An early visit to the gym, then back to the flat to allow in Steve the window cleaner while I did my month end paperwork, cleared my e-mails and stuff. Then to the house to pick up Janie and off in the direction of Brighton.
A relatively event-free journey until we get very close to the Hotel Una indeed, when we hit gridlock on the sea front road. We can hear sirens and nothing moves for ages. In the end, we turn off the main strip and I drop Janie near the hotel, where she can walk one minute round the corner to Regency Square, while I can turn around and drive back out of town to the University to be sure I’m there on time.
The seminar is a rather academic-oriented affair organised by the Department of Philosophy, although I am one of three guest speakers from the world of commerce. We try to cover rather a lot of ethical ground in one afternoon, perhaps a little over-ambitious, but no-one seems to mind, especially once the wine and nibbles arrive.
I abstain from the wine but (having skipped lunch for a small snack before departure from London) indulge a little in the nibbles and some juice before making my excuses and heading back to the hotel.
Rather a rapid turn-around at the hotel, which made the luxury of the place seem somewhat surplus at that hour, but then we went round the corner to the Salt Room for our family dinner, Ogblogged privately.
I think it went OK. I said what I really feel AND they let all four of us panellists go after the hearing, rather than “taking us by boat to the Tower”, so by that criterion I think it went really well.
Back home to clear my backlog of messages and the like, then after a quick bite of lunch on to the other Lord’s to play real tennis. Perhaps liberated from the fear of noble shackles, I played well today, in contrast with the shocker I played yesterday.
I was due to have a jam with DJ this evening, but he deferred to another date as he is a little poorly. So I ended up having a quiet pasta supper and an early night – probably just as well as I was very tired and had another busy day lined up for tomorrow.
A Pokémon Displaying A Worrying Level Of Indifference To Cricket At Lord’s (with thanks to Xueyi for capturing the little fella)
For several years now, it has been a Z/Yen tradition for a dozen or so of us to visit the Middlesex v Surrey T20 match at Lord’s. For several years, the tradition was also to witness Surrey thrashing Middlesex and for the assembled throng to try consoling me and Jez with “maybe next year” platitudes.
But last year, for the first time in yonks, Middlesex won the match. Better yet, this year Middlesex were sitting a bit higher in the table than Surrey ahead of the fixture, with both sides desperate for the points to help achieve knockout-stage qualification. A big game.
However, I had some difficulty persuading Xueyi to attempt watching cricket again. Her previous visit (two years ago) had left her cold in several respects; not least the chilly weather but also finding the cricket hard to fathom and finding the “M&S picnic nibbles” not quite to her taste. I suggested that I might take a trip to Chinatown and stock up with Cantonese bakery delicacies as the centrepiece of the picnic if that might persuade Xueyi to join us. She said it would.
I was working from home that day, so I chose to make my Chinatown hike reasonably early to be sure of a good stock of the day’s bakery delights. I googled to see if my old stomping ground was still top notch for this purpose and discovered that, indeed, Kowloon in Gerard Street is still highly regarded, especially for its massive cha siu baos and gai mei baos. I was introduced to that place in the late 1970’s/early 1980s when doing holiday jobs for Newman Harris in Cavendish Square; the Chinese Malaysian trainees and I used to make a lunch of those big tasty buns. It must be a good 25 years since I last went there, though.
Cha Siu Baos – Picture by Anthony Baby from (optional) – This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
On the way, I recalled that the place used to be cash only and made sure I had drawn enough money just in case. Indeed, the place was utterly unchanged including the hand-scribbled order ticket and the cash only payment desk. I went a bit mad buying lots of baos, plus some cha siu pastry ones and some sweet melon pastries too.
I called Xueyi to let her know that I had bought loads of food and also to ask her to let Linda know that we wouldn’t need much else for the hoards, but Xueyi clearly had other ideas, not least a fiendish plan to get some smaller delicacies from her favourite dim sum joint; Orient London. Like me, Xueyi went a bit mad getting loads of cha siu pastries (smaller than the Kowloon ones, but, frankly, much finer) and also some very juicy and delicious prawn spring rolls, which were surprisingly good cold. Also some Cantonese brisket beef slices.
