The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, Garrick Theatre, Followed By Drinks With The White Crew, 14 October 2021

It’s Showtime!

I have an idea for a musical. It is called The Last Five Decades. The musical opens at the end of the story.

Writer, Ivan Hershey, optimistically sings, “Technically Speaking, You Are Not Really A Shiksa, Goddess”, while actress, Leylah Wasp, laments, “Still Kvetching”.

The story goes back in time more than forty years, until a finale, in which we see Leylah’s dad, Jim, in his youth, mournfully singing “Stereotype” at a meeting for budding college journalists. Jim imagines that he looks like Terry Hall from The Specials, but actually, as he is sporting a Spurs scarf and Doc Martens, Jim inadvertently projects the look of a right wing yob. Unaware that five decades of friendship are about to be launched, young Ivan tries to disconcert Jim by cheerfully belting out “Children Of The Wind” from Rags, evoking the intrepid spirit of refugee diaspora people everywhere.

But what do I know of musicals? Apart from the occasional foray into writing silly lyrics for spoof musicals, which doesn’t count…

Casablanca The Musical by Magnolia Thunderpussy, Actor’s Workshop, 18 September 2001

…I have only (now) seen three live professional performances of musicals…

…and Lydia White has been in two of them. I went to Manchester to see Rags in 2019:

Rags The Musical, Hope Mill Theatre, 13 March 2019

In many ways, going to the Garrick Theatre to see The Last Five Years felt a bit like going to a familiar but occasionally-visited city like Manchester. Although London is of course my home City and under normal circumstances Janie & I see stuff regularly, this was our first trip “up west” for more than 18 months. It was the first time I’d been on the Tube for more than 18 months.

Queues and sanitiser…

We did as we were told and got there early

Lockdown of course changed all our lives in a great many ways. One of those ways, for me, was that I started to take singing lessons from Lydia. My early music teacher, Ian Pittaway, says that her work with me has been utterly transformational and he means that in a good way. He even forgave her for blowing out my singing lesson last week, in order to fit in an additional rehearsal for The Last Five Years. Ian says I don’t need a note, Lydia.

The Garrick folk handed us this note

Was Lydia good in this show? Of course she was. Superb. She has tremendous stage presence to add to her technical abilities acting and singing.

Her opposite number for the afternoon, Lenny Turner, a debutante in this production, was excellent too.

In truth, Janie and I are really not musicals people, so the show itself is not to our taste. But we can appreciate a solidly professional and excellent production when we see one, which this most certainly was.

Janie and I found ourselves sitting quite close to “Lydia’s contingent”, with John, Mandy & Bella a couple of rows behind us; Mandy’s sister Mary & her husband Alan immediately behind us. Their daughters next to us…

…I probably hadn’t seen Mary & Alan since John & Mandy’s wedding more than 30 years ago. Nevertheless, Mary apparently spotted me immediately on arrival in the auditorium and told Alan that she had spotted me. So now I know; lying low for 30 years and wearing an FFP2 mask is insufficient disguise if I want to hide from Mandy’s kin.

After the show, we all gathered outside the theatre beside the stage door. As well as the above crowd, Angela (from those good old days) was there, as were a great many other people we were meeting for the first time; one of Mandy’s friends from Saffron Walden, Lydia’s boyfriend Jack, his family, plus many of Lydia’s friends and colleagues.

Janie had a long-standing engagement with her Samaritans cohort that evening, so had pre-warned us that she wouldn’t be able to stay for drinks; she left us about half an hour after the show, at which point we were still waiting for Lydia to emerge through the stage door. I wonder whether we looked like a bunch of groupies? Who cares.

Soon enough, Lydia did emerge to enjoy a further rapturous greeting and we soon set off for Koha in St Martins Court.

The fortunes smiled on us. The weather was mild and dry. Koha seemed able to provide us with as much seating outside as we needed to imbibe and chat at length. A couple of hours simply flew by, before we all went our separate ways.

But the main purpose of the day had been to support Lydia’s performance in the Last Five Years. It really was a delight to see her performing so well and so thrilled at the end of the day with how well it had all gone.

Borrowed from Lydia’s Twitter account.

All Mixed Up: Age Is Just A Number, ThreadZoomMash Piece, Performed 30 September 2021

My Grandma Anne died 40 years ago, just shy of 90. If you went to central casting to get a balabusta/babushka for the role of family matriarch…

…with her shock of jet black hair, presumably from a bottle for most of her life, plus her heavily-Russian-accented voice…

…Grandma Anne Harris would have fitted the bill perfectly.

Grandma’s outstanding involuntary comedy moment was in 1972, when she solemnly announced, as we drove on a family outing, away from Streatham, along Bedford Hill, that I shouldn’t play on the common any more, as bad things happen to people who go there. Someone had cursed the place. It took us a while to work out that she had heard a radio programme, not about Tooting Common, but about Tutankhamun, which was all the rage in London that year.

By 1981, Grandma Anne was in and out of hospital all too regularly. Her age had never previously been a topic of discussion. But my mum was concerned that every time Grandma was taken into hospital, the age she stated on admission was going down. 87…86…82…

…on what turned out to be her last admission to hospital, mum went ballistic when she first looked at Grandma’s notes.

“Look at this”, hissed mum to me, “72-dash-80-plus-question-mark. I’m going to get this put right straight away”. Mum was a numbers person and as far as she was concerned you don’t mess with numbers.

Don’t mess with numbers

A senior nurse assured mum that the hospital team was fully aware that Grandma Anne was in her late 80s, pushing 90, and that she was receiving appropriate care…

…which might well have been true, but sadly, Grandma Anne died in that hospital bed.

————————————————————–

Roll the clock forward 30 years. My mother was just shy of 90. Unfortunately mum’s grasp on numbers and much else was all mixed up by then.  The onset of dementia, which had been gradual for some time, kicked in and kicked on in a rush. Three months before her 90th, my mum went into Nightingale; the care home at which she had volunteered for many decades.

