Category: Work Life

Z/Yen Seasonal Event At 90 Basinghall Street, 11 December 2014

On this occasion, we decided to make the Z/Yen seasonal event “a musical house party” at our offices in Basinghall Street.

We weren’t exactly flush that year and we had a lot of musical people in our midst…

…well, one or two genuinely musical people and quite a lot of people who like to have a go.

It was the year that Mike Smith had induced me to start playing the baritone ukulele.

It was a bit like the definition of jazz – i.e. the musicians were enjoying themselves more than the audience. But that was OK because almost everyone WAS the musicians. And everyone was enjoying the party.

I’m grateful that Janie took pictures to help mark this event.

The usual traditions of Secret Santa, a little giftie for everyone and of course the seasonal song were all in play.

A rare offering in the lyrics department by Michael Mainelli that year. I think we agreed that, as Mike and I were putting together a whole load of musical entertainment, a revival of Michael’s contribution to the 2011 medley would do.

The lyric is not bad at all (is it possible I tweaked it a bit?) and well suited to an event in Basinghall Street:

OH LITTLE STREET OF BASINGHALL

(Sung to the tune of “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”)

Oh little street of Basinghall,
On Guildhall’s shady side;
Above old Gresham College Hall,
Z/Yen’s offices reside.

Yet on the fourth floor slaving,
Z/Yen staff work till they sink;
While past the fifth floor sliding door,
Directors eat and drink.

How noisily, how noisily,
They party with the swish;
To show off Z/Yen’s new office and,
Promote “The Price of Fish”.

But now Z/Yen’s Christmas party,
Is here so we can sell;
This gastro dome, that wondrous time,
To the tune of Jingle Bells.

CSFI 21st Anniversary Reception, Nouriel Roubini Speech and City of London Sinfonia Recital, Old Library Guildhall, 11 November 2014

A very unusual and pleasant evening in the City, at the Old Library, Guildhall.

The Old Library and Print Room, Guildhall, London (1)

It was the Centre For The Study Of Financial Innovation (CSFI)‘s 21st birthday party.

We were treated to a drinks reception, a talk by New York economist Nouriel Roubini who had many interesting insights into the post 2008 crisis world.

Then a delightful recital performed by the City Of London Sinfonia with Dame Felicity Lott. Writing this up more than three years later (February 2018), I nevertheless can report on all the pieces we heard…

…because my memory is so superb…

…especially when supported by some scribbled notes on my programme:

  • Elgar – Serenade For Strings;
  • R Strauss – Morgen!;
  • Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending;
  • Schubert – The Shepherd On The Rock.

No video from the actual evening, of course, but below is a short video of the City of London Sinfonia performing something else (a charming Mozart presto) somewhere else…

…and here is a live performance of Felicity Lott (with a different lot in a different grand setting) performing Strauss’s Morgen! which will give you a reasonable idea of the sounds we actually heard:

Thanks CSFI – a truly memorable evening.

An Audience With Justin Welby, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace, 20 August 2013

Justin Welby and Kim Geun-Sang at Seoul Cathedral, November 2013, Photo by Ellif, CC BY 3.0

I don’t normally mark business meetings in Ogblog. But this one, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, deserves a mention, if only to mark the occasion.

It was a very productive and interesting meeting.

I had met both of Archbishop Justin’s predecessors: Archbishop Rowan at a lunch a couple of years earlier…

Lunch At Lambeth Palace, Followed By The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Barbican Theatre, 15 June 2011

…and Archbishop George around 1999 when I was doing work with The Children’s Society…

…but Archbishop Justin is, to date, the only one with whom I have had a proper meeting.

Writing this just over 10 years later, my key thought is, “could that meeting really have been 10 years ago?” Yes.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, Tate Modern, 26 March 2013

I don’t receive much corporate hospitality – never have.

But Z/Yen had been doing some stuff around Long Finance and the London Accord with Bank of America Merrill Lynch at that time, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been taken unawares when I received a message from Kegan Lovely headed:

Lichtenstein Corporate Supporters Evening Private View: 26 March from 6:45 -9:00pm

As I said in my reply to Kegan:

My first thought when I saw the subject line was “those bankers, always supporting and sponsoring tax havens!!”

Then I realised what a kind invitation it was. Janie loves her modern art, so if you do have a pair of tickets left and if it isn’t too rude for us to arrive c19:30/19:45, we’d very much like to join you that evening.

It really was a timely and kind invite – Janie and I had been planning to go to this exhibition for sure – we both really like Lichtenstein’s work. Back then, Janie was not a member of the Tate, so the opportunity to see the works on a quieter, private evening viewing felt like a real treat to us.

In the end, Kegan was poorly, so couldn’t even make it to the event that night to be our host in person, but Janie and I got to enjoy the exhibition and some corporate hospitality too.

