Ian Louis Harris

Three Days In Kent For Gardens & Cricket, Sissinghurst & Canterbury, 24 to 26 June 2018

For some while Janie had been expressing a desire to see Sissinghurst Gardens. So when she saw an article about the place in a Waitrose magazine, together with a rave review for The Milk House as a suitable place to stay and eat in the village, our plot was hatched.

We hadn’t arranged anything for Janie’s birthday weekend and, as luck would have it, Middlesex were to play Kent at Canterbury starting that Monday. A perfect storm at the planning stage, so I arranged for us to stay an additional night and dine at a super-looking place just outside Canterbury – The Iffin Farmhouse.

I didn’t realise, when I arranged the trip, that Sissinghurst is so very close to the Yeandle residence in Frittenden. So when I mentioned to Mark where we were going, he said, “but you must come and visit us, our house is a 25 minute walk from Sissinghurst if you walk across the Sissinghurst Estate.

Sunday 24 June 2018

So, Janie and I played tennis at home early on the Sunday, had a wardrobe-design session with Glenn and Daniel for an hour or so (long story) then showered and set off for Kent. I figured that the roads would be clear while England were playing World Cup football, which was true, but the roads were still very busy for the first 45 minutes or so of our journey, before the football match started.

Still, we got to Sissinghurst soon after 14:00 and enjoyed a super lunch at The Milk House. Prior to lunch, we had an interesting encounter, in the garden bar, which ended up on the King Cricket website – click here or below:

Check out these magnificent beer-carrying cricket bat devices

…or, if anything were to go awry with the King Cricket site, the piece is scraped to here.

The roast of the week looked like a massive portion ahead of a walk across the estate, so we opted for signature dishes – