which was first contested in 2002, about 18 months after the dinners started.

It’s a bit like The Ashes, but for comedy writers rather than for cricketers.

Much like The Ashes, the trophy is a thing of exquisite gimcrackness; it’s absence of taste simply has to be seen to be believed:

Observant readers will see that I won that trophy once; in 2004
Some real names from the world of quizzing on there: Hugh Ryecroft for one, Barry Grossman being another.

The problem is, unlike The Ashes, the trophy is inscribed with the winner’s name each year…

…and the original trophy is running out of sensible places for the embazoning of the winner’s name…

…OK, there never were sensible places for the emblazoning, but now we are even running out of silly places to inscribe.

The solution: a new trophy. Acquired through the sort of tenacity that only Graham Robertson could possibly deploy – an eBay purchase which he needed to make twice because the first eBay vendor of tasteless out-of-date royal gimcrack merchandise took Graham’s money and did a runner.

The assembled alums at our new spiritual venue, The Spaghetti House in Holborn, decreed that Mark Keegan, who won the original trophy three times, should become “steward-for-life” of the original trophy.

Mark Keegan, delighted with his original trophy. Graham Robertson looks on, enviously.
Barry Grossman shows off the new trophy…
…then wears one for the team by winning the new trophy this year

As usual I came quite close but no cigar for me in the trophy stakes since 2004. Barry Grossman scooped the glittering prize this year – with sincere commiserations to Barry – he could have been an also-ran, but instead…

It wasn’t all quizzes and trophies; oh no, no, no, no, no, no no. There was plenty of time for eating, drinking, topical humour and some sense-of-irony-sapping politics on what was, after all, an election night.

Moving swiftly on from the will-to-live-depleting topics back to the humour section, John Random produced another set of personalised Christmas crackers this year, based on the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg.

My cracker contained a note posing the intriguing question:

What do you call a deer with no eyes?

Frankly, I had no idea and would gladly have said, “no idea”, but for the answer provided, which instead said, in Braggian tones:

With me to discuss what you call a deer with no eyes, I have Ian Harris, Professor of Mammalian Opthalmology at Gresham College and author of In Darkness Let me Dwell – and Professor Jonny Hurst from the University of Manchester, author of Champagne Super Over: Oasis In Popular Culture.

There is sort-of a tradition in recent years for at least one person’s order to go horribly wrong at the festive dinner. This year it Barry Grossman who suffered the indignity of being brought his main at starter time and a starter-sized portion of his chosen main at main course time. The nice waiter did his best to sort things out.

Ironically, Barry went on to win the quiz, as did Jonny Hurst in 2017 when it was his turn to be the brunt of the ritual service humiliation – in those days at Cafe Rogues in Holborn not far from the scene of this year’s crime. That year, 2017, John Random’s personalised crackers had been based on the Moral Maze. He likes his thinky-Radio-4 programmes, does our John.

Anyway, the night of 12 December 2019 will surely be remembered as a great night for NewsRevue alums…and Tories…ironically.

Z/Yen Seasonal Lunch, The Old Bailey, Friday 13 December 2019

Z/Yen team gathered in the Alderman & Sheriff’s apartment

In the world of crime fiction, criminals have a regular, unfortunate tendancy; returning to the scene of the crime. Whether that is true in the real world or not I have no idea. Nor do I have the faintest idea what that point might have to do with this section of this piece.

Anyway, just three days after the Z/Yen Alumni function at The Old Bailey, the current Z/Yen team regrouped in that astonishing building for the staff seasonal lunch.

On this occasion we found ourselves in the smaller function room, used daily for the judges pre-luncheon drinks, after enjoying our pre-lunch drinks in Michael and Elisabeth’s apartment. Once again Sean, their footman, proved his skills as a photographer – thanks Sean.

The meal was a very good one; smoked trout fillet, followed by a posh duck dish, followed by an apple tart-like desert.

The wines tasted suspiciously like those excellent wines we’d enjoyed earlier in the week and seemed suspiciously well food-matched for the lunch, thanks to the combined skills of Gordon Clunie and (in all modesty) me.

Linda produced one of her fiendish seasonal quizzes – let’s not even talk about how badly Simon Mills and I did as a so-called team on that one.

Secret Santa visited (I got some baritone ukulele strings) and Santa also brought everyone a small box of super posh chocolates.

Then the traditional Z/Yen seasonal sing song. Being exceptionally woke for a boomer, I again recycled a previous effort this year, cunningly adding a topical reference ensuring that no-one would realise that it was recycled…

…unless they looked at the copyright years and/or version numbers and/or read this piece. Here is the 2019 version of The 12 Days Of Z/Yen Training. Excellent, was the performance, especially the “Five Forces” motif, which brought tears to my eyes each time around.

It is a fascinating musical phenomenon that this particular song works in so many different keys: C, C#, B, D, D#, A, E, G#, G, F & F#…all at the same time…at least, it did that afternoon.

After the formalities, plenty of informalities with some additional quizzing, singing, chatting and libations until it was chucking out time at The Old Bailey.