Janie and I made a big fuss for mum’s 90th birthday, inviting mum and the family over for an afternoon party at our house.

Mum, Angela, Janie and Me

Mum liked being the centre of attention and over the ensuing weeks talked a great deal about her big birthday event with her friends at Nightingale.

But mum became convinced that the birthday had been her hundredth, not her ninetieth.

On one occasion when mum was talking to me about her 100th party, I challenged her.

“You are 90, mum, not 100”.

“I’m 100. And I’m your mother. Don’t argue with your mother.”

On another occasion, after I’d taken mum back to her room, I was accosted by a brace of her friends.

“Your mum is driving us all mad. She keeps telling everyone that she is 100. There are quite a few people around here who really are 100. It’s not right. She’s just turned 90, hasn’t she?”

“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.

“Tell her”.

“I’ve told her…and she’s told me not to argue with my mother”.

“It’s wrong. Sort it out.” The Nightingale Mafia had spoken.

Mum in her role as Nightingale poster child

I discussed the problem with one of the senior care nurses, who patiently explained to me that people with dementia have their own subjective reality which might differ from our own reality and from objective reality. It’s better to join the loved one in their subjective realities rather than challenge them with our own realities.

This seemed a compelling and compassionate argument…

…until I thought about it a bit more and said…

…“I can roll with that…sort of…but what about mum’s friends’ realities. They want me to stop mum driving them potty with her nonsense about being 100. How do I deal kindly with those conflicting realities?”

After a momentary pause, the nurse said, “welcome to our world”, with just a modicum of compassion.

————————————–

Having reflected for the first time on these experiences jointly, my thoughts, like the age claims of both ancestors, are all mixed up.

The family legend about Grandma Anne was that her declining age claims were born of vanity and an unwillingness to accept her antiquity.

But possibly dementia had started to take its toll on Grandma at that age. In her own, disoriented way, grandma was subtracting 18 from her age; while mum added 10 in her confusion.

Should we have accepted Grandma Anne’s subjective reality that she was 72? Might that last hospital stay have gone better had everyone treated her as if she were a 72 year old, rather than a 90 year old? It couldn’t have gone much worse; Grandma Anne came out of hospital that time in a box.

Postscript: About The ThreadMash Evening

Just in case you don’t know what a ThreadMash is, yet want to know, this link (here and below) will explain it to you and link you to some other examples.

Threadmash 5, Rohan Candappa’s Thing Has A Birthday Bash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2020

Since the one explained/depicted above, ThreadMash has been ThreadZoomMash; a virtual story writing and telling club.

We had seven stories and one apology (from Terry), the latter being so detailed and heartfelt, Kay read the apology at the start of the evening. It was, in its own way, a ThreadMash story.

Jill’s story was really a piece of philosophical musing about technology, moral dilemmas, decision making with and without machines, governance, government…it was truly mind-blowing. I do hope Jill will allow us to publish her piece more widely soon. If/when she does, I’ll add a link here.

Then my story, echoing the moral dilemmas but not the technology.

Rohan’s piece also seemed to echo at least one of my themes; his distinct yet overlapping stories possibly being multiple realities about the same staircase.

After a short break, Ian T’s moving piece about an ill-fated meal of spaghetti bolognaise with his dad and (yet another strange echo) a central theme of parental dementia.

It really is quite extraordinary how such a simple, three word title, “All Mixed Up” with no further guidance from Kay, led to so many overlapping themes. This does tend to happen at ThreadMash and I find that aspect of the overlap fascinating.

Geraldine read us some fragmentary musings, which are on their way to being a set of elegiac meditations on her experiences during the pandemic.

Kay instead reminisced about her time in New York in the late 1980s. Part confessional…

Dorothy Parker
“Oh, gallant was the first love, and glittering and fine;
The second love was water, in a clear white cup;
The third love was his, and the fourth was mine;
And after that, I always get them all mixed up.” Dorothy Parker

…we learnt that it was Kay who has denied us UK citizens the Marathon Bar, helping rebrand that Mars product as Snickers. Kay is also to blame for M&Ms in the UK, apparently – I shall find forgiveness for Kay in my heart eventually – but not yet…

…partly an ode to Dorothy Parker and partly Kay’s own poetic efforts from that time.

Last but not least was David Wellbrook’s sprawling sequel to his previous post-modern story about a chancer named Myrtle (or is she named Candice?) about whom David is writing rather sordid stories…or is she writing David instead? We met some new characters this time, including Lady Kumquat, the infeasibly young wife of an elderly Knight of the Realm. We were also introduced to an infeasibly hilly part of Norfolk named Bishop’s Knuckle.

There was plenty of time for discussion of our various pieces and general chat too.

As always it was a superb evening. Whether virtual or face-to-face I always get a boost from these ThreadMash events.

And finally…

…just in case the trusty WordPress engine fails to connect my “forty years on” diary piece about Grandma Anne’s last few days and the aftermath of her demise, here and below is a link to that piece.

Twenty Days Of Summer Holiday Work During Which Grandma Anne Died, 10 to 29 August 1981

The Last Of Summer, A Smidgen Of Warwickshire v Lancashire At Lord’s, 28 & 30 September 2021

I had hoped to keep a fair bit of time free to enjoy some cricket at Lord’s in this very last week of the English season. A new idea for a new County Championship format, to have a trophy final at Lord’s between the top two teams. Up to five days if necessary. Love the idea. Not so sure about scheduling into October, but heck, sometimes the weather is still sufficiently good for hardy cricket lovers to dare watch.

I discussed the prospective fixture with Frank Dillon when he visited on the preceding Saturday…

Conviviality & Charity, Mostly In Real Life, 20 to 25 September 2021

…Frank had been at Liverpool for the last match of Lancashire’s main campaign. He suggested that I look out for a promising youngster named George Balderson, who opens the batting and bowls.