Here is a link to the Tate resource on this exhibition.

The vid below gives you a pretty good idea of what the exhibition was like:

My review at the time is there in my thank you e-mail to Kegan:

Many thanks for the Tate Modern event. Janie and I both really enjoyed the exhibition.  Even though we had seen a lot of Lichtenstein’s stuff before, we had never seen it all in one place.  Also there were lots of works – especially the sculptures, design pieces and “explosions” – that were completely new to us and very good.  Lichtenstein was more versatile and multi-talented than I had previously imagined.

The Cinnamon Club, Preceded By Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant Garde, Tate Britain, 14 December 2012

This Z/Yen seasonal event was great fun and especially memorable.

Before dinner, we went to the Tate Britain to look at the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition that was all the rage that autumn.

Arthur Hughes, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Naturally this was a good excuse to encourage people to dress up for dinner…

…as if the Z/Yen crowd in those days needed much excuse to dress up.

The Cinnamon Club, in the old Westminster Library, was an excellent venue. We had the whole of the upstairs mezzanine for our dinner.

I wrote a song that year specifically for the event. Rather a good one, though I say so myself, despite (or perhaps because of) the Christmas cracker joke in the first verse.

GOOD KEEN Z/YEN TRAINEES

( Sung to the tune of “Good King Wenceslas” )

ALL: Good keen Z/Yen trainees abound

Late work, no-one leavin’

Pizza boxes strewn around

Deep pan, crisp and even

ALL: On expenses came that fare

Though the bosses cruel

Through the vents came just cold air

Saving winter fuel.

 ALL: “Please, please Michael up the heat,

This ought to concern ya

We can’t work with such cold feet

Or with hypothermia”

MICHAEL: “I am wearing just shirt-sleeves

Positively shvitzing!”

ALL: Thus was Michael’s firm decree

Not all that convincing.

IAN: “We need flesh and we need wine

We can’t get warm hither”

ALL: Thus did Ian else opine

Spoken with a shiver.

ALL: So the Z/Yen team set its sights

On this cozy venue

Dressed up as Pre-Raphaelites

Gorging through the menu.

There is a big stack of pictures from that year’s revelries, which you can see through this link and/or the picture link below.

SAM_0276

Bistro Bruno Loubert At Zetters, Preceded By “Hello” Drinks At 90 Basinghall Street, 16 December 2011

I don’t remember dancing the hokey-kokey at that year’s Z/Yen seasonal event, but the photographic record suggests that maybe I did.

We have an enormous number of photographs from that year’s event.

Prior to the meal, we had a party at our new offices, 90 Basinghall Street, which many of our partners had not previously seen. The upstairs room was well suited to hospitality.

Our private room at Bistro Bruno Loubert was a super venue for the dinner. We were quite a large group that year and the space was ideal.

The Price Of Fish had been published that year. Hence the seasonal medley focussing on the two big events of the year: the move to Basingall Street and the publication of the book. I wrote both halves of the song, although I need to nod towards Michael who had written a “St Helen’s” version of the “Oh Little Town” song some years earlier.

OH LITTLE STREET OF BASINGHALL

( Sung to the tune of “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” )

Oh little street of Basinghall,

On Guildhall’s shady side;

Above old Gresham College Hall,

Z/Yen’s offices reside.

Yet on the fourth floor slaving,

Z/Yen staff work till they sink;

While past the fifth floor sliding door,

Directors eat and drink.

How noisily, how noisily,

They party with the swish;

To show off Z/Yen’s new office and,

Promote “The Price of Fish”.

But now Z/Yen’s Christmas party,

Is here so we can sell;

This gastro dome, that wondrous tome,

To the tune of Jingle Bells.

PRICE OF FISH

( Sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells” )

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! What fun it is to read some pages every day;

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! what fun it is to read The Price of Fish each day.

Reading Price of Fish, at a page or ten each day,

Book or Kindle form, laughing all the way;

Bells in brains will ring, making ideas bright,

What fun it is to laugh and sing The Price of Fish tonight.

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! What fun it is to read some pages every day;

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! what fun it is to read The Price of Fish each day.

Loads of pictures from that year’s event. Click this link or the picture link below:

ZYen Christmas Party 2011 869

Middlesex v Surrey At Lord’s Twenty20 Match, King Cricket Report, 7 July 2011

At some point in the future I might…just might…be able to provide a multi-faceted piece on this particular evening at Lord’s.

At the time of writing (January 2018), only my King Cricket piece, published October 2011, survives to tell the tale.

Yet tell the tale it does, I think – certainly from my perspective. Internationalism, scandal and some improbable, impromptu games…not bad.

Middlesex v Surrey Twenty20 match report

Just in case anything ever happens to the King Cricket site, I have also scraped that report to here.