Chucking out time at The Old Bailey on a Friday afternoon works remarkably quickly and effectively:

You are welcome to stay on downstairs if you wish…but no-one will be here with the keys to your cell until Monday morning…

…everyone scarpers sharpish at that juncture.

Some ventured on for more libations at a local hostelry, but after five events in five days, all I could think about was getting home and lying down for a good few hours.

25th Z/Yeniversary Alumni Function, The Old Bailey, 10 December 2019

Put out the bunting! Charge the wine glasses. Z/Yen is 25 years old.

Can it really be that long since I formed Z/Yen with a small group of reprobates, not least Michael Mainelli? Yes.

Naturally the event has been reported in Now & Z/Yen, the company’s occasional newsletter/blog, (also now aged 25 and counting), click here for that report.

Preparations for the alumni do started some months before the event. Not least, the creation of a gimcrack exhibition worthy of the Victoria & Albert museum:

An early, experimental attempt some days before the event

Given the sizeable quantities of stock remaining for some Z/Yen gimcrack artefacts, we decided that the alums “deserved” goody bags on leaving this event.

Oh goody

Janie and I got to the location in good time, mostly because I deliberately over-estimated the journey duration for Janie’s benefit.

I showed Janie 20 old Bailey, where Michael and I worked prior to Z/Yen, plus the front of The Old Bailey. Somewhat ominously, 20 old Bailey is now home to Barings Bank & Metro Bank, among others.

While Janie and I were sightseeing outside the building, Linda Cook was busy adding a celebratory touch by putting out bunting based on a very early Z/Yen photo of me, Michael, Steve Taylor and Kate Carty (latterly Kate Taylor) – see headline picture and detail picture below.

I’m a little concerned on Linda’s behalf that the bunting (as seen in the headline picture) seems to be overhanging the portrait of Her Maj a little. There might well be a by-law in The Old Bailey that such disrespect to the monarch constitutes high treason and all that such a crime entrails…I mean, entails.

Joking apart, Michael gave those of us who chose to arrive early a fascinating, but at times somewhat grizzly, history talk about and tour around The Old Bailey.

Aldermansplaining The Old Bailey

Photos are not permitted on the tour. We sat in Court One for much of the talk. Elisabeth sat in the dock, while Janie and I sat in the jury seats. We found Elisabeth guilty on the grounds of looking a bit nervous in the dock…but then who wouldn’t with me and Janie beaming at them from the jury seats?

We also saw Court Six and the very grand main lobby. There is one place on the staircase where photos are permitted. Sean (Michael’s shrieval footman) turns out to be a dab hand at photography and kindly took the following:

By the time we tourists returned to the judges dining room to join the rest of the function, another twenty or so guests had arrived, so the party went into full swing…

…such full swing that Linda and Janie stopped taking photos, so you’ll simply have to imagine the drinks, canapes, bowls of yummy food and revelry.

In the run up to the event, I had been Ogblogging like fury, generating a three-part chronicle of Z/Yen’s conception and birth. Michael and I delivered a brief summary of that chronicle as a double-act on the night – click here for the pdf.

If you want to read the full three-parter, try the links within the pdf or the block links below:

Þe Chronique Of Primordyall Z/Yen: Þe First Part – Sumer Is Icomen In, Spring 1994
Þe Chronique Of Primordyall Z/Yen: Þe Second Part: Mirie It Is While Sumer Ilast, Summer 1994
Þe Chronique Of Primordyall Z/Yen: Þe Third Part: Windes Blast & Weder, Autumn 1994

I also sang the very first Z/Yen song, with the help of the assembled staff and alums who acted as the choir. Click here for a pdf of the lyric.

After that brief interlude, we all returned to eating, drinking and making merry.

It was a really enjoyable event, not least because it was such a well-organised event at such an interesting venue, but more particularly because it was so lovely to see so many Z/Yen folk past and present, all assembled and enjoying spending time together. Moved, I was.

An Evening With Onora O’Neill & Cara At The Royal Society, Then An Afternoon Watching A Dissemination Of Terrorist Publications Case At The Old Bailey, 28 & 29 October 2019

This was neither my first evening with Onora O’Neill nor my first visit to The Old Bailey.

Was it really nearly 12 years ago that I dined with Onora, again at The Royal Society, at a BCS Thought Leadership event? Yes:

BCS Thought Leadership Debate On Sharing Human Data, Royal Society, 15 January 2008

The Cara evening was actually a consequence of my first visit to The Old Bailey a few weeks ago…

Bound To Appear At The Old Bailey, 30 September 2019

…as Stephen Wordsworth of Cara was one of the guests for lunch at the Old Bailey that day and asked me if I would like to attend O’Nora’s forthcoming evening. Of course I said yes.

Monday 28 October – Communication and Democracy in a Digital Age

Onora O’Neill’s talk was fascinating. It is well summarised on the Cara website and there is also a link to the audio of the whole talk – click here or below.

Cara Science and Civilisation Lecture 2019

Lectures steeped in Kantian philosophy are not exactly awash with soundbite takeaways, but one especially good thought did stick in my mind in takeaway fashion; Onora’s assertion that the post World-War Two switch from duties-based philosophies towards rights-based philosophies is proving unhelpful for matters such as regulating social media.