On Tuesday 28th, the first day, I was hopeful to see a bit of George bat either before or after my 11:00 tennis match, as Lancashire had been inserted and I arrived at Lord’s at 10:40…

…by which time Lancashire was already 9/2 and George was gone.

I peeked briefly through the Allen Stand gap and then played a tough and losing game of tennis against a newbie…except that, as a former rackets champion, he could already hit the ball much, much better than me.

By the time I emerged from the tennis, play had just resumed after a rain-affected lunch break and Lancashire were 57/8. As I stood at the top of the steps to the Warner, watching politely while awaiting the end of the over, it became 57/9.

Brutality

The sole other arriviste at that entrance said, “it’s just brutal” in a distinct Merseyside accent. I thought he might be about to burst into tears.

“I’m sorry”, I said.

“It’s not your fault”, he said.

I mentally juggled headlines along the lines of “Only Wood Could Wield Much Wood” before deciding that I’m not much cut out for sports headline writing.

I watched the first two or three overs of the Warwickshire innings before heading home to get some work done ahead of a very enjoyable Zoom with Simon Jacobs & Jon Gorvett.

Wednesday being Janie’s and my FoodCycle day, I needed to get work done and couldn’t find time to show up at Lord’s at all, despite the fact that Rossmore Road FoodCycle is a short walk from Lord’s.

Thursday afternoon I was due back at Lord’s for tennis and managed to get there a good few minutes early. It felt like a bit of a race against time, as I spotted at lunchtime that Frank’s man, George Balderson, was still batting.

Would I get to Lord’s in time to see George bat and if so would I get there in time to see him reach 50?

Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeazy

I briefly took up a seat at the front of the new Lower Compton…

Not much more than a defensive push for four

And got a shot of George Balderson’s shot to get to 50. I sent the above image to Frank from my position in the Lower Compton: “Just snapped yer dude Balderson getting to 50”.

Then, aware of the time and feeling a bit chilly too, I went round to the tennis court, where Dominic inflicted the sort of drubbing on me that Warwickshire were inflicting on Lancashire.

Here is a link to the scorecard and Cricinfo resources on that match.

After my match, I picked up Frank’s reply:

That really is the last of summer.

It sure was.

Conviviality & Charity, Mostly In Real Life, 20 to 25 September 2021

UK society seems to be opening up, tentatively. Even the manically-busy Noddyland spider appears to be back in action at full pelt, having gone strangely dormant on us through the pandemic. Hence the evening and weekend slots seem to be filling up again.

20 September 2021

Monday evening, we had a very enjoyable, convivial dinner at Dominic and Pamela’s place. We hadn’t spent time with the pair of them since the Ireland test match a couple of years ago.

The Week That Ireland Came To Lord’s, 23 to 26 July 2019

Another couple, Sally & Barry, were there; bridge friends. Most of the conversation was about other matters; crime and punishment came into it a fair bit as both Pamela and Barry were criminal barristers in their time.

Dominic prepared a superb meal of tricolore salad, duck ragu with pappardelle…

Ivan Vighetto, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

…and a very tempting tart for afters.

It was a very enjoyable evening.

21 September 2021

Tuesday evening was the only virtual event of the week. The City Giving Day Quiz Night. Why anyone picks me for quiz teams is a bit of a mystery; I’m not good at retaining “quiz-type facts” and tend to sound uncertain about stuff I know about, while convincing about my wildest guesses. I also lose concentration easily during quizzes.

Photo-bombing my own screen shot – top row, centre

Anyway, it was for charity and the round depicted, the music round, was a perfect 10 for the Z/Yen team, which we had named FS Club 7; an ideal name for a six-person team, we felt.

In the end we were only three points off the top slot, so we felt good about ourselves without virtually-returning victorious.

It was about as much fun as on-line quizzing can be. This event is actually a convivial thing, when face-to-face, so here’s hoping that next year it will be in-person.

22 September 2021

A very exciting occasion as FoodCycle Marylebone opened its doors again, 18 months on, to welcome people for communal meals. Janie and I have been involved for most of the 18 months in-between, delivering food for most of the lockdown period and latterly helping with a cook & collect takeaway service these past few months.

FoodCycle’s Spiritual Home In Rossmore Road & Other Tales, 24 June 2020

The switch to community dining within Covid protocols must be challenging at all FoodCycle projects. At Marylebone, where uniquely we need to operate out of two sites, some of those challenges come to the fore. Yet somehow the cooking team always manage to conjure up superb meals…

With thanks to Rachelle for the photo

…while returnees from the communal dining hosting team helped us to get through the evening without a glitch; there was much joy among the several dozen guests and the hosts alike. Let’s simply say that I was hosting “leader” only nominally that night. But I did fill in the forms, which apparently I do comparatively well, despite my allergy to form-filling.

Thanks to Bill for this photo

Before the meal, Reverend Clare conducted a short, moving service of remembrance for those regulars who are no longer able to join in with the communal meals. Janie and I had got to know several of the people who have died or become incapacitated since the start of lockdown.

Reverend Donna took on the role of DJ during the meal, playing an assortment of gentle classics. But at one point I detected the unmistakable sensation of live music in the hall. One of the guests, a Russian gentleman, who had only recently started attending for takeaways, was playing the piano…

…masterfully…

…with exceptional virtuosity, in a St Petersburg style, if you know what I mean.

“Did you know he could play?” I asked the reverends. Both demurred. He simply asked if he could have a go and they thought, “why not?”

Not quite Sokolov (both the gentleman and the piano are a few sizes down from the grand depiction below) but that YouTube link might give you the gist and in any case is a charming listen:

There was tumultuous applause at the end of our guest’s set. I for one found the whole experience delightful and moving; it was the first time I had heard live music of performance quality since before lockdown. I do hope that gentleman plays for us again.

The whole evening was a great success. We’ve learnt a lot and hopefully we can do even better next week.