Cha Siu Pastries – by Terence Ong – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
In her fervour, Xueyi neglected to pass on my message to Linda, who went down to M&S and bought a fair selection of nibbles just in case my Chinese food idea didn’t go down well with everyone.
Anyway, to cut a long story short the Chinese delicacies went down very well with our team and there were plenty left to feed other spectators sitting near us and Linda had lots of M&S food to take home with her for the weekend.
Why were we there? Oh yes, a cricket match.
Barmy Kev came and sat near us but for some reason chose not to join us when invited. Perhaps he thought we might have designs on his bottle of wine (as if we didn’t have plenty of that too). But soon Kev realised that he had no corkscrew, so (not for the first time in my life and surely not for the last) begged the loan of a corkscrew from me and then demonstrated for about 5 minutes how very bad his screwing technique is for one so experienced as he – Kev’s MTWD write up, here, does not do his demonstrable incompetence justice. There was a big crowd cheer when he eventually withdrew the cork.
Meanwhile, Xueyi (from Nanjing, China) and Ashley (born in Jamaica but raised in the USA and therefore strangely aware of but not well versed in cricket) asked quite a lot of sensible questions about the game and then settled down to finding pokémons in the crowd, which they seemed to be able to do with little difficulty and much delight (see photo).
Marc (sitting next to me) tried to argue a social justice case for Surrey to win the match because Middlesex won last year; this was about as convincing to me as his “Brexit leave” arguments.
Regardless of whether they focus on the eating, drinking, pokémons and/or cricket, the Z/Yen team always seems to enjoy this outing. There was a record crowd for a domestic T20 cricket match in England that night 27,000+, so it seems that we’re far from the only bunch that finds these T20 evenings a fun and enticing proposition.
I know from my own years editing the Middlesex Till We Die (MTWD) website that one of the toughest jobs is getting enough articles for the winter. Sportnetwork require regular editorial material as the quid quo pro for providing their site and system.
So when I chatted with Barmy Kev in the autumn, explaining to him what Ogblog is about and offering him some ideas for pieces, the answer was, “I could do with some stuff for after Christmas”.
I suspect that many county cricket lovers occasionally have afternoons like that when the matches suddenly get very interesting indeed.
Yes I did catch up with my work in the end as well, thank you for asking, for those Ogblog readers too lazy even to click the link and read a few hundred words. Honestly.
Then I set off by tube for a mixed day of peripatetic work and leisure. First stop; Lord’s for a game of real tennis. I thought I played well again today; perhaps starting to get my head round some of the tactics needed to win big points and close out games.
I didn’t hang around too long at Lord’s, as I wanted to visit Lock and Co. before meeting Chris Harrison for lunch. My beaten up old Chepstow trilby really had become an embarrassment and yet was still a favourite hat; I probably wanted a direct replacement. I tried a few different ones, but basically concluded that in the Chepstow “I look like me” so went for it.
About 150 yards down the road, as I was walking past St James’s Palace, I walked past two young American women, one of whom said to me (without pausing for breath in the middle of her conversational sentence with her friend), “I really like your hat”, which I felt endorsed my buying decision.
Another 150 yards towards Chris’s offices, I am crossing The Mall at the pelican crossing there and I see a cyclist, who has stopped for me at the lights, who looked the spitting image of Boris Johnson. On closer inspection, I realised that it WAS Boris. “You’ve made a really bad call to go for Brexit, Boris”, I said, “a shocking and dangerous decision. Think about the geopolitics of it. Think about the world”.
“No I haven’t, no it isn’t” mumbled Boris as we parted company. I wonder whether I made him think at all? I wonder whether he liked my hat?
Postscript: November 2018
I realise, in retrospect, that my intervention with Boris might be considered to be a microaggression, or even a macro-aggression, frankly.
Imagine the scene; a be-suited gentleman in a sharp Paul Smith suit and a brand new Chepstow from Lock & Co, carrying a rather peculiar looking bag, which happens to contain nothing more than a real tennis racket, waving the bag in anger at a stationery Boris on a bike:
…the young professionals there were convinced that my real tennis bag contained a sawn-off shotgun rather than a tennis racket…
…which is a bit odd at one of a handful of places in the world where there is more than one real tennis court.