The near-monopolies that deploy/control social media fall back on rights such as freedom of expression, privacy and autonomy while abdicating responsibility for duties such as truthfulness, trustworthiness and consideration for the sensibility of others.

Onora maintained a largely pessimistic line of argument, both in her talk and through the lively question and answer session that followed. I do not share her long-term pessimism on this topic; I think new media tend to go through an unruly phase when they can be especially disruptive to society (by which I mean negatively disruptive) because society and individuals within society take time to adapt to the positive uses of the new media.

In short, as long as we don’t destroy ourselves as a society before the new media settle down, I think those media will settle down and be a force for good to a greater extent than a force for ill.

Still, a fascinating evening, with some food and drink for sustenance as well as for thought after the main event. I met some interesting people for the first time and re-established connections with some others I had met before, including, very briefly, Onora.

Here’s that link again if you want to hear the talk.

Tuesday 29 October 2019, Afternoon, The Old Bailey Court Five

Coincidentally, my return visit to The Old Bailey, to spend a little time seeing a case unfold, was the afternoon following the Onora O’Neill Lecture.

Even more coincidentally, the case I watched for 90 minutes or so was about disseminating terrorist publications through social media. The subject matter of the cases are a matter of public announcement and record, so here and below is a link to the listing for this day:

What’s on at the Old Bailey, Oct 29

I watched with several of the people who had taken lunch with the judges that day, including Prue Leith (whom I had not met before) and Crispin Black (whom I had met before).

This was the first time I had sat in on a criminal trial in England; I did sit in on a case in New York some 30 years ago (to be Ogblogged in the fullness of time). It was fascinating for me to see an English criminal trial process at close hand, not least this particularly interesting trial.

There were several binders of material, mostly print-outs from the web, which were being outlined in opening statements that afternoon.

Without making any comment on the contents of those binders as evidence for this case itself, I found it unusually depressing (not a term I use lightly) to wade through the voluminous materials that had been printed out from the web to be used as evidence. I knew of such publications, of course, but had not actually seen, read or heard such materials before.

I also found myself thinking deeply about the lecture the evening before and Onora O’Neill’s pessimism about the impact that social media might have on our society if we do not find ways to regulate and curate such media towards good rather than ill. Despite my theoretical optimism (expressed above), the practical examples before me that afternoon allowed me little room for optimism for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow will be brighter, not least because I shall be spending the day in a very different type of court amongst friends.

Guilty…but only of poor technique

Despite it not making me feel good, I am very glad I went to The Old Bailey that day and that I have now experienced watching part of a trial unfold at close hand. I am grateful to Michael and his shrieval team for organising the visit for me.

Postscript: the trial resulted in convictions for both of the accused – click here for a newspaper report on the convictions.

Bound To Appear At The Old Bailey, 30 September 2019

Following Michael Mainelli’s admission as Aldermanic Sheriff of the City of London the previous Friday…

A Shrieval Day, Michael Mainelli’s Admission And Breakfast As Aldermanic Sheriff Of The City Of London, 27 September 2019

…I was bound to appear at the Old Bailey sooner or later. But it wasn’t until a few days before Michael’s admission that I was asked to join Michael and the judges for lunch on his first day as Sheriff, which I thought a very nice request and one that would be hard to turn down, despite the day not being overly convenient for the purpose.

The done thing is to stay on after lunch and watch the afternoon sitting of a case unfold for an hour or so; something that would interest me a great deal, but my itinerary for that day would not allow that post lunch hour. The kind administrators at The Old Bailey have arranged for me to return on another day, a few weeks hence, to observe a post-lunch sitting.

Anyway, I got to The Old Bailey in good time, which was just as well because security gave me a fairly thorough going-over. Try as we might, we couldn’t seem to find everything about my person that was making their gadgets go bleep.

I had visions of being taken down the cells and that the “phone-battery-gate” incident, as it would doubtless become known, which led to my (Michael’s business partner’s) arrest on his first day as Sheriff, becoming a legendary smear on Michael’s Aldermanic career.

But no, security eventually gave up on me, accepting that my cuff-links might be causing the relatively mild residuary bleeps. I was allowed in.

It was a relatively light day for The Old Bailey, with a minority of the courts sitting. The cases are a matter of public announcement and record – here and below is a link to the listing for the day of that visit.

What’s on at the Old Bailey, September 30

I was one of five guests that day and five judges dined. Before lunch, we guests were hosted by Michael and Elisabeth in their Old Bailey apartment for drinks. This was an opportunity for Michael to explain the workings of the Old Bailey to us and explain the protocols for the rest of our visit.

As it was his first one, Michael has also written it up, although he has gone for an extremely quirky angle on the matter – click here or below:

Piper The Puffin

I should perhaps explain that Michael has opted for a puffin as the animal atop his crest. Michael’s puffin is playing the bagpipes…obviously. You can read more about Michaels’ chain and crest by clicking here. The punchline, for those who choose not to click, is the motto: ordo ex χάος. Order out of chaos. Welcome to my world.

Then we guests were led into a reception room where we met most of the judges who were joining us for lunch. The traditional pre-lunch drink is a very flavoursome tomato juice.