25 September 2021

Earlier in the week, out of the blue, I received a message from Frank Dillon saying that he would be in London this weekend and at a bit of a loose end on Saturday.

I hadn’t seen Frank since we went to Southport four years ago:

Southport Day Three: County Cricket En Famille Plus A Blast From My Keele Past, 11 June 2017

As luck would have it, Janie had arranged to have her hair done middle of the day and I too was available.

Thus Frank journeyed from Gray’s Inn to Noddyland for the afternoon, while his kin went to the Chelsea Flower Show.

The weather didn’t smile on us quite as much as I’d have liked, but we were able to take coffee and sit on the terrace for some time.

By the time I started to pull together a luncheon platter, word came from Janie that she was on her way back from the hairdresser’s, so we were all able to graze together, at which point it was only right and proper to try a glass or two of wine.

We didn’t quite finish putting the world to rights, but we had quite a good go at it. In any case, we’ll need something left to remedy for our next regathering, which hopefully will be reasonably soon.

It was a really pleasant way to end a convivial and charitable week.

Epic Iran Exhibition, V&A, 11 September 2021

Early Doors…we went early doors

What a palaver getting tickets for this exhibition, even though we are members of the V&A. Don’t get me started. But once Janie gets started with a mission to get something, she can be quite tenacious and I can sometimes help.

Anyway, one thing led to another and we scored a pair of tickets for 8:00 a.m. on the last Saturday of the show. Here’s the trailer for those who would like to know more about it:

Here is a link to the exhibition highlights on the V&A website.

Janie was keen to take pictures, undaunted by the professional pictures on the website and the beautiful Epic Iran book, which naturally we procured on exit:

The headline picture and those below are a few of Janie’s own efforts as we went around the show.

The scope of the exhibition was awe-inspiring – from the earliest civilisations to modern Iranian arts and culture.

This was the first cultural event that we have attended since the start of the pandemic. It occurred to me, as my head started to spin with the mental energy required to take it all in and the sensory stimulation from all those extraordinary exhibits, that we should have “warmed up” for such a momentous exhibition.

We wouldn’t have gone straight back to the tennis court and played a five-set epic as our first match back, would we? So perhaps we should have warmed up for Epic Iran by looking at a smaller, more familiar collection first. Twenty minutes in the MCC Museum during the Lord’s test match for example.

But I digress.

Epic Iran was a truly superb exhibition.

I wanted to try and bargain for the above carpet, but the owner was nowhere to be found. I should really complain to the V&A authorities about that.

Meanwhile Janie, being more sensible than me, made a bee-line for the V&A shop, snapping up a copy of the beautiful Epic Iran book at a member/attendee price before the exhibition closed and stocks ran out.

On the way home, Janie was still in the mood for sensory stimulation, so asked me to stop in Hyde Park briefly so she could see this year’s Serpentine Pavilion construction.

Counterspace

All that culture and still we were home before noon. Not bad for our first cultural outing since the start of the pandemic.

All of Janie’s pictures can be viewed through this link and the picture link below:

Blondin On Blondin: Multiple Launches In Blondin Park, 7 September 2021

Ian: Is that Morris dancing, Vicky?

Vicky: Yes, we’ve been worrying about Morris for some time

Ever since Linda Massey (of Boston Manor Friends/Tennis Club fame) mentioned fundraising for a pavilion at Blondin Park (across the way), Janie and I became, tangentially and in a small way, involved in the project.

Firstly we both pledged a small offering towards the pavilion. Secondly, once I realised that Blondin Park was flat-ish and suitable for field sports, I looked into the possibility of putting one of our London Cricket Trust non-turf pitches in there – click here or see link below for another example.

AB & Me & The LCT, Deptford Park, 16 July 2019

In fact, we managed to get the Blondin Park NTP installed during the winter of 2019/2020, but then the pandemic put the kybosh on our plans for a launch there.

Meanwhile, Linda and the Blondin Consortium’s plans for a pavilion came to fruition towards the end of summer 2021, so it seemed to make sense to have a joint launch of the facilities.

The Mayor of Ealing, Munir Ahmed, came along to cut the pavilion ribbon.

Linda Massey briefs The Mayor on arrival

Prior to the ribbon cutting…a display of Morris dancing. Why Morris dancing, I hear you cry? Because, apparently, the Northfield Morris troupe was the first community group to book the new pavilion as its new home for its practice sessions and the like.

Had you asked me on the morning of this event whether I knew any Morris dancers. I’d have said “unequivocally no”. But unfortunately it seems that Morris dancers have infiltrated polite society in West London, so we recognised at least two members of the troupe as Boston Manor Tennis Club regulars.

The pavilion launch and even the Morris dancing is explained in this community link piece – click here. Or, if that link ever fails, click this scrape instead.

Meanwhile Carol, a Boston Manor regular but not of the Morris persuasion, helped the assembled throng to reach a state of Morris tolerance…or perhaps even wondrous oblivion, by dint of jugs brimming with Pimms.

Soft drinks were also available for youngsters and those with a good reason to avoid Pimms. In my case, I had driven to Blondin, following my own Byzantine instructions for navigating the parking restrictions and the experimental road closure at one end of the ideal access road for the park. I wrote chapter and verse – some would say an entire apocrypha – on the topic.

There was also a splendid spread of sandwiches and nibbles for the guests, which was quite a treat, although it was a very hot afternoon, so “plenty of liquids” seemed more important than “plenty of sandwiches”.

Meanwhile the youngsters from Ealing Fields High School were limbering up for some cricket.