Coincidentally, one of those young professionals, Jack Clifton, transferred to Lord’s when it reopened in October and spotted straight away that one of the real tennis exhibits in the reception is a very similar bag; that which belonged to the late, great actor, Sir Ralph Richardson:
The inscription in part reads, “Although not a very gifted player, Sir Ralph was a real tennis devotee…” Sounds like my kind of guy.
Anyway, point is, I did not intend my intervention with Boris Johnson to be quite as aggressive as it might have seemed. Further, I apologise unequivocally for my unintended aggression towards Boris. I should, to use language that lawyers and Boris understand, have aligned my mens rea with my actus reus.
Back To the Original 2016 Piece
A delightful lunch with Chris, at which I handed over his ticket for Friday at the test. A small family-run Italian place near his offices; I had a very tasty seafood pasta. Good strong coffee afterwards too. I had texted Janie to let her know that I had accosted Boris in the street, so she phoned to make sure that I wasn’t joking and/or hadn’t had a psychotic episode. Chris and I wondered why Boris was cycling away from the Commons at lunchtime and where he might have been going.
After lunch, a tube ride to Hammersmith and time to do a spot more on the Brexit paper before my one client meeting of the day, which went very well. Then a simple tube ride back to North Ealing, beating Janie back to the house by a good few minutes.
After clearing my e-mails, it was time for a little ukulele practice with Benjy the Baritone Ukulele, who thus photo-bombed the above picture of me sporting my new hat.
Janie and I then enjoyed an unusually early Persian food supper from Boof, a very good local Persian place.
Ant Clifford and his Creative Stream Team have been partnered by a client with me and the Z/Yen team for an interesting piece of joint work. We’ll mostly be working remotely and indeed had already made virtual progress through Skype, but Ant and I wanted a bit more face-to-face time after the first actual meeting in London.
We hatched a plan to have an early evening meal between the meeting and Ant’s 19:55 train to Sheffield. I summarise the e-mail exchange that hatched the plan:
10 January:
Ian: What sort of food do you like? I’ll muse a suitable venue once I know a bit more about your preferences.
Ant:I have no particular preference but love different experiences with food! Anything interesting is great!
…so much, so straightforward. A few ideas for dining without preconditions around the Bloomsbury/Euston/Kings Cross/Clerkenwell areas start formulating in my mind.
13 January:
Ant: I’ve just realised that, with horror, I am on a gluten-free diet for 2 weeks for a…documentary! I realise that may reduce our options significantly!
Perfectly understandable, this; happens all the time. I often suddenly realise that someone is making a documentary about me and I’m sure most people cannot remember from one week to the next who is making what documentary about them upon which subject. It’s hard to keep track.
Ian: Indian food is a good bet for gluten–freemen – as long as they like Indian food. Here’s one near St Pancras, Indian Lounge, which I’ve been meaning to try as it has good reviews…
…I made a couple of other suggestions too…
14 January:
Ant:That’s great – the Indian sounds awesome!
So, Indian Lounge it was to be. We had a really good meal, which I have reported on TripAdvisor here. We had a great chat about all manner of subjects, from Ant’s family and interesting collection of pets/livestock, to music, not least our shared interest in baritone ukuleles, although Ant is really an accomplished guitarist/musician rather than a hobbyist/tinkerer like myself.
When the food arrived, Ant took out a packet of white powder. “These creative types have become even more brazen as the years have gone on”, I thought to myself, trying not to look disapproving.
“The powder might or might not be gluten; it’s a double-blind trial,” said Ant, perhaps observing my expression, “shame to throw this powder all over such a nice dish. Would you mind filming me doing the sprinkling?” asked Ant. “Naturally”, I said.
The waiters seemed completely unperturbed by a diner sprinkling white powder all over their food, smiling and laughing, while another diner films the act. Perhaps it is commonplace in the Indian Lounge – we are in Kings Cross after all.
The meal was most enjoyable and the time passed quickly. A couple of times I said to Ant “keep an eye on the time”, then the third time I said, “I’m not trying to get rid of you, but there’s now only 12 minutes until your train.” Hurried goodbyes, a decision to do it again sometime and Ant dashes off for his train. Before I have even finished settling the account, I receive a reassuring text to let me know that Ant made his train just in time.
The Bottlescrue is no longer there, he says, writing eight years later. It is now a health club. Go figure.
