Well I might “have my connoisseur face on” in the above photograph, as Opheem is a Michelin starred Indian restaurant in Birmingham and there Janie and I were taking it all in.
I mean ALL in.
I’m in
We were sensible enough to book the five course tasting menu, not the 10 course one. Had we booked the latter I think we’d have needed to be removed from the restaurant on stretchers.
“Five course” tasting menu is a bit of a misnomer, as we were also treated to diverse, wonderful nibbles and amuse-gueules – a great many of those before we even got to course number one.
The first of many nibblesMore nibblesYet more nibblesMe nibblingFishy melange in the style of a cheesecake nibbleWhen we are finally seated in the restaurant, we get an amuse-gueule[Insert your own corny joke about this amusel-guele here]The five course menu – we are finally going on piste
Actually, before we had that amazing pineapple & coconut thing, we had a sweet amuse-gueule that was well photogenic.
The staff were super friendly and very knowledgeable about the food. We didn’t do the wine pairing thing, but the staff were able to recommend some excellent wine choices for us which for sure went well with the food.
Aktar Islam (left) & his team
After the meal, petit fours back in the lounge area.
Thoughtful…or nodding off?
Fabulous meal. This place is certainly deserving of its star.
Gresham Society Walking Tour Of Thomas Gresham’s City, 15 June 2022
Coffee houses came after Gresham, but Sir Thomas’s grasshopper persisted
It was a super idea, for the Gresham Society to get back into the swing of face-to-face activities by having a walking tour. When people arrange such events, they don’t normally anticipate 15 June being one of the hottest days of the year, but by gosh it was blistering.
Our guide took pity on us and tended to stand us in shady spots, even if at some distance from the location she was describing, to minimise our time in the sun.
I noted that she omitted to mention 1 King William Street (the current location of Z/Yen’s office) as a Thomas Gresham place, although it was the original location of The Gresham Club.
In truth, most of the tour might have been interpreted as a tour of Z/Yen offices, once we had progressed from the Royal Exchange. We didn’t get as far as St Helen’s Church, where Sir Thomas now resides, but Z/Yen was located in St Helen’s Place overlooking that church, for 16 years (1995 to 2011), following our initial short stop at 31 Gresham Street (1994 to 1995). We also strolled past 41 Lothbury (Z/Yen 2016 to 2022) and looked at the site of the old college on the corner of Gresham Street and Basinghall Street (Z/Yen 2011 to 2016).
There really should be a series of Z/Yen & Gresham plaques around that central part of the City.
The chat covered the period after Gresham as well as the Tudor period, so we learnt about coffee houses and the establishment of modern banks, insurance companies and exchanges.
The tour was a wonderful opportunity to stroll and look around the City – I have walked around the City plenty in my time but usually with “head down purpose” rather than head up, taking in the sights. For example, I had never previously noticed the carved Gresham grasshopper in the stone towards the back of The Royal Exchange, only having noticed the glistening gold grasshopper at the top of the tower.
Note the stone grasshopper left as well as the golden hopper atop
From Gresham Street and a look at The Guildhall, a stroll down Old Jewry to Mercers’ Hall, where Mike Dudgeon, mercer and Greshamista, hosted us for tea and gave us a fascinating guided tour of the hall.
.
Peppered with some superb anecdotes from Mercers’ history and Mercers’ legend, this last part of the tour was a feast for our ears and our eyes…and our backsides, after a couple of hours on our feet walking around!
Joking apart, it was wonderful to do a Gresham Society outing and spend time with those interesting, friendly Gresham Society people again. Also, for me, it was the ideal half-holiday to initiate my short break.
A Wander Around Central Birmingham Before Dinner With Janie, 16 June 2022
Birmingham Museum & Art gallery
Earlier we stopped in Leamington allowing me to play (and Janie to shoot some videos of) a spot of real tennis – the Strange Case of Dr Robson & Mr Hyde against me and Charlie at doubles…
…followed by lunch with the Leamington fellas.
That still gave me and Janie plenty of time to get to our Harborne Road Air B’nB and then stroll off towards our restaurant through central Birmingham.