For those who have the stomach to look (i.e. most often neutrals and Surrey fans for these occasions), actually it looks as thought his was a pretty good match, despite the fact that I must have missed quite a fair chunk of it – click here for the scorecard and reports.

One extra bit of evidence on who, from “Ged Ladd & Co”, attended that time, in addition to “The Tiberellis”, comes from Jez’s e-mail to me a few week’s before the match:

Mark

Monique

Steph

Ben

Rich

David

 

Simon Strez would also like to come as it’s his last chance to see a cricket game in England before returning home to New Zealand. I also have 3 friends that will be coming to the game.

A Few Notes About Things, Late March To 1 April 2011

The Lamb by Ewan Munro from London, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0

Monday 14 March 2011 – Roger Hough Lamb @18:00

Roger was a Director of Miller Technologies and a Keele alum as it happens. We met for a drink to discuss mutual commercial interests.

Thursday 17 March 2011 – FMI End Of Project Party Tattershall Castle

I only vaguely remember this small client do on the embankment.

26-27 March 2011 – Hotel Du Vin (Hil & Chris) Sergio’s

A trip to Bristol to see the in-laws (and possibly their boys). We stayed at the Hotel Du Vin – which we liked in its earlier days, when the staff were friendly and they would park our car. Sergio’s is an Italian Restaurant in Bristol which was well located for our choice of hotel.

28 March 2011 – Seaxe Club AGM.

No doubt there will have also been an excellent discussion forum with a couple of young Middlesex CCC players and some of the coaching staff that evening – as was/is usually the way with the Seaxe Club.

1 April 2011 – Kim & Micky dinner

It looks like we went to their place on this occasion.

Gresham Society Event At Wilton’s Music Hall & Dinner At Café Spice Namasté After Z/Yen Symposium, 28 February 2011

Wilton’s Music Hall Door in 2010 by James Perry, CC BY-SA 3.0

Just back from our extraordinary trip to India & Sri Lanka –

India and Sri Lanka, 29 January to 26 February 2011, placeholder and links

…my first working day back in fact – we had a Z/Yen team symposium that afternoon followed by an evening of entertainment courtesy of the Gresham Society at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Very convenient for Michael and Elisabeth Mainelli, this, as Wilton’s is next door to them. It is a fabulous venue, steeped in history but, at that time anyway, in a very dilapidated state.

I think this was a proto Gresham Society event, probably connected to the AGM but before the latterly traditional AGM & Dinner. I also think this might have been a prototype of the thing that became the Gresham Society Biennial Soiree, as the first of those recorded in my diary was later that same year.

Anyway, this event, as I recall, was primarily a Gilbert & Sullivan evening, hosted by Professor Robin Wilson (who is an expert on Savoy Operas as well as mathematics) and mostly comprising performers from his associated choirs and musical troupes.

I seem to remember being required to sing along a fair bit and I think this might have been the first time (but certainly not the last time) I heard the Gresham Professor version of “A Policeman’s Lot”, both in English and, naturally, also in Latin.

I don’t remember how many of us retired to Café Spice Namasté after the Gresham Society do – quite a lot of us I think. In those days Café Spice was quite near Wilton’s – in Leman Street I think or at least very near there. I felt very at home in there having just spent a month eating Southern Asian food.

A very good evening – for me a rather jolly way to return to the world of work.

The Boundary Restaurant, Preceded By “Goodbye” Drinks At St Helen’s Place, 17 December 2010

Janie and I made a profound sacrifice in the August preceding this event – dining at the Boundary with Anthea and Mitchell, before booking it for the 2010 Z/Yen do. The things we used to do for the sake of the team.

Some Vague Memories Of August 2010, Not All Cricket, But Including The Boundary & Lord’s

Anyway, the Z/Yen seasonal event started with “Goodbye” drinks at St Helen’s Place – hence the search for a suitable venue quite near that office.

Those of us who had been with Z/Yen from the outset had been at St Helen’s Place since 1995, albeit in different bits of it at times. Still, the move away from there felt a little unsettling at the time.

Janie remembers the meal at the Boundary fondly, despite us being unable to use the terrace (as we had on our previous visit in August) and despite the fact that it was only a couple of weeks after her twin, Phillie, had died.

It was a growing team at that time and it felt that the seasonal events were getting better and better. The house party atmosphere ahead of the dinner helped, I’m sure. As did the excellence of The Boundary as avenue for our sort of event.

With so much going on in our lives at that time, I was neither in the mood nor well mentally equipped for writing a silly song. We revived The Twelve Days Of Z/Yen Training that year.

Here’s a link to a pdf of that year’s version of that song.

Worse…I mean, better…yet…

…someone videoed the performance of the Z/Yen song at that event. You can see and hear it in all its gory…I mean, glory:

Loads of photos that year too. Here’s a link to them all – this or the picture link below:

ZYen Christmas Party 2010 022