The Heretic by Richard Bean, Royal Court Theatre, 19 March 2011

After the previous evening’s debacle at Hampstead…

Ecstasy by Mike Leigh, Hampstead Theatre, 18 March 2011

…it was a very pleasant surprise that Janie felt better and confident enough to try the theatre the very next day.

A very interesting play about climate change, questioning orthodoxies and asking awkward questions about the links between the politics, science and personal beliefs around climate change.

A search term that finds the mostly good reviews and more besides can be found by clicking here.

Not sure what we did afterwards – probably got Janie home to bed pdq.

Ecstasy by Mike Leigh, Hampstead Theatre, 18 March 2011

Oh dear.

Janie said she didn’t feel 100% when she turned up at the flat, but I didn’t think too much of it, not even when she ate little at Harry Morgan’s before the show.

But about 40 minutes into the first half, she said to me, “I don’t feel well, I have to go to the cloakroom…you stay here”.  So I sat out the first half, not really able to concentrate and dashed out as soon as I could, to find Janie sipping water and attentive staff letting me know that she seemed OK.

It was early in the run and Mike Leigh was there that evening. He kindly came up to us to ask if Janie was OK; I think he was relieved when he learned that she was merely poorly rather than someone who had walked out in shock or horror.

The play is strong stuff and it was a full-on production, but Janie is not the “fit of vapours at the sound of expletives” type.

The staff said we could of course go back in during scene breaks in Act Two if we wished, and/or watch the second act on the screen they use to monitor the show from outside, but frankly we simply wanted to wait until Janie felt well enough to go home and then go home.

I bought a copy of the play text so I could read and find out what happened afterwards.

Here is a link to a search term that finds the almost universally excellent reviews.

It is a real shame that we more or less missed out on it. Still, it could have been much worse. Janie’s indisposition turned out to be slight and temporary – we were back to the theatre the next night.

Dinner At Salt Yard With John White, 16 March 2011

This one was John Boy’s idea and what a good idea it was too.

Extracted from an e-mail from John to me a couple of days before:

…I have booked a table at Salt Yard, a Spanish tapas bar on Goodge Street.  I was taken recently to Barrica next door and it was really good and was then told Salt Yard is better; something with which the reviews seem to concur.  They only had a table early or late so went for the early one at 6.15p.m.  Suggest we meet there and can if we want go for a drink afterwards…

I don’t think we went for a drink afterwards; maybe we did, but I have a feeling that the restaurant was not so strict with its “two hour” rule and we simply took our time over the meal.

Here is a link to the Salt Yard website.

…and here is a link to its TripAdvisor page for those who want up to date independent-ish (maybe) views.

Because oft he tapas-style, we got to try lots of different things. My memory fades on the specifics – John might remember better.

Part of my excuse for not remembering exactly what I ate that night is that I liked the meal so much I returned a couple of months later with Janie, Anthea and Mitchell…except in truth I don’t recall what I ate that night either.

John wrote the following in his follow-up e-mail:

Thanks for last night.  Brilliant food and a great natter.  I ran out of petrol on the way home so it was a little later than anticipated!!!!

 

Also the envelope has arrived.  Hope Janie didn’t find out you had not delivered 12 hours…

We had just got back from holiday in India & Sri Lanka, so I suspect I was supposed to hand over something from our travels…

…seems I am a long-term serial offender in the matter of forgetting to hand over the holiday swag and/or gifts generally to John when we meet up.

The Holy Rosenbergs by Ryan Craig, Cottesloe Theatre, 12 March 2011

We saw this play/production in preview and I clearly remember both of us saying  immediately afterwards how much it reminded us of Arthur Miller’s style. Unsurprisingly, that was also the verdict of the bulk of the critics.

We also thought it was a very good play and an excellent production…the critics were largely still with us on that aspect too.

Here is a search term that should find you all the reviews and other on-line resources you might want for this one.

Here is the trailer and interesting chat about the play/production:

International Tennis At Boston Manor Park: Victor, Heinrich, Jacques & Me, 11 March 2011

I don’t often get involved in international matches of any kind, although I had single-handedly (sort of) won the Ashes a few week’s earlier…

A Valentines Day Massacre In Galle aka The Day I Won The Ashes Single Handed, Galle, Sri Lanka, 14 February 2011

…and did defeat the might of Tibet on behalf of England at altitude cricket a year or so earlier:

Tibet v England Impromptu Cricket Match in Yunnan Province, April 2010

But I digress.

For many years, Victor Benissan coached at Boston Manor Tennis Club, where Janie and I regulary play. He very rarely coached us – we’re more-or-less uncoachable now, but we became friends with him. Here is a picture of him (from Queen’s, not Boston Manor), which I have “borrowed” from his Le Cavalier Style Facebook Area:

I’m guessing that Victor won’t mind as I have linked to his site.

Victor is from Togo originally, long before Togolese people were perceived as naturals for tennis stardom. But Victor was, presumably, one of Togo’s top players in his day.

Victor would occasionally bemoan the fact that he found it hard to get a game at his level.

Jacques Malan, who had also been a fine tennis player in his youth and who works/worked with Heinrich Groenewald, would similarly bemoan his lack of tennis-playing opportunities, especially when roped into playing in our silly cricket matches.

Anyway, it occurred to me that we could have some fun one afternoon by pairing up Jacques and Victor for an up-market hit, while Heinrich and I would…do our thing.

I seem to recall being on the wrong end of things against Heinrich that day, while I think Victor and Jacques had a good contest but I cannot honestly remember who won.

Then I took on Jacques left-handed for a short set, which worked out very well for me as I am used to playing off the wrong hand whereas he isn’t. He was rapidly getting better during the set and I’m pretty sure he’d have won a second set.