We witnessed a dance festival for a while
On our way to Chamberlain Square, we spotted a dance festival and had a quick look. Then on to that central square area where the Museum (see above), Town Hall (now a concert hall) and Chamberlain Memorial hove into view.
Town Hall & Chamberlain Memorial
We were keen to get to our restaurant on time, so took a photo of Queen Victoria in Victoria Square from a distance. Normally she looks like this – click here – but she has been “reimagined all at sea” for the Commonwealth Games, so now looks more like the following:
We can surely be forgiven for not hanging around, as we were on our way to Opheem Restaurant for a very special treat. I shall write that meal up soon enough.
Janie and I had a very tasty lunch of baroque music at Wigmore Hall, thanks to a young group of talented French musicians known as Nevermind, presumably because they think the name of their ensemble is not important.
More importantly, they introduced us to the compositions of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729), who wowed The Sun King as a child prodigy and went on to become an eminent composer as well as performer. Along with many other female composers of earlier eras, she’s needed some rediscovering in recent years and by gosh she is worth rediscovering.
Imagine Corelli in a fantastically light-hearted mood, and he might just have composed a bit like Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, except that she was steeped in the traditions of the French baroque (e.g. Lully) and influenced by the Italian style, rather than upbeat Corelli, who would have presumably been steeped and influenced the other way around.
Or if you want to watch and listen to the concert, you can view it on the Wigmore Hall Site “watch and listen” section by clicking here. I’m not sure whether or not you need to be a member or just subscribed to the e-list or what, but I think you do need a log in of some sort to see this section of the Wigmore Hall site.
In our tradition of running in to people we know, Janie and I ran into Claire Durtnall, whom we have known for decades…
…and who had picked up a last-minute ticket for that concert on the off-chance.
Claire celebrated the chance encounter with a triple-selfie or two – if we are lucky she’ll send one of them in and I’ll add it to this piece…
…update – Claire did indeed send pictures:
Claire, me & Janie taken selfie-styleClaire & me taken regular style by Janie
But this account really should focus on the simply delightful music we heard. Mostly trio sonatas, we were carried to a happy place for an hour in that way only beautiful music can achieve.
If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, you can read that piece here.
We had a very enjoyable day. It was bright and not all that cold.
Day Four: Sunday 5 June 2022
I had also bought Janie a guest ticket for Day Four – she likes to see the end of a test match and Day Four is often that. We could always pop back on the Monday if need be.
On this occasion, we knew there would be a result that day – the only question was precisely when would that be.
We got to the ground early to secure good seats although not many people turned up on a dank day to see a much shortened day of cricket.
Simon Doule looking a little glumJimmy looking surprisingly chirpy at the thought of batting. Always an outside chance
As it turned out, England batted with such purpose the match was completed within 25 overs.
Game Over
Janie thought the action was tremendous value for money…which it was…not least because the ECB deemed it to be a full refund day.
Lowenthal Trophy 2022 Finalistas and officials: Simon Marshall, Yuri Kugler, Nick Browne, Carl Snitcher, Josh Farrall, Sebastian Wood, Ian Harris
The words tournament and success do not normally go together in the context of me playing sport. In fairness, until I started playing real tennis I hadn’t actually participated in a sporting tournament for some 40 years.
But now, I am able to report going two better than semi-final defeat.
In the Dedanists’ Society Lowenthal Trophy event at Queen’s, partnering Sebastian Wood, I not only managed to get to a final for the first time…
…we went on to win the trophy.
Josh Farrall (centre) presented the trophy to me and Sebastian after a splendid dinner at Queen’s. With thanks to The Dedanists’ Society for this and the headline photo
Let us not dwell on the details of how handicap doubles tournaments using vicious sliding handicaps work.
In particular, let us not dwell on how close we came to losing the second of our round robin matches, which we won on a single point decider after creeping from behind to four-games-all.
But I’m in danger of letting this fleeting success go to my head, so let us move on.
Dedanists v Jesters At Queen’s, 27 May 2022
Young Bertie Vallat hitting the winning shot in the flagship match of the fixture
The Dedanists’ Society is a private club for real tennis enthusiasts, dedicated to raising funds for the preservation of the game. The Jesters Club is an invitation only club for enthusiasts of court sports such as real tennis, squash, Rugby fives, Eton Fives and padel. Coincidentally, given the origins of my addiction to such games (rugby fives at Alleyn’s), the very first Jesters fixture, in December 1928, was a rugby fives match against The Alleyn Old Boys.