There I learnt that coroners know how to have a good time when they gather for a convention, at least in the matter of witty after dinner speakers, such as John Spence.

Then the lunch itself, which was a light but very tasty vegetarian Indian meal.

There I learnt that judges don’t always pre-read the mini cvs that each guest is required to submit ahead of the lunch…but that judges can catch up pretty quickly on the content of five single paragraph cvs – who’d ‘ave thought it? The judges were excellent company. We discussed theatre, music and the Price Of Fish as well as their interesting cases.

There I also learnt that the knife crime epidemic is certainly manifesting itself in The Old Bailey schedule and that even genteel parts of London, such as my walking route twixt Notting Hill Gate and Lord’s, is not immune from such events. A slightly chilling thought ahead of my making that very walk later that very day.

But before braving the edgy, mean streets of Notting Hill Gate and St John’s Wood, I needed to say goodbye to the judges and my fellow guests, all of whom were sticking around in The Old Bailey.

After I descended the staircase to find myself back in the hands of the security team, I was much relieved to be shown the door rather than the next flight of stairs downwards for involuntary retention.

A very interesting lunch and I look forward very much to my return to see part of a case unfold.

A Shrieval Day, Michael Mainelli’s Admission And Breakfast As Aldermanic Sheriff Of The City Of London, 27 September 2019

Well, who’d have thought it? My business partner, Michael Mainelli, Alderman & Sheriff of the City of London. Fancy.

Actually, this shrieval office is one of the most ancient offices in all humanity that remains in continuous use. See helpful blurb from the back of the breakfast menu below.

From my point of view, it was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, acquaintances and of course Michael’s family from across the decades – Michael and I have now worked together for over 30 years and this event falls on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Z/Yen (or soon after it, depending on how you look on these things.)

Z/Yen, The Very First Z/Yen Seasonal Song Lyric, 9 December 1994

Anyway, point is, from the moment I arrived at the Guildhall, I found myself running into and chatting with folk I have known for ages; Michael’s brother Kelly and sister Katy, Elisabeth’s brother Marcus, Chris Smith, Robert Pay… also several of Michael’s high-profile friends, such as Neal Stephenson and Faisal Islam, who for once were in circumstances where they were perhaps less well known than me!

But today was about Michael Mainelli and his partner in crime (I mean in controlling crime of course) Sheriff Christopher Hayward, CC.

First up was the admission ceremony. It is explained on the following page.

This is not a ceremony that one films or photographs, but its ceremonial look might be gleaned from the following Pathe film from 1949 which claims to be the Mayoral Election but its title also claims to be a shrieval occasion, which I think might be an error:

Medieval ceremonial and an uber-historic look to many of the garbs there, from so long ago that the world was in black and white.

The ceremony in the Great Hall was a solemn affair; the Common Cryer and Serjeant-at-Arms broke the silence by commanding silence, so startlingly that several people made audible gasps before falling silent once more. I especially liked that bit.

After the ceremony, a reception downstairs in the Old Library – an opportunity to catch up with many people before going upstairs for the banquet.

At the reception, downstairs in the Old Library

I was too timid to take any pictures that day, but Rupert Stubbs, another of those good friends met through Michael and Elisabeth from decades back, took loads and sent me quite a few; many thanks Rupert.

I have often joked with friends from the North of England about the word dinner, meaning luncheon in the north and evening meal in the south of England. But here is an instance of a lunch-time (or do I mean dinner-time?) banquet being described as a breakfast. Indeed the breakfast invitation says…

the breakfast does not usually conclude before 3:30 pm

…which some of us might mistake for tea-time.

The term breakfast in this context, of course, like a wedding breakfast, has the ancient connotation of being the meal after a solemn ceremony before which, in days of yore, the main participants would be so engrossed in prayer ahead of the ceremony that the after ceremony meal would be, for them, the breaking of a devotional fast.

It did look grand…it was grand

Amazing grub too:

After the repast, the speeches in that glorious Old Library setting

I especially enjoyed Professor Jo Delahunty’s speech, during which she placed great emphasis on diversity and the rule of law; this year’s shrieval theme. Some around me seemed to find her speech, which seemed to me to be the voice of moderation, a bit edgy for the occasion. Apparently it is “the done thing” to restrict that particular speech to “pomping up the incoming sheriffs” (my choice of words for the gripes I heard).

Actually, my only beef with Jo Delahunty’s address was the selection of terrible mustard puns she made at the end of the talk, somewhat apologetically, as she had been told that it was compulsory to end on a joke.

That type of joke is a crime against hilarity in my book and the sheriffs should have done something to restore good order…except that I have a dreadful feeling that one of the sheriffs might have been the sauce of the puns [pun intended].

In any case, Jo did plug The Price Of Fish at the start of her talk, so I would forgive her pretty much anything.

Three hours after we sat down to breakfast, it was all over. Except that, before heading home, there was time to mill around and chat with some of the people I’d missed out on before the event. It really was lovely to see those people again.