Several youngsters enjoying the use of our non-turf pitch

The site of their school recently erected the following plaque to the most famous alum of the predecessor school on that site:

The Ealing Civic Society Green Plaque unveiled on 13 October 2020 at the entrance to Ealing Fields School, Little Ealing Lane, Ealing, London W5 4EJ to commemorate singer Dusty Springfield (1939-99). .As Mary O’Brien, she attended what formerly was St Anne’s Convent School on the site between 1951 and 1955. The future Dusty Springfield spent her teenage years growing up in Ealing before embarking upon a career which resulted in her being the only British female singer to have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Once I learnt that our youthful cricket neophytes were from that school, I considered adding some Dusty patter into my London Cricket Trust speech:

Dusty Springfield is actually my role model in the matter of batting. Whenever I take to the crease, I just don’t know what to do with myself, so I close my eyes and count to ten”…

…but then I thought better of it.

Not sure anyone was listening when I spoke anyway

So apparently I said words along the following lines:

I am thrilled to be part of the celebrations opening the Blondin Park Community Pavilion and non-turf cricket pitch.  Every one of the dozens of non-turf pitches the LCT establishes in parks around London is special, enabling thousands of youngsters to experience the joys of playing cricket.  But this Blondin facility, in my own community, has an extra special place in my heart. Many thanks to the Blondin Consortium, Ealing Council & The England & Wales Cricket Board for the collaboration that has made this wonderful facility happen.

The pavilion itself is indeed a rather wonderful prefabricated building, spacious and full of useful facilities.

There’s me having a chat with our friend Joan from the tennis courts

The wash room facilities, for example, reminded me a bit of Japan…

Japan Reflections: I Need To Write About Toilets In Japan, 7 November 2018

Below is a picture of Jean washing her hands – the sink works out that you are there, so squirts the requisite amount of soap, runs warm water on your hands for a while and then blow dries your hands.

The event was all over too soon. The participation cricket team from my beloved Middlesex County Cricket Club facilitated a rapid game of cricket for the youngsters.

The event was all over the media – Ealing Today.co.uk no less. (If anything ever happens to the Ealing Today.co.uk website, I have scraped the text of that piece to this link.

As always, seeing young folk having fun playing cricket using our facilities always makes me happy. But seeing the new facility being used in Blondin park, in my own community, gave me an an extra special surge of excitement and joy.

Then it was time for everyone except the London Cricket Trust folk to go home.

We held our Trustees meeting at the site, making ourselves the very first EVER meeting to be held in the new Blondin Pavilion.

An historic moment. What a first.

Thanks to Linda Massey and Janelle for the above photograph.

After the meeting, I showed Ed Griffiths Boston Manor Park and gave him a lift back to a suitable station, despite the relentless teasing he had given me about my parking/driving instructions for the event. Still, I have been brought up to respond with kindness whenever possible, so Dumbo and I took Ed as close to the platform as possible for his journey home.

Image borrowed from BBC here.

Meanwhile, the launch day in Blondin Park had been a great success, both for the Blondin Consortium and for the London Cricket Trust.

The Hundred Finals Day At Lord’s & “A Hundred Weeks Later” With John & Mandy In Noddyland, 21 & 22 August 2021

The Hundred Finals, Saturday 21 August 2021

Janie and I played tennis at 8:00, enabling us to get ready and set off in a leisurely style for the inaugural finals day of The Hundred tournament.

No difficulty finding suitable parking spaces ahead of the women’s final, both for Dumbo on a street nearby and for our backsides in the Warner Stand.

Ahead of taking our seats, we ran into Alfred & Sunita, tennis friends of ours from Boston Manor. They were invitees in the President’s Box, which made our Members and Friends privileges feel positively like slumming it.

Slumming it in The Warner Stand, with no Champagne Charlies behind us today
My double-selfie skills are coming on…

Janie in particular got snap-happy during the warm ups.

Are the cricketers below practicing for cricket or Morris dancing, I wonder, on reviewing the pictures:

Morris Dancing…Or Possibly They Can Boogie.

Throughout the tournament (this was my fourth visit to Lord’s to see The Hundred) I had relished the opportunity to help choose the walk-on music for various players, despite the fact that most of the choices were between three songs I had not heard before by three artistes I’d not heard of before. In truth, I think the “join in the fun…you choose” appy stuff might be aimed at a demographic other than mine.

But I was delighted that the first “choice of three” I was offered on finals day, as Fran Wilson’s walk-on music, included two songs and three artistes I recognised:

  • Yes Sir, I Can Boogie – GBX Feat. Baccara
  • By Your Side – Calvin Harris Feat. Tom Grennan
  • One Kiss – Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa

I voted for the third of those choices, but the consensus narrowly went for the first choice – a song from 1977 which I recall finding old-fashioned even at that time. I recall my mum liking the Baccara record. Mum would be in her hundredth year this year, were she still alive. Perhaps she would have embraced this aspect of The Hundred.

Once the game got underway, Janie and I competed to get pictures of the pyrotechnics that went off whenever a boundary was scored…

…or “the occasional central heating” as I called it. It was a slightly chilly Saturday afternoon, such that we quite enjoyed the bursts of warmth. On hot days such bursts can be unbearable.

I got my timing right for this one

The Women’s Final rather petered out, as a match, unfortunately. The women’s matches I had seen prior to the final had been close and exciting to watch.

Never mind. There was loads more entertainment lined up.

The men’s teams warmed up while the musical entertainment kept the crowd happy

Jax Jones was the live musical entertainment on finals day. Another artiste I had heard of – I saw him interviewed on one of the TV music channels a few years ago and was impressed by his diverse, global musical influences. Not to mention his dapper choices in headgear.

But until the day, I didn’t realise that Jax Jones was the artiste behind The Hundred’s theme tune, Feels, until he performed it:

The number that really got the crowd (including me and Janie) going was You Don’t Know Me, with its utterly infectious beat:

By this stage of proceedings I was feeling far too cool for school, so it came as no surprise to me that I recognised one of the choices for Chris Benjamin’s walk-on music; Incredible by M.Beat Feat. General Levy. Janie was suitably impressed. I was delighted that my choice was the chosen one.