Anyway, this fixture presented me with an opportunity, just a couple of weeks later, to return to the scene of the Lowenthal Trophy crime and enjoy a friendly fixture and another fine dinner at Queen’s.
On this occasion I got a chance to resume my partnership with James McDermott:
Me & James At Royal Hampton Court, October 2019
We prevailed, just about, in our rubber, early in the event, before settling down to enjoying the atmosphere at Queen’s, taking some tea and watching some real tennis.
The flagship match of the event was the father & son combination, Richard & Bertie Vallatt vs Alex Brodie and Andy Keeley. It was a splendid watch for us lesser amateurs and a bit of a leveller for me.
Everything that needs to be said about that day, and more, is covered in that piece.
Middlesex CCC AGM 17 May
I was there. I played real tennis at Lord’s beforehand and then hung around for a bit ahead of the AGM. It was a meeting with drinks afterwards.
Middlesex v Durham 19 & 20 May
I barely saw any cricket before and after playing tennis on 19th, but I did see a bit.
The plan had been to take Fran & Simon as guests on 20th, but the weather was decidedly iffy, so we delayed that visit until July. Instead, I got stuff done at the flat in the morning and sauntered over to Lord’s to watch a few hours play as the weather cleared in the afternoon.
Before setting off I got a message from Madz, who is now part-timing as a photographer for Durham CCC, wondering whether I planned to be at the game that afternoon.
We agreed to meet beneath Old Father Time, her favourite vantage point for the photos. Also the favourite vantage point for travelling Durham supporters, who were, by the time I got there, making serious headway with their preferred brews. I’m not certain that they were all drinking Newkie Brown, but it felt and sounded like that sort of crowd.
It was good to catch up with Madz.
At one point, the soon-to-be-new-England-wunderkind Matty Potts came on as 12th man for Durham (being rested ahead of the test match) and fielded for a few balls in front of our stand.
I caught this picture on my smart phone as he came our way:
Matty Potts A Few Days Before Stardom
I was pleased with that photo. Madz wondered whether she could have done better with her Nikon and infeasibly long lens.
Did you get one of those, pet?
…asked one of the Durham stalwarts, as a few of them took a passing interest in my snap.
I missed it, unfortunately,
said Madz.
You’re only here for one thing, pet,
said the stalwart, inducing much laughter from the Durham crowd and also from Madz, who clearly knows those fellas well enough and was able to enjoy the joke.
I sent the snap to King Cricket, who agreed that it was the best picture of Matty Potts he’d seen so far and wondered if he might use it, which of course I said he could and he did on 1 June (naturally crediting me…i.e. Ged Ladd) and also 2 June:
But it turned out that one of Janie’s cohort, Sini Simonen, is not only a good Samaritan but also a virtuoso violinist. When Sini let it slip that she and her quartet, The Castalian String Quartet, were due to appear at the Wigmore Hall in a few month’s time, Janie and I agreed that, if we were available that day, we would go.
The links in the above piece to the exploits of my mother’s cousin Sid, not least his virtuoso playing of both violin and hand saw, are worth the price of admission alone. OK, there is no price of admission, but the stories are priceless.
…the Wigmore Hall concert on 1 May 2022 was an all Mendelssohn string quartet affair, but with a twist: we first heard Fanny Mendelssohn’s sole String Quartet, followed by Felix Mendelssohn’s 6th String Quartet.
Both were a very enjoyable listen – Fanny’s piece much lighter and easier on the Sunday morning ear than Felix’s. Felix was in sombre mood when he wrote his 6th, dedicated to his recently deceased and beloved sister Fanny – possibly also anticipating his own impending doom – he died soon after completing the work.
Impending doom? Felix portrait c1846
The concert was very well patronised – if not a complete sell out then surely the place was near to full. The performances were, deservedly, extremely well received by the Sunday morning audience.
Janie and I asked the elderly gentleman sitting next to us if he had enjoyed the concert.
Yes indeed. I prefer Fanny.
On balance, so did Janie and I.
