Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
Say what you like about Daisy, but she does like a nice bit of castrati.
So we made a second visit to the Wigmore Hall that month (a busy start there in 2009 generally in fact) to see this lovely concert, with Daniel Taylor providing the counter-tenor equivalent of castrati singing and Rachel Brown providing beautiful flute and recorder performances.
Here’s what we saw:
Double diary disaster! My diary says we went to Vito’s, Janie’s says we went to Positano.
I believe Janie’s diary, because I recall going to Positano, on Battersea Park Road, just once, with mum for mother’s day.
I think mum was displeased with the 14:30 slot we were offered at Vito’s, so Janie went in search of a suitable alternative that served Italian food of the kind mum liked – i.e. calves liver.
My recollection is that Janie and I actually thought Positano a bit better than Vito’s, but that the waiters there fawned a little less than the Northcote Road Italian waiters, so we never returned to Positano, while Vito’s got our business quite frequently until mum died.
10 years on (June 2019), Positano is gone – what was Positano is now a Sushi Cafe.
Vito’s is also no longer with us. Indeed that Nappy Valley eatery is, in June 2019, appropriately, the Bertie and Boo Teahouse and Theatre. We’d never have got mum out of that place in its new incarnation, with all those babies and toddlers to coo over.
I’m a bit of a fan of Athol Fugard, but this one didn’t quite hit the spot the way many of his plays have done for me in the past. Daisy felt the same way.
It is a revival from 1975 – a selling point to me as I thought Fugard was writing brilliant stuff during that period.
A great line up too, with Jonathan Pryce in the lead role and Douglas Hodge having a go at directing…
…it just didn’t work for us.
As for the critics:
This was the second piece of mine published on King Cricket.
It supports one of King Cricket’s themes – cricket equipment in unusual places.
The centrepiece of the article is a photograph I took of a monk at Rumtek Monastery in Sikhim who was wielding a cricket bat in our direction when Janie and I visited the place in 2005.
A cricket bat at Rumtek monastery – King Cricket – click here.
Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:
Was this the first time we saw Mahan Esfahani? Probably. This concert is listed on Esfahani’s Wikipedia entry (at the time of writing) as his first major concert.
Was this the first time we heard a composition by J G Goldberg (he of Goldberg variations fame)? For sure.
A delightful concert as always by this low key but consistently masterful lot.
There’s a tiny bit more about it on ClassicalSource.com – click here and skim to the correct date.
A very relaxing end to the weekend.
Wondering what the Johann Gottlieb Goldberg concerto might sound like? Rather splendidly beautiful is the answer. Here is a classic recording with Eliza Hansen tinkling the ebonies.
Wall is a companion piece for Berlin, which we saw a few days earlier at The Lyttelton.
Wall only ran for a few nights, so we did well to catch it. I thought Via Dolorosa was a fine piece, laced with great drama as well as interesting things to say. This felt comparatively preachy, about the ghastly Israel-Palestine separation barrier.
Perhaps it is so clear to me that the barrier is a bad idea, that being lectured about it by David Hare seemed surplus to requirements.
I saw the links with Berlin of course, but enjoyed the Wall part less and certainly learnt less.
Our friend Michael Billington loved it in the Guardian – click here.
Rafael Behr wrote highly of it too in the Observer – click here.
I’m glad to have the text of both and I’m sure a re-read would be interesting, especially now (as I wrote in May 2017) that walls and barriers are back in fashion.
This was a rehearsed reading by David Hare, which was only performed for a few nights at The Lyttelton.
The only day we could go to Berlin was the Monday; it’s 18:00 start time encouraged us to take a day off that Monday in fact.
Berlin is basically a short (less than one hour) highly personal monologue about the city, its history and in particular the Berlin Wall.
Kate Kellaway wrote it up in the Observer thus.
It is a companion piece for the Wall, which we went to see a few days later at the Royal Court. I think I preferred Berlin, finding it more interesting and less preachy.
Writing this up in May 2017, I realise that Trump should be made to sit through both pieces.
When I say that we had our niece Charlie for dinner, I don’t mean that we had Charlie for dinner, obviously…
…according to Janie’s diary we had pork for dinner…
…what I mean is that Charlie came over to our place that evening and we three had dinner together.
It will have been a very pleasant evening and I’m sure the grub was wonderful.
John Random’s rallying cry for this one read as follows:
…the next Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner is to be held on Thursday March 5th at 8 o’ clock at the Cafe Rouge in Clifton Thingamy. Look forward to seeing you all,, and if you haven’t been for a while, please don’t think that means you can’t come along now. Regrettably, Sir Fred Goodwin has had to cry off. Says he’s a bit strapped for cash at the moment.
Don’t ask why, but John also sent the following photo of himself along with the message:
John’s thank you e-mail after the dinner was not very forthcoming about our event itself:
…A big thank you to all those who came out to the I don’t know 23rd Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner. It was a very enjoyable evening. If you couldn’t make it this time, rest assured that you were sorely missed.
Now, to more serious matters. Some of you may have heard about the disgraceful auction of some of our founder’s personal effects. Mike ‘MaHoddma’ Gandhi always eschewed vulgar displays of vulgaressness so the news that his original wire-rimmed spectacles (so humble that they didn’t even have any glass in them) and a pair of his even humbler sandals (the very sandals he wore during his famous March, which was just before his famous April) have come up for sale at Christie’s in New York will send a shiver down many a loyal spine. To us Newsrevue veterans these items are tantamount to sacred relics, and tantamount is next to Paramount, as you well know.
I sent the following, which should be recorded for all posterity:
…I amused (most of) those who were there on Thursday with the Washington Post invitational word “ignoranus”. I attach the list of all of this year’s winners from that competition – several of which are well worth the effort of reading:
Best
Ian
Here are the winners of this year’s Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition :
Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright Ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7.Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8.Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease (this one got extra credit).
Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s, like, a serious bummer.
Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
Glibido: All talk and no action.
Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:
Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade, v, To attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.
Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Noel Christopher reported that:
…Wow. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at the new definition of “flatulence”. There’s probably a word for it…
…perhaps “posterity”?
An unusual timing and location for the Middlesex pre-season forum in 2009.
Timing – about a month before the AGM rather than as part of it.
Location – the Long Room, nach.
Barmy Kev reported on it at length on MTWD and I chimed in with some comments – otherwise, in truth, the detail might have been lost to my memory completely – I only vaguely recalled it even when I read the following piece:
Phil Good Factor At Forum – click here.
I’m not sure whether I made it to the Seaxe Club AGM (31 March) or the actual MCCC AGM (7 April) that year. I don’t recall them and I can see that I did a shout out to other MTWDniks such as Barmy Kev (unsuccessfully) to try to get cover for those.