A bittersweet occasion, was the Z/Yen seasonal event in 2015, as it doubled as Mary O’Callaghan’s leaving do and also coincided with my so-called semi-retirement, which was the cause of some consternation in Z/Yen at that time.
Still, we of course ate and drank and made merry. Secret Santa did his thing and some Z/Yen gimcrack no doubt did the rounds too.
I found a way of combining the seasonal lyric with the topic of Mary’s departure, which resulted in this rather charming number, thought I say so myself:
MARY’S BOLD JOB ( A Calypso sung to the tune of “Mary’s Boy Child” )
VERSE ONE Long time ago in London Town, in a place named St Helen, Mary joined a little firm; that firm was known as Z/Yen. Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong; But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.
VERSE TWO Now Mary worked long and worked hard, she was no trouble in any way, Except when Linda had to calc-ulate her statutory maternity pay; Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong, But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.
VERSE THREE Then Z/Yen removed to Basinghall, the Ward of Cheap was full of pleasures, But Mary found she had to learn, about some mutually distributed ledgers; Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong, But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.
VERSE FOUR When Mary handed in her cards, the festive season was in full swing, So every venue Mary chose, said “there’s no room at the inn”. (Shout out: Except for this place!!) Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong, But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.
OUTRO Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the noise can be quite scary, But Z/Yen will sing forever more, the praises of our dear Mary.
By the time Janie had waded through the materials from Kim’s very generous membership birthday gifts, which included membership of the Tate, she realised that she/we had missed the previews of this exhibition but there was still one members evening left, so we arranged to meet at the tate Modern early evening.
Then to the office for a few hours to clear some stuff before wandering over the (formerly wobbly) bridge to the Tate. It all felt a bit different, doing the members evening thing. As it was relatively late in the exhibition, this members evening was not so crowded and really did feel like an opportunity to see a popular show in quieter circumstances.
It wasn’t quite as much fun as the stub makes out. Some elements were really good fun, but there was also a lot of agitprop art and swathes of grim as well as swathes of lighthearted, colourful stuff. As usual, we were quite selective, spending longer in rooms that interested us and skimming stuff that did less for us.
Janie bought me a couple of really snazzy ties in the Tate Modern shop that evening; these weren’t directly connected with the show but did have a sort-of pop art look about them. I have had more positive comments about those ties than any others in my collection, but sadly the Tate modern subsequently seems to have fallen out of love with ties.
Our now traditional Z/Yen outing to see the Middlesex v Surrey T20 fixture at Lord’s.
We had a few late dropouts this year which allowed us the opportunity to treat some other people; Mark Duff, Sebastian Yeandle, Clive Hyman and Niclas Ljungberg to name a few.
We did the usual “everyone chip in to a picnic” thing; I was in the office that afternoon, so went round the supermarket with Linda to ensure we had good food coverage.
I recall that Sebastian was keen to see round the pavilion, so came suited and booted for that purpose – I took him round during the break between innings and showed him some cricket from the Long Room at the start of Surrey’s reply. We saw several wickets fall but, because of our Long Room location, we didn’t see Nick Gubbins ignominious tumble, failing to celebrate a catch – click here.
Niclas Ljungberg is but one of a long line of people from non-cricket playing countries whom we have tried and mostly failed to get into cricket.
Niclas, with typical Swedish politeness yet directness, wrote the following in his thank you note:
Many thanks for hosting the picnic at Lord’s yesterday, and for the enjoyable combination of plenty good food and introductory sports education.
Mark for some reason still seems to think this is a superior form of athletic activity to cross country skiing, I guess he just hasn’t quite seen the Northern light yet.
For those, like me, of the Middlesex persuasion, the important bit was that the ground was heaving with people and they saw Middlesex play really well on this occasion – click here for the scorecard.
We probably should have a corporate rule that every board meeting should conclude with a lunchtime concert.
But in reality this sort of thing is a rare treat for us…but treat this was indeed.
Michael had spotted this one, no doubt through some aldermanic connection, so not only did we get to listen to the delicious music but we got to eat some of the delicious food for honoured guests afterwards and network a while.
I like Handel’s concerto grossi and we got two of them in this concert. The sandwich filling was some Arvo Pärt of the listenable variety.