Sini had said to Janie several times that we simply must show our faces in the Green Room after the concert, so it would have been rude to partake of the traditional Wigmore Hall sherry rather than visit the artistes in that hallowed room.
There were plenty of other groupies around in The Jessye Norman Room, but Sini greeted us warmly and we chatted for a while.
Before setting off for The Wig, I had discovered that the Castalian String Quartet had released an album this week, Between Two Worlds On Delphian…
I also couldn’t help but notice that the album includes a couple of arrangements of Renaissance pieces – one by Orlande de Lassus and one by John Dowland, as well as a Beethoven late Quartet and a modern quartet by Thomas Adès.
Sini, with characteristic modesty, mentioned in passing that she has arranged the Renaissance pieces as an experiment. She also kindly pressed a copy of the Between Two Worlds CD into my hand as we said goodbye to her.
Following an enjoyable stroll around Fitzrovia and Marylebone, Janie and I listened to the album as soon as we got home. We can both thoroughly recommend it; in particular the beautiful sound of the Renaissance piece arrangements. Choral works of that era were often arranged for consorts of viols, of course; the string quartet being the direct progeny of the viol quartet.
It was an enjoyable day and such a fitting way to remember my mum’s 100th anniversary.
But there was one more coincidence to come – as I read the programme notes to the Between two Worlds album. The viola player on the album was not Ruth Gibson (whom we saw at Wigmore Hall) but Charlotte Bonneton. Wasn’t Charlotte Bonneton the young musician mum and I saw along with Karim Said that very last time mum went to a concert?
Yes indeed – it turns out Charlotte was The Castalian String Quartet’s viola player until quite recently – for some 10 years – perhaps already with the group when we saw her perform with Karim Said in September 2011. Perhaps Sini and/or some of the other Castalians were even there to support Charlotte that day.
I know the classical music world isn’t big – but it isn’t that small either.
Most people who know me and knew my parents thought that Peter Harris was my father. People who knew him better might have known that he was Peter Isidore Harris and/or that his first given name was Isidore – Peter came later. A handful of family members would be aware that the family on arrival in England were named Russinov, that my grandfather was known as Harris Russinov and that dad’s name on his 1919 birth certificate was Isidore Russinov.
Isidore, Anne & Michael Russinov, c1925
But it turns out that my father was actually some bloke named Teodoro Rossiter.
…I thought I should learn from Ron’s superb research into my mother’s family and do a similar dig into my father’s family. After all, research is a significant part of what I do for a living and Ron’s example had been very instructive as well as informative.
The central learning point from Ron’s research is that the recent on-line publication of the 1921 census opens up a new trove of information – probably the last such “big reveal” trove that will occur in my lifetime.
I thought it would be easy for me to find a family named Russinov in London in the 1921 census search engine…
…but absolutely nothing came up. I tried all the tricks I know to vary the spelling, allow the machine to approximate the spelling, look beyond London just in case they were away from London at the time…
…nothing.
I even tried Harris. Lots of other Harris families but definitely not mine.
Peter Harris in 2005. Were there secrets behind that smile?
I knew the family was in Fitzrovia (the south-eastern quarter of Marylebone) at that time and I even had a relic from the 1920s – a business certificate allowing the family to trade under the name Harris – which had at one time adorned the certificate wall of the Z/Yen office but was latterly in storage. I was pretty sure that 1920s certificate had an address on it.
Unfortunately, the certificate – which is for sure somewhere in Z/Yen’s secure storage dungeon – is being stored very securely indeed. It wasn’t where we thought it would be and 30 minutes of further searching in the dungeon convinced us that it must have been filed quite deeply – no doubt to be found when searching for something completely different.
I all but gave up on the idea of finding my paternal family in the 1921 census.
But I’m a tenacious sort of chap and was pondering the matter quite a bit. Then at the weekend a thought dawned on me. The granting of business certificates, at that time – indeed deep into the 20th century- often needed to be announced in a gazette. Such announcements naturally included the address.
So rather than search genealogy sites in vain, I searched my Newspapers.com subscription with my grandfather’s name instead. Instant pay dirt:
The Marylebone Mercury and West London Gazette on 3 Jan 1925
Interesting law, Section 7 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919, requiring migrants to seek permission (at significant expense) to use an English-sounding rather than their natural-born alien name for their business.