The grandees departed in grand style…

…while the likes of me departed on the Central Line straight back to Noddyland and our little mock-medieval cottage:

West Acton, Chester Court, Monks Drive, W3 - geograph.org.uk - 217751
One of the grander buildings in Noddyland, dwarfing our cottage
This sheriff is not for mocking

So what does a new sheriff do on the weekend after his admission? Why, of course, he drives sheep across London Bridge. What else? Here’s a little film of the very thing that Michael is doing right now as I type (film from the previous year of course):

While the only thing that is driving out here in Noddyland, as I write, is the driving rain against my window pain.

Here is a link to Michael’s own take on the big day…by which I mean Admission day, not Sheep Driving Day.

It’s A Little Bit Funny – Three Evenings In Five Days, 11, 14 and 15 February 2019

For someone who is making a conscious effort to cut back on midweek evenings out, this was not a high-achieving week.

11 February 2019, BDO Binder Hamlyn Partners Reunion, Guildhall

It started with a gathering of former BDO Binder Hamlyn partners at the Guildhall. Michael Mainelli asked me to join him and Elisabeth in helping to host that event – the first regathering of those partners since the firm dissolved into Arthur Andersen and other firms in the mid 1990s.

Of course, I wasn’t a partner in that firm, but during my five-to-six years with the firm I did do most of my work for audit clients. I also did a couple of internal consultancy projects – such things were normally considered to be career-blight for consultants, but I was either considered to be sufficiently dispensable or savvy enough to survive such trials – I still haven’t worked out which.

Anyway, point is, I did know most of the characters who turned up at the Guildhall that evening, in the Members’ Dining Room, the very scene of the brawl I started, just a few weeks earlier, at the Z/Yen Christmas lunch.

Z/Yen Seasonal Lunch And Brawl, Guildhall, 14 December 2018

They are quite a centric bunch, the former Binder Hamlyn partners, in contrast with the quirkier group that descended on the National Liberal Club a few days later. Perhaps that explains why Michael didn’t trial his Gresham Society talk on humour in lectures. Instead, Michael made full use of his gavel and kept the formalities mercifully brief.

Actually it was a really pleasant gathering; just a shame there were none of the consultancy partners there who might have enjoyed the merry tale of my despair at my first assignment…

Reduced To Tears By My First Consultancy Assignment, 27 January 1989

…or that first musical jaunt to Oxford in 1989…

Music At Oxford At The Sheldonian Theatre & Bodleian Library, 7 July 1989

Anyway, I think the former partnership informally decided that it should regroup socially once every few years – certainly not leave it 20 to 25 years next time!

14 February 2019 – The Gresham Society Dinner – National Liberal Club

In fact we were on the way to the National Liberal Club when I discovered that Michael’s after dinner speech was to be on the subject of humour in Gresham lectures.

Excellent idea; it is always interesting when a professor chooses to speak on a subject about which he knows nothing…

…I said.

Michael laughed and then promptly added that joke to the start of his speech. It would be churlish to suggest that it got the best laugh of the whole speech, as there were lots of jokes in there…

…including, rather dangerously, I thought, one of my favourite intellectual jokes, the one about binary:

There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

I say, “dangerously”, because, of course, that is a joke that really only works properly on the printed page. As soon as you say “ten” or “one-zero” you have slightly killed the joke.

Had it been me, I’d have fallen back on my other favourite intellectual joke; the helium joke, which I think works much better orally than on the page, as long as it is delivered with good timing:

Helium walks into a bar.

The bartender says, “I’m sorry, we don’t serve noble gasses here”.

Helium doesn’t react.

Anyway, Michael’s after dinner talk was merely the apex of a very jolly evening. As usual, Tim Connell tried (and failed) to get through all the AGM business in five minutes. This time Tim double-failed; firstly by over-running in the first place, secondly by forgetting to re-elect the committee during the AGM bit which meant he had to hijack the start of the after-dinner revelry with that aspect of procedure.

Unusually this year we were graced with Iain Sutherland’s presence and he brought Bobbie Scully with him as a guest, which was a very pleasant surprise. Coincidentally, I had that very morning been Ogblogging about a visit to the theatre some thirty years ago with Bobbie to see the impenetrable Peter Handke play (or should I say dramatic poem?), The Long Way Round.

The Long Way Round by Peter Handke, Cottesloe Theatre, 8 July 1989

At the mention of this coincidence, Bobbie almost started hyper-ventilating as she remembers that particular theatre visit as quite the worst experience she can ever recall having at the theatre. If you click through you can read more.

Mercifully, Bobbie doesn’t seem to think that staying on for the second half was all my doing – she seems to think we both decided to stay out of charity to the performers, as we saw so many people leaving during the interval. So my memory of her begging me to leave during the interval and me insisting on us both staying is one of those false memories.

But back to the Gresham Society event, which no-one left early, even at the thought of an after dinner speech by Michael. It was, as always, a very convivial event with such interesting and friendly people.

Barbera Woodthorpe Browne organised a really charming touch for the evening – which ended up being on Valentine’s night this year due to availability of the venue – by sourcing large quantities of Valentine’s roses and seasonal gift bags enabling all of us to take the roses home to our loved ones.

15 February 2019 – Kim & Micky At Sanzio

The following evening Janie and I had dinner with Kim and Micky at Sanzio.