Even more impressive was my timing to snap the pre match fireworks at the men’s match – we’d both managed to get to the cameras a little late for the women’s fireworks:

With all the music and pyrotechnics, you might be wondering whether there was any cricket involved. Yes there was. I should confirm that we did watch cricket that day.

Unfortunately, matters took a bit of a turn for the worse towards the end of the match. The absence of Champagne Charlies behind us meant that, instead, we had a Beer-swilling Bernard instead, who managed to kick over one of his beers, soaking Janie’s bag. Yes, she had taken a washable jobbie with her (based on previous experience) but “Bernard’s Beer-stream” succeeded in soaking the bag and seeping through to some of the contents in a mood-affecting manner.

Then my mood took a turn for the worse too, as the DJ, perhaps transfixed by the entertaining cricket match, or possibly on a toilet break, simply forgot to play Incredible when Chris Benjamin came out to bat. I should write to the Chief Executive of the MCC about this one. Relaxing the dress code – fair enough. But the DJ forgetting to play the chosen walk-on music is a breach of Lord’s etiquette and should be suitably sanctioned.

Here, to make up for the disappointment, is that Incredible track:

In truth, by the time Chris Benjamin was walking to the crease (without his walk-on music) it was becoming extremely unlikely that Birmingham might rise Phoenix-like from the hole they were in by that stage to pull off an incredible win. Here is a link to the scorecard.

Janie and I therefore took our leave of Lord’s a few minutes before the end of the match, to avoid the crowds.

We’d had a great afternoon and evening. The razzamatazz does feel like an update or reset to the short format; that should make it more appealing to the young and young at heart.

John & Mandy In Noddyland, Sunday 22 August 2021

In this crazy pandemic era, time flies by. Could it really be more than a hundred weeks since we last saw John & Mandy?

Dinner At Kitty Fisher’s With John And Mandy, 28 August 2019

No dinner out this time – just a blissfully long afternoon/early evening in Noddyland to celebrate the joint birthdays – a week early this time as it happens.

Janie did her humus and pita bread starter thing as garden nibbles ahead of the meal.

The weather had been teasing us (pretty much all summer in truth) but even on the day there was the occasional threat of showers, including one shower just before John & Mandy arrived. But the weather smiled on us for a couple of hours enabling us to sit in the garden, chat, drink and nibble.

The showers returned just as we were preparing to come inside anyway.

Janie’s signature baked Alaskan salmon dish was the main, followed by a boozy summer pudding.

It was really lovely to see John and Mandy again post-lockdown. We had lots to chat about and somehow Zooms and phone calls can’t quite do the same job, however much of a decent substitute for the real thing they might be.

It shouldn’t be another hundred weeks until the next time.

Several Testing Days At Lord’s & White City, 12 to 16 August 2021

England v India Test At Lord’s Day One: Thursday 12 August 2021

This day did not start well. Even before we set off towards Lord’s, I got a message from Chas “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett that he was poorly and would be unable to attend with me on Day Two. Janie also picked up a message from one of her Samaritans friends cancelling their planned get together on Saturday.

Then we arrived at the Church Street car park, which I had booked more than a week ahead of time. A shifty young man was turning everyone away from the car park, even people (like us) with advanced bookings.

“The car park is completely full”, he said. We deployed the stand-off method, refusing to move the car and asking him to get the police when he said we were causing an obstruction. He phoned his boss, then simply let us in. The car park was far from completely full. Read into this incident what you will.

Dumbo’s space

When we returned in the evening to rescue Dumbo, we complained to a different young man who reluctantly provided me with the above sign to mark my spot for the next day. “Someone could remove the sign in the mean time”, he told me, ruefully, but he did promise to e-mail his colleague who would be on duty the next morning.

Meanwhile, we still got to Lord’s in good time to grab decent seats in a shadier/drier part of the Lower Warner. However, Janie soon became irritated by the “Champagne Charlies” behind us, who apparently started off by braying at each other about how much money they were making in the City just now and then went on to make disparaging remarks about women’s cricket.

Janie wondered why we were sitting in such a crowded place, while the Lower Tavern was sparsely populated. I explained my theories about the pecking order of Lord’s stands, with the Lower Tavern being the most despised of the Members & Friends stands.

“Let’s go over there, in that case”, said Janie. And that’s where we ended up spending the rest of Day One. I also returned there on Day Two solo and spent Day Four there with Janie.

Just before we decamped to the Lower Tavern, I received an e-mail from FoodCycle wondering whether Janie and I could possibly step in and host the White City project on the Saturday. Having had our Saturday plans messed up, we said yes to that request; we felt that the only decent thing that had happened to us so far that day was getting press-ganged into volunteering for a superbly good cause.

The other thing I did while on the wander was to see if Chris Swallow needed someone to make up the numbers for tennis on Day Two. As I was to be guestless I might as well and could use the exercise during the test match. As it happened, there was a vacancy and the suggestion helped out.

Janie’s opinion of Lord’s pitches was not improved by the Day One tally of just three wickets, although I thought England bowled without luck at first and without penetration after that.

Day Two: Friday 13 August 2021

An austere look for a day without Charley The Gent

I’m delighted to report that Dumbo’s parking space awaited him, without fuss, when I arrived at the car park on the Friday. It does have to be said that the “reserved” marker had, however, been removed.

I was hoping to place the seats I had obtained for me and Chas, so I decamped to the Lower Tavern while awaiting word from various folk, none of whom could muster a cricket lover or two at such short notice. The number of people who have said, subsequently, “oh, but if you had called me…”

Anyway, I snacked very modestly, drank water and read a bit, while following the increasingly interesting cricket match.

I chatted for a while with a nice chap named Richard who was similarly guestless that day.

Despite the absence of Charley, I enjoyed the day’s cricket. Chas would have loved it.

I also enjoyed a good hour of tennis doubles late in the day, with Dominic, Paul and Nick. My first game of doubles for a while – a good warm up for the “Doctors Of Leamington” fixture on Sunday.