Interesting street, Upper Marylebone Street. It subsequently became the eastern end of New Cavendish Street and was confusingly renumbered. Before my family’s time, Thomas Paine wrote The Rights Of Man at No 7. No 7 Upper Marylebone Street was a well-known hang out for radicals, writers and radical writers.
…locates Paine’s (now defunct) building, No 7 Upper Marylebone Street, on the site of 148 New Cavendish Street and No 4 – my Grandfather’s place – in a still-existing Georgian terraced house – now numbered 154 New Cavendish Street:
I’d found the family house from 1925 but had I found my family there in 1921? The transcription at first glance did not look promising:
But on reflection, this was unmistakably my family. Grandpa Harris, already 39 years old. Grandma Anne (Annie) much younger, 30. Uncle Alec, 13 at census time. Uncle Manny, just 10. Uncle Michael, a new born babe. Indeed, had it not been for the industrial action that delayed the 1921 census by several months, Uncle Michael might have missed it by a few days.
And there was dad, under the name Teodoro Rossiter.
No-one had even mentioned to me the use of the name Rossiter as an early anglicisation of the family name. As for Teodoro, it is a charming name, but hardly an anglicisation or simplification of the name Isidore.
This made no sense.
I decided to invest in a scan of the original document. It set me back the princely sum of £1.75 (a half-price special offer that weekend – who could resist such a good value deal? Dad would have approved and possibly even would have bought two copies to celebrate his bargain.)
Now I’m not qualified to opine upon or judge handwriting – Ogblog readers who are crazy enough to examine my hand-written diary entries can attest – but I think the hand-writing on the original census document is mighty fine and I think my dad’s entry very clearly says Isodore (admittedly not Isidore) Russinov and all of the “Rossiter family” (as transcribed) are written extremely clearly as “Russinov”.
I award myself 9 out of 10 for detective work and I award the transcriber 1 out of 10 for the transcription of my dad’s name…awarding 1 only because I don’t do 0 out of 10.
When I talked this through with Janie, she wondered whether this might mean that I could be related to Leonard Rossiter, the wonderful (deceased) comedy actor.
Used under fair use rationale to depict Leonard Rossiter in this article. To be clear, the transcription error of the family name “Russinov” to “Rossiter” does not in any way indicate that I, or any other member of the Harris/Russinov family, is related to Leonard, or indeed any other, Rossiter. In short, I didn’t get where I am today by being related to Leonard Rossiter.
I explained to Janie that transcription errors, much like noms de plume, don’t tend to have relatives.
My dad has had an unfortunate record of transcription errors with his records. In the late 1980s, when dad was around or approaching 70, he received a letter from the NHS addressed to Isadora Harris inviting “him” to have a cervical smear test. There must have been SO much wrong with the NHS record that led to that mistake.
Indeed, dad seems so prone to nominative transcription errors, I considered titling this piece “My Trans Dad”, but decided against on balance.
More seriously, I did of course find out some interesting facts about my family history.
I had always suspected that Grandpa Harris probably hailed from Vilnius, as I was aware that he had journeyed into the Belorussian part of the Pale of Settlement where he met and initially settled with my then very young Grandma Anne. But I was also aware that Uncle Manny had been born in Vilnius and had guessed that the family had probably returned to Grandpa Harris’s home place before migrating.
Vilnius in 1915
Grandma Anne stated in the census that she (and Uncle Alec) were born in Igumen, which is a Belarussian town now known as Chervyen. Trigger warning – it was the scene of multiple atrocities during the 1940s – don’t click the preceding link if you’d rather not know the details. It is about 70 km south-east of Minsk – about an hour’s drive today.
The family came a long way in a short space of time, from shtetl life in Igumen and Vilnius, to London life in Marylebone…
…but then the name Teodoro Rossiter is a long way from Isodore Russinov or Peter Harris.
This was our first concert experience of live music since before the start of the Covid pandemic.
There’s nothing like a bit of “Lamentations of Jeremiah” and “Stabat Mater” to cheer us up in a time of pandemic and war.