Picture from our previous visit in July 2018

I realise, looking at the picture from our previous visit, that we not only sat at the same table again but we even sat in the same places again. Here is my account of that previous visit:

Caution: This Restaurant Might Contain Nuts, Dinner At Sanzio With Kim & Micky, 13 July 2018

This time I was not required to sign any disclaimers in the restaurant, but Kim was very determined to prove that she is “good at logic” by trying to demonstrate some logic puzzles on the table, using glasses, bottles and the like to try to make those “pattern-grid” type puzzles.

Janie and Micky were utterly baffled by it. I kinda got what Kim was on about (for once) but seemed to irk her by suggesting that such logic puzzles are not the be-all and end-all of rationality and indeed formal logic.

Meanwhile Kim’s dinner table logic puzzles started to look and sound like an old duffer demonstrating military maneuvers or cricket field placings by moving the cruet around the table. And the more Janie protested that she doesn’t/cannot engage with such puzzles at all, the more Kim sought to explain, while insisting that Janie can.

Meanwhile, I have a funny feeling that Jean-Paul Sartre was sitting alone at the next table, contemplating existential logic. After dinner, I heard the gentleman say to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee with sugar, but no cream”. The waitress acknowledged his order and Sartre returned to his ponderings. A minute or two later, the waitress returned and said, “I’m sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we don’t have any cream – is it OK without milk?”

A Marcus Evening But Not A Family Gathering, De Hems Dutch Café Bar, 7 February 2019

I have no idea why people think I would be a useful member of a quiz team. Perhaps it is because I am so intelligent and witty and knowledgeable about the topics I am willing to discuss.

It doesn’t seem to occur to people that top notch quizzers aren’t very much like me at all – or rather the selection of topics that top notch quizzers are knowledgeable about don’t overlap much with my topics of interest.

Anyway, every so often I get asked…

…once…

…but on the occasions I have said yes, I cannot recall ever being asked back…

…and very often I say no. In fact, unless the event or companionship pleases me, I say no.

On this occasion, Jasmine Birtles asked me to join her, Brian Jordan, John Random and others. I have known those three since the early 1990s, through NewsRevue – here’s but one write up of a fairly recent regathering, including a picture of Jasmine and John.

An Amazing Week Of Grazing And Moral Mazing, 1 to 7 December 2017

Brian Jordan I hadn’t seen for a very long time. While John Random was the first NewsRevue director to use my material:

You Can’t Hurry Trusts, NewsRevue Lyric, 7 May 1992

…Brian Jordan was the first performer to take my material to Edinburgh, in his gloriously-named show : Whoops Vicar is That Your Dick? (Sadly, you couldn’t get away with that title today):

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

Anyway, my point is, I was keen to meet up with this charming crowd as long as Jasmine recognised that I am not the quizzer she might have been hoping for. So when she asked me to join her MoneyMagpie team, I replied:

How could I possibly say no to that? But surely we have better general knowledge quizzers than me in our orbit?
Still, it would be lovely to join you and your team if I’m as good as it gets.

Hence, I ended up in De Hems Dutch Cafe Bar in Soho on a cold February evening as a guest of Marcus: By Goldman Sachs via MoneyMagpie.

In fact, I arrived in Soho a little early, so took a stroll down Chinatown memory lane at New Year time for a few minutes before entering De Hems.

It was great to see Brian Jordan again after all these years and it is always a treat to spend time with John and Jasmine. Also on our team were Susan and Annie, who were also delightful company, as was Annie’s son (who works for Marcus) and Tony Elliott who was our Marcus host on our table.

As usual, nothing that I really know about came up. No theatre, no early music, no sixties and seventies popular music, no cricket, no real tennis…

…what’s the matter with these quizzes?

On the few occasions I could answer a question with authority, at least one other person if not several others on the team knew the answer.

So I opted for the role of team cheerleader, to try and maintain the concentration and positive energy of my teammates. I also acted as the runner to take our answer sheets in – a role I tried to perform with as much gusto as my aching body could muster.

In the former matter, I (and indeed the team) was only moderately successful – we came fourth out of seven teams.

Somewhere on my bookshelves is a so-called humorous book from the 1980s called The Mackeson Book Of Averages – which was an alternative, stout antidote to the Guinness Book Of World Records. It is a very ordinary book. But if there is ever an update to the Mackeson Book Of Averages, perhaps The MonyMagpies team result in this pub quiz should be recorded in that book. That would enable me, Brian, Jasmine and John to add to our stupendous Guinness World Record via NewsRevue, plus my other Guinness World Record via Goodenough College.

But I digress.

In the matter of my role as team runner, I was awarded an MVP award (MVP normally means most valuable player, but in my case it was presumably most volatile player) – in the form of a bottle of Prosecco, which I proudly displayed in my trophy cabinet for about 2 minutes (long enough to photograph it):

…before handing it over to Janie for a more suitable purpose (drinking).

I think that Janie thinks that I won the bottle of bubbly for quizzing, so please, readers, do not disabuse her of that belief.