Day Three: Saturday 14 August 2021 – FoodCycle White City

I didn’t take any photos of this particular gig, but the photo below shows the venue last year, when we were doing food delivery services from there.

Janie with Father “Friar Tuck” Richard & other White City volunteers

The gig on Day three of the test match was a cook and collect service along similar lines to the services we provide out of Marylebone. Fortunately hosting that service was not too onerous for us, as they really did have a shortage of volunteers that week, with only one other hosting volunteer. Talk about vacancies…

Still, we successfully gave away all the food and then went on to play tennis at Boston Manor Park, which we enjoyed, before watching the end of Day Three of the test match on the telly.

Day Four: Sunday 15 August 2021 – England v India at cricket plus Ged Ladd & The Doctors Of Leamington Feat. Mr Johnny Friendly at tennis

The commentatorat in front of the Allen Stand

Keen to get a prime parking place near Lord’s – probably more in demand on test match Sunday than prime seats in the despised Lower Tavern stand, we got to Lord’s early and had some fun snapping the pre match atmosphere.

Haseeb Hameed looking keen as mustard

Dinesh Kartik dressed low key for once, with Ian Ward

Photo-bombing my own selfie

I was due on court at 12:00 for a long-arranged game of tennis with “The Doctors Of Leamington” and Mr Johnny Friendly. The latter spotted me & Janie (Daisy) in the despised Lower Tavern and told me that the court was free from 11:30 and that the Doctors were keen to start early, so I actually only caught the first 20 minutes or so of cricket before retiring to the tennis court.

As it turned out, the Doctors were waylaid, so Johnny Friendly and I played at singles for a while until the Doctors arrived, which seemed to warm me up rather well.

Daisy joined us for the last few minutes of our hour, observing/filming a little from the dedans. The following clip shows me scoring a couple of strokes before making a bit of a mess of the third return, delivering a bestial roar for my pains:

Worth the price of admission alone, this 34 second clip.

After tennis, we joined the good doctors for some traditional picnic in the vicinity of the Coronation Garden, which seemed a little crowded for our taste but fortunately the Doctors had taken a well-located bench on the outer perimeter of the garden.

Eventually we returned to our seats and watched the afternoon’s cricket, which was actually quite absorbing and left the match well poised, such that I resolved to return on the Monday.

Day Five: Monday 16 August 2021

I decided to drive to the North-Eastern edge of Kensington, which is slightly closer to Lord’s than my flat. In any case, the parking space outside the flat was suspended to allow Bill to put in my new boiler, so there was doubly no good reason to go there.

The more or less due East walk from that parking place to Lord’s, mostly along the canal footpath, was a delight. Although I have spent much of my life very close to that path – e.g. at the Canal Cafe Theatre, I’d never previously walked that line, as it were.

Refreshed from the walk, I tried to take up position in the Upper Tavern Stand, only to be rudely ejected.

You can’t come in here, Sir, it’s been sold to the public!

Apparently demand had been so great for Day Five tickets from Joe Public, but not so much from members, that we were to be “penned in” to the Allen/Pavilion/Warner Stands.

I chose the Warner – mercifully Champagne Charlies don’t do day fives.

Towards the end of the day I relocated to the Lower Allen, as I could see there was plenty of space and I fancied a quick getaway.

I read, I watched cricket, England came second in the end but that aspect seemed…secondary.

Here is a link to Cricinfo’s scorecard and resources on the match.

I also concluded a highly scientific experiment for King Cricket, which I had started at The Hundred matches between London Spirit & Northern Superchargers a couple of weeks earlier and concluded at this test match. It is written up in the following piece:

The Hundred v Test cricket reading experiment

If anything ever goes awry with King Cricket’s site, you can find that vital piece of science here.

As “So-Called Freedom Day” Came & Went, We Indulged In Some Cricket & A Bit Of Low Key Socialising, 7 July To 6 August 2021

It was a strange period; the height of summer in regular times but the autumn of the pandemic, as it were.

The government had signalled a possible “relaxing of pandemic restrictions” for towards the end of June, but the highly infectious delta variant of Covid 19 led to the deferral of that “freedom day” until 19 July.

There was much re-jigging of diaries and arrangements in the weeks leading up to and following the revised date.

For the most part, Janie and I carried on doing what we had been doing during partial lockdown: working, volunteering and playing tennis.

Middlesex v Leicestershire, Merchant Taylors’ School, 12 & 13 July 2021

The plan was for me and Janie to go with Fran & Simon on Monday 12 July, but plans have a habit of going awry. The weather forecast for the Monday was awful and indeed it was heaving down with rain in Ealing.

Janie and I abandoned all hope of going to the game by mid afternoon, despite the fact that the rain was mysteriously dodging Northwood and play was taking place beneath leaden skies.

I’m rather glad we did decide to bale out of going, as I learnt the next day that it took people from Ealing/Acton way a couple of hours to get home due to the flash floods.

Simon ended up watching some rather good cricket solo on the Monday, while I ended up doing similar on the Tuesday.

I had arranged to play real tennis at Middlesex University early on the Tuesday morning and went on from there to MTS for my first sight of live county cricket since September 2019.

The Fag End Of The Cricket Season, Lord’s, 23 to 25 September 2019

Social distancing was still the order of the day, so I sat in a reserved area and was suitably reserved.

We were allowed to stroll a bit, which enabled me to encounter some of “the usual suspects”, such as Barmy Kev and Jeff Coleman, who for some obscure reason were bemoaning Middlesex’s poor play and poor luck this season.

I tried to cheer myself up by reading The Economist, which for some obscure reason was bemoaning the economic devastation caused by the global pandemic.

Middlesex were in a bit of a hole second dig, so I do understand why people were pessimistic, especially as Middlesex had been snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory all season. Still, I was strangely optimistic about Middlesex’s position given my previous experiences of seeing teams bat last at MTS.