Actually Janie and I are big fans of The Cardinall’s Musick. Also, we thought that one hour concerts would be a good way of getting back on the bike in terms of concert going – this is the first of a few we are going to see this spring season.
Mostly familiar stuff, such as Byrd, Victoria, Tallis and Palestrina, plus some rarer material such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Gerónimo Gonzales – a composer so obscure that even Andrew Carwood couldn’t find him in the Grove or on Wikipedia.
But that just means that Andrew didn’t look hard enough – there are about 100 listings for Gerónimo Gonzales on Facebook. Our 17th century composer geezer is bound to be one of those – no?
The concert was broadcast on Radio 3 as a lunchtime concert and also was streamed, so you can watch it all on Vimeo if you wish – embedded below.
https://vimeo.com/696602289
You can even, if you look very closely indeed, grab a glimpse of Ged & Daisy at the very front on the right hand side – my bald patch glistening next to Daisy’s mop of reddish hair.
We enjoyed a snack lunch at Euphorium in St Christopher’s Place, then went back to the flat for a while before venturing into Piccadilly/St James’s to Boodle’s.
Last year I gave an on-line talk for that club, under the auspices of Oliver Wise…
…who told me at that time that he would like to host us for dinner at Boodle’s. As with so many things in this time of Covid, it took quite a while to find a suitable and allowable date.
It was worth the wait – we had a delightful evening with Oliver, Sarah, Julian Dent (another fellow realist and distant cousin to Oliver) and Julian’s wife Kelly. Great grub too.
A fine end to a really lovely day off, with live concert music again, at last!
As I get older, I realise that certain statements that older people make, such as, “the policemen look younger and younger” express how those older people feel, rather than an objective reality about the average age of policemen.
But when I say, “the county championship seems to start earlier and earlier” I believe that is pretty much true…although not by all that much.
The last time I froze this much, Daisy and I went to see the second day of the 2013 season in Nottingham, 11 April that year, reported on King Cricket at that time…
I had arranged to play tennis at 14:00. I got to Lord’s in time to see most of the first session of play. I decided to sit in the relatively sheltered central part of the pavilion forecourt, where I watched, read and chatted a little with one or two other hardy folk. The stewards reckoned I wouldn’t last long out there but actually it wasn’t too bad in the morning and the new soft padding on the pavilion benches…
…standards are falling…
…made the whole experience less painful than expected.
Young Josh de Caires bowling
After a very close game of tennis, which my adversary won by dint of the odd point here and there, I took my time over my ablutions and then grabbed a soft drink followed by a light bite and coffee – initially in the pavilion bar but subsequently, as the sun was shining, I took my coffee in the new Compton Stand – a vantage point from which I took the headline picture (also replicated above).
But even in the sunshine, it was bitterly cold by that afternoon period, so I decided to return to the pavilion.
By the time I got to the pavilion, Josh de Caires had taken a wicket. This was to be my burden all afternoon; I didn’t actually get to see a single wicket – I was either changing or on the move every time Middlesex took a wicket. One of the friendly pavilion stewards even asked me to keep moving around, as my moves seemed to coincide with Middlesex’s success so comprensively.
Anyway…
…I decided to focus on 19-year-old Josh de Caires’s bowling.
I watched for a while from one of my favourite vantage points, the writing room. If you ever wondered what it looks like from behind the sight screen, wonder no more – the above picture gives you a pretty good impression of it…indeed much like an impressionistic art work.
I had brought plenty of warm clobber with me and I decided to don the lot of it. After all, as Alfred Wainwright famously said:
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”
Thus I braved the middle tier balcony, as evidenced by the following pictures…
…for about three overs, before I decided that jumper, thick jacket, scarf, hat and gloves were insufficient for me as the sun was going down on a seriously chilly April day.
I congratulated the handful of hardy folk who remained on the balcony, admitting to them that I was a wimp. One agreed. One consoled me by letting me know that I was far from the first to have tried and failed to brave the afternoon chill. One pointed out that I hadn’t lowered the ear-flaps on my hat, which might have made all the difference.
I watched the remainder of the day from the impressionistic comfort of the writing room. Naturally Middlesex took a wicket while I was ambling down one flight of stairs from balcony to room.
I had a very good day. I read, I chatted, I played tennis and best of all I watched some live cricket again.