And talking of abuse, Jasmine reminded me that she wrote The Little Book Of Abuse some years ago, which is a bit of a coincidence because I had spent the preceding Tuesday evening with Rohan Candappa and others, also doing silly things in a room above a pub:

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

…and of course Rohan is the author of The Little Book Of Stress. I think Janie’s waiting area needs copies of both of those books…

…while the surgery itself is of course, in book terms, dedicated to The Price Of Fish.

On that final subject, I did a very clever deal with Tony Elliott of Goldman Sachs, who offered to buy a copy of The Price Of Fish if I, in turn, shovelled thousands of poundsworth of savings towards Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Good deal makers, these Goldman Sachs people – who knew?

Anyway, I shall not be using “mother’s maiden name?” as one of my security questions.

In short, the food, the wine, the company and the event were all top notch and most enjoyable. Our team’s quizzing though? Very average.

Z/Yen Seasonal Lunch And Brawl, Guildhall, 14 December 2018

We had a fine lunchtime meal as our Z/Yen seasonal works outing this year, in the Guildhall. The meal is described in detail on the menu above.

I personally went for the tempura of cod followed by goose and cheesecake – all was delicious. I wouldn’t make this point on Now & Z/Yen, but on my own blog I feel able to say that:

Tempura of Atlantic cod with garden pea puree and lemon grass drizzle

…is just a posh way of saying “fried cod & mushy peas”. Very tasty, it was.

So how and why did this festive occasion end up as a brawl? You’ll need to read my Now & Z/Yen write up of the event to ascertain that – click here.

Or, if by any chance something happens to the Z/Yen website to prevent you from reading the above, the text of that article is scraped to here.

Anyway, if you want to jump to the punchline unexplained, click the YouTube link below – especially 2’45” onwards, which illustrates the sort of thing we did, although we did it for ourselves:

Here’s the lyric I wrote to enlighten our proceedings::

EXTZY 2018 VERSION

(Sung to the tune of “Ding Dong Merrily On High”…or more accurately “Branle de l’Official”)

Buy/sell merrily at Z/Yen,
In market games we’re trading;
Buy/sell heavily, you ken,
Z/Yen coffers we are raiding.

ExtZy,
For prizes or donations;
ExtZy,
For prizes or donations.

This lark isn’t just a game,
We’re Z/Yen Communitizing;
Building membership’s our aim,
And benchmark analyzing.

ExtZy,
For prizes or donations;
ExtZy,
For prizes or donations.

Play through Avatars we’ve made,
Z/Yen peoples’ role as ringers;
Let’s just hope that when we trade,
We’re better play’rs than singers.

ExtZy,
For prizes or donations;
ExtZy,
For prizes or donations.

It is extraordinary how, when I was planning this year’s Z/Yen festive singing, all roads led back to my early music teacher, Ian Pittaway, really quite by chance. The Now & Z/Yen piece doth explain.

Rest assured, a fine time was had by all and that, despite our brawl in the Guildhall, we would be welcomed back there.

Another Day, Another Guinness World Record Broken, Goodenough College, 8 October 2018

I am no stranger personally to breaking Guinness World Records, as explained and illustrated in the following piece…

Ultimate Love and Happy Tories, Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 3 March 2017

…and (perhaps less plausibly) I did claim another world record as a child, along with Paul Deacon, recorded for all posterity in my diary. This earlier claim has caused some controversy amongst the Alleyn’s School alumni:

Breaking The World Record For Coin Catching With Paul Deacon, Woodfield Avenue, 30 December 1974

So, when my business partner, Michael Mainelli, announced that, in his capacity as Master of the World Traders, he had decreed that the Guiness World Record for the most nationalities simultaneously singing a pop song was to be broken on his watch, I thought I should lend my considerable experience of world-record breaking to the enterprise. Especially as part of the purpose was to raise some money for charity.

Michael, looking masterfully iconoclastic

The world-record attempt was to be made in conjunction with Goodenough College (a wise and practical move given the size of the college’s hall and its international residency characteristics).

The extant record is (was) 72 nationalities, which doesn’t sound difficult to beat until you try. 

My attempts to coerce some of the rarer nationalities to Bloomsbury on the promise of refreshments and a chance to be a record breaker had very limited success.

However, I did turn up myself in my capacity as an Estonian E-Resident as well as a UK national. Whether my E-Residency will count or not is in the hands of the official authenticators. It is on a short list of “others” which might or might not count. But we believe we have kicked the extant record deep into touch even if none of the “others” are accepted. .. (Update: the e-residency didn’t count – but my attendance still counts of course). 

Yo!

The first part of the evening was a bit like trying to get through immigration at Heathrow after our beloved Prime Minister has had her bureaucratic way with Brexit. Everyone needed to register, have their nationality documents copied, witnessed, verified…

…only then could you complete the maze and enter the large hall where the sing-along took place.

…but without the chairs

Even then, we were all put through a further confirming, counting and segmenting into bite-sized zones to enable stewards and witnesses to confirm that we were all singing. We had over 200 people singing, representing up to 87 nationalities (including the three or four odd-bods like me) – well north of the previous record of 72.

But, despite the bureaucracy, it proved to be a great fun evening. There were lots of people I know there and I got to meet some new people too.