For once, I called it right – click here for the match scorecard .

Ealing Samaritans Gunnersbury Park Party, Tuesday 20 July 2021

Janie had hardly met any of her new Samaritans colleagues before, other than in an “on shift” context, as she had done all of her training by Zoom and they had not been able to meet socially during lockdown.

So the “party in the park” idea seemed to be the ideal opportunity to meet some more people…

…which indeed it was. It was just a shame that, apart from Janie and Ilkay, whom Janie had already befriended and met, no-one from their traning group attended that night.

Still, Alison Shindler (coincidentally an old friend of mine from BBYO, as reported here) was there with her husband Joe, which was fun. We met some other very nice Samaritans volunteer folk including some of the Ealing grandees.

Janie was so late back from work, however, that we missed the entertainment for the evening, Marie Naffah, who was doing 50 gigs in 50 days, apparently. We arrived just in time to say goodbye to her, so for now the video below will have to do.

The Hundred: London Spirit v Oval Invincibles Double Header, Lord’s, Sunday 25 July 2021

In the end we only got to see half a double-header, as the weather closed in after the women’s match. What was predicted to be the possibility of some light showers turned out to be torrential rain and flash floods which caused havoc around London.

Mercifully, my weather app tipped me off before the weather got too bad.

I have reported the event for King Cricket, click here or below:

A report from the first day of the Hundred at Lord’s

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, a scrape of that article can be found here.

Despite shortened event due to the weather, we rather enjoyed ourselves. I had arranged to return for the midweek games myself and Janie was scheduled to join me on Finals Day, so we anticipated that we’d still get our fill of The Hundred.

Middlesex v Durham at Radlett, Tuesday 27 July 2021

Parking spaces at cricket grounds don’t get much more rural-idyllic than this

Janie and I had an early game of tennis, then met Simon at lunchtime/early afternoon at Radlett. I chatted briefly with Mike O’Farrell and others, holding up the process of finding some decent seats and settling in for some old-fashioned List A 50-overs-a-side cricket.

The weather sort-of smiled on us until mid to late afternoon, when a shower threatened to end proceedings but in any case was enough to scare us away from an exposed ground such as Radlett.

After the rain, a tense Duckworth-Lewis finish, which Janie and I watched on the stream at home. As has been the way this season, Middlesex were “close but no cigar”.

London Spirit v Trent Rockets, Double-Header, Lord’s 29 July 2021

In my desire to really check out The Hundred tournament, I had reserved a member’s place for myself at both of the midweek events at Lord’s. This was the first of them.

I enjoyed the women’s game from the pavilion terrace, where I was sitting right in front of the assembled rockets (as it were) while they waited to do their thing.

I was delighted to be invited to help choose the walk-on music for some of the players, although I didn’t recognise many of the bangin’ hits on offer.

I had planned to take in the men’s game from the sanctuary of the Upper Tavern Stand, but just before the end of the women’s game I was joined by Alvin, who then popped out to make a call before I had the chance to tell him my plans. So I watched the first innings of the men’s game from the pavilion, with Alvin, then relocated to the Tavern Stand for the final innings.

London Spirit did not do very well in these matches…

…women…

…and men.

Oh well.

Caroline, Alan & Jilly Visit Noddyland, 1 August 2021

A bouquet of yummy chocolate strawberries from Caroline

Long in the planning, it was super to see Caroline, Alan and Jilly after such a long time.

In fact, last time we saw Caroline & Alan for a meal, Janie and I were still full of Japan, as it were.

It’s summer, so Janie went for wild Alaskan salmon as the main, after some nibbles in the garden.

The afternoon and evening flew by, surprising us all when we realised that it was getting dark. That’s what tends to happen these days.

London Spirit v Northern Superchargers, Double-Header, Lord’s, 3 August 2021

An opportunity to watch some more cricket and get some reading done, I took in the second of the midweek The Hundred double-headers.

I decided to watch the women’s match from the Upper Allen stand and the men’s match from the Upper Tavern.

The women’s match was probably the best game (i.e. the most exciting game of cricket) I saw all tournament – see the scorecard here.

The men’s game probably the least exciting.

Oh well.

Pete Reynolds Memorial At Mosimann’s, 6 August 2021

Our first venture in a cab and our first indoor event since lockdown. Shirley was very keen that we join the event, as we (along with so many of their friends) had been unable to attend the funeral during lockdown.

Grace had organised the event wonderfully well. Mosimann’s is a stunning venue and was well suited to the occasion.

The speeches were heartfelt and moving, but it was mostly a party, which was, apparently, what Pete wanted. Pete usually got what he wanted in life, I believe, so he was certainly going to have what he wanted in this regard.

Philafrenzy, CC BY-SA 4.0

A Visit To Radlett To See Middlesex v Durham, 27 July 2021

Dumbo took us out to Radlett

There weren’t too many opportunities to watch live county cricket earlier that summer, with the Covid “spatial distancing” (as Janie called it – probably a better description than social distancing) and all that.

We had hoped to meet up with Fran and Simon, but the former was unable to join us on that occasion. The inclement weather that tries to frustrate our purpose when we meet up with one or both of those two did its best to rear its ugly head, but stayed away for long enough to enable us to enjoy some outground cricket in the lovely setting that is Radlett.

Simon wondered if I might like to see a crude vegetable

I suppose this courgette pic will be good for King Cricket

Daisy thought the courgette picture would be ideal for a King Cricket vignette. She was right:

A vegetable being conspicuously indifferent to cricket?

If anything ever goes awry with King Cricket, click here for that piece.

The rain came soon after the innings break. Daisy and I decided to go home and catch the end of the match (assuming the shower really was just a shower) on the stream.

The shower really was just a shower.

Exciting ending, that match, but we enjoyed observing it from the relative warmth and dry of the streaming service at home.

Here’s the scorecard. Middlesex came a close second.