Then we played mixed doubles…as in mixed ability doubles…with me and Victor taking on the visiting, Southern-Hemisphere pair of Heinrich and Jacques.

It was a very enjoyable way to spend a Friday afternoon at Boston Manor.

Where’s everybody gone?

Reading Hebron by Jason Sherman, Orange Tree Theatre, 5 March 2011

I wanted to enjoy this play more than I did. It was written soon after the Baruch Goldstein atrocity in Hebron in the mid 1990s.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree resource on the play & production.

It was an excellent production and a fast moving play to be sure. David Antrobus, one of the Orange Tree regulars, was excellent as the central character Nathan.

But while the play was interesting throughout and covered many pertinent issues, it didn’t quite work for me; nor for Janie. The play is primarily about a young Canadian’s sense of collective guilt for the atrocity; for my part, I found hard to buy into the collective guilt idea.

Somewhat mixed, but most of the reviews are very good for this production – the search term linked here will find them for you.

Did we have a Spanish meal at Don Fernando’s after seeing this play? You bet.

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.

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

We needed a long and complete break after the loss of Phillie, Janie’s twin, in December. But this holiday was a long and ambitious one by any measure.

We were planning it at very short notice, by our standards, of course, but fortune smiled upon us in that planning. The Central Plains of India; Chhattisgarh and Orissa (Odisha) can be quite politically volatile, Foreign Office advice yo-yos between “no problem” and “only go if need be”, due to Naxalite/Maoist activity. But what a fascinating tribal part of India it is.

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Anyway, it was a safe time to go at that time and the plan, through Steppes East who were excellent on this one, was to use the family of the Maharajah of Kanker as our guides in that region. This was a great idea; Jolly Deo, the Maharajkumar, was the perfect host and guide. We learnt lots and had fun along the way.

I long ago posted the weirdest story from that trip; the day I was press-ganged into being a live cricket commentator, which was published on King Cricket a few months after the event.

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We were also fortunate in the Sri Lanka leg of the trip; an opportunity to have a large villa in Galle Old Town all to ourselves for the price of a hotel room came up, by virtue of the villa only recently coming back onto the holiday market following a long-term family stay. I suppose our experience there was a bit like a cross between AirBnB (except without making life hell for the neighbours) and Lastminute.com.

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In short, there were loads of adventures to write up from this holiday – pages and pages and pages of the stuff….

…and they are all up there now – pretty much one posting per day.  The posting for the first day of the holiday can be seen by clicking here or below:

Journey From London To Hyderabad, 29 & 30 January 2011

Here are links to the photo albums, which I divided up into six short albums, one for each “leg” of the trip:

001 30 Jan 2011 Club Room at The Taj Krishna, Hyderabad P1000935

001 1 Feb 2011 Evening Drinks On Arrival At Kanker Palace P1010030

001 4 Feb 2011 On The Road To Jagdalpur P2040015

001 8 Feb 2011 On The Road Towards Rayagada P1010584

001 12 Feb 2011 Ekambareswarar Temple, Kanchipuram P1010792

001 14 Feb 2011 Cricket On The Western Ramparts Of Galle Fort P1010867

If you are really keen to explore my hand-written notes, just to make sure I have written them up properly, here they are in pdf form and good luck to you:

Here is the Steppes East itinerary, also available for download – at least you’ll be able to read this one: Itinerary-Wormleighton.

Finally, there are photo albums on flickr of the pictures that didn’t make the cut for the main albums – there are some gems in there nonetheless for picture lovers:

P1000942

P1010158

P1010244

P2090046

P1010803

P1010866

Goodbye Aditya, Goodbye Southern Asia, Time To Go Home, 25 & 26 February 2011

Took exercise in the suite and also took a little sun before checking flights and then breakfast.

Aditya breakfast included juice and fruit, kola kanda, breads and danish, sausages, eggs, baked beans, roti potatoes and yoghurt!

Took more sun and reading until about 1400 when we washed, paid up, finish packing and left Aditya with Samantha pronounced Saman-dthe.

Very long drive, horrendous traffic and Ged started to panic a bit although we reached the airport with a good 90 minutes before takeoff.

Comedy urgent search for club lounge and many many security checks.

Then at Chennai we had a farcical transit missing the chance to go out for a few hours in favour of some comedic transit fun including upsetting security by sitting on the only free seats and BA having to go through the motions of taking us back in baggage wise and reissuing our boarding passes.

Still we spoke some interesting folk e.g. the Norwegian businessman pulling out of Sri Lanka and a nice bloke from DHL outsourcing to Chennai.

Amazingly we and our luggage arrived home in a timely fashion.

Our Last Full Day On this Journey, At The Aditya, Including Obscene Amounts Of Food, 24 February 2011


Our album of Galle photos, all 31 of them, can be seen through the flickr album below:

001 14 Feb 2011 Cricket On The Western Ramparts Of Galle Fort P1010867

Our last full day starts early with tennis at Lighthouse – Ged prevails despite lack of strapping!

Say tearful goodbye to Prageeth, wash and take Sri Lankan breakfast of Kola Kanda with jaggery (red rice soup) & hoppers, fish, daal curry, Pol (coconut) sambal, hoppers, chicken curry and string hoppers plus juice and fruit of course and other sambals – that’s all!

Stagger back to our sweet and enjoy the sun deck.

Early evening we take massage – deep tissue for me and Aditya Signature for Daisy.

Then splendid supper of papaya and prawn salad (a little bland) followed by an amazing seafood platter just one to share and we were then so full we retired without pud.

Our other Sri Lanka photos- 79 excluded from the album – can be found through the link below:

P1010866