The choir-mistress got us to do some excellent warming up exercises to ensure that our minds, bodies and lungs were all to be working at full pelt when we went for the record.

Warming Up – photo borrowed from the World Traders Tweet

I was at the far end of the room – you can probably see three or four pixels of me in the above photo.

Then we practiced by singing “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”. I remember, even as a small child, finding that song cheesy. Yet it still turns out to be even cheesier than I remembered it:

https://youtu.be/8jr9hPbYmBo

Then we warmed up some more with Mamma Mia – another cheesy song but one with more communal fun singing characteristics:

https://youtu.be/LO3bos8WVD0

But the actual world-record attempt song was Imagine, which we practiced once and then sang in full, even repeating the third verse to make absolutely sure that we exceeded three minutes, a required factor for our record it seems:

https://youtu.be/VOgFZfRVaww

Actually, when we performed Imagine the second time – i.e. for the formal record-breaking attempt, it was a very moving experience. I think we all felt a sense of international cameradie and in the end we linked arms and swayed to the rhythm of our singing.

After the record attempt, the choir-mistress led us in another Mamma Mia to let off steam.

Then drinks. Plenty of them.

There were rumours on the night that a commercial enterprise was going to trying to break the very same record the next night. Indeed they sent some spies who tried to recruit singers from our event, which felt a bit sleazy to me. Anyway, word is, that those chancers only reached the 72 previously achieved and that our record should be confirmed.

We should learn quickly if/that our effort has been confirmed as a new world record. We ‘re quietly confident. I’ll update this posting once we know. Until then, you’ll have to imagine.

Update: the world record was confirmed and extolled some three week’s later while Janie and I were in Japan meditating atop a holy mountain.

Japan Day Ten: Journey To Koyasan And Cemetery Walk, 29 October 2018
WORLD RECORD FOR WORLD TRADERS

Yo!

A Couple Of Late Season Half-Days At Lord’s, Plus Queen’s And The LSE, 18 to 20 September 2018

A slightly strange chain of events and connections led to me being invited to give a video interview at the London School of Economics (LSE) for the LSE100 course, which is an interdisciplinary course for all undergraduates. The theme of the course this year is quite “Price of Fishy”.

Ahead of that 20 September interview, I thought I owed it to myself and to 1,600 new LSE undergraduates, to mug up a bit on The Price Of Fish – not least because it is a good few years since we last promoted it and longer still since we wrote it.

The interviewers also wanted to talk about predictive analytics and data visualisation. I felt on top of the stuff we’ve been doing lately on that topic, but also thought about the pitfalls of analytics and the graphical representation of statistics, which took my mind back to the wonderful little book How To Lie With Statistics, which I also decided to skim by way of revision.

And if you are going to skim-read books on sunny afternoons during the last home Middlesex match of the season, one might as well do that skimming at Lord’s.

Tuesday 18 September 2018

I got my other work bits and pieces out of the way, but at a slightly slower pace than I had intended, while keeping half an eye on the cricket score.

When I left home, Sam Robson was in the eighties. When I arrived at Lord’s he was on 96. I ran into Richard Goatley and Rob Lynch, who were in the Harris (no relation) Garden. They soon came and joined me in the Allen Stand gap to watch Sam clock up his first century for a while.

Feeling a bit sheepish about reading my own book in public, I decided to sit in the sort-of sun trap end of the Grandstand, where that stand meets the Compo, which is always very sparsely populated and does not seem to attract the usual suspects.

I wrote up this surreptitious Price Of Fish experience in a King Cricket stylee, which was eventually published by KC in February 2019 – click here for a link.

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to here.

By the time I had delved through those bits of The Price Of Fish that I needed to recall, it was getting very cold so I took sanctuary in the Pavilion Writing Room, where I chatted with a gentleman who looked mightily familiar to me although not in a Lord’s context. Turns out he lives around my way.

Wednesday 19 September 2018

I played tennis at The Queen’s Club that morning and had been asked to return that evening. The Lord’s tennis court is being refurbished this October so we have very kindly been granted real tennis refugee status at other nearby courts, including Queen’s.

I worked out that, between those real tennis gigs, I could get a few hours of cricket watching and book skimming done.

I felt a similar queasiness about being seen reading How To Lie With Statistics as I did about being seen reading my own book. Of course, I am drawing attention to the pitfalls and the ways that bad people might deliberately lie or mislead…not advocating the use of deceit, but that might take a bit of explaining.

My King Cricket piece on this reading day, published November 2018, can be found here.

If by chance anything ever happens to King Cricket, you can see a scrape of that piece here.

So I returned to the Grandstand/Compo corner and again saw/was seen by hardly anybody – certainly no-one I know.

Horrific traffic the last few hundred yards of the journey back to Queen’s, but I got there just in time…which is a little more than can be said for my opponent.

Thursday 20 September 2018

I did my LSE interview in the morning, which seemed to go well.

In fact I could have gone to Lord’s that afternoon for a while, as my afternoon client meeting had to be postponed. But it was well cold on the Thursday and in any case I could think of a zillion things I ought to get done with the unexpected few hours, so I went home and did those things instead, keeping at least one eye on the cricket score.

The match ended up looking like this – click here for scorecard and other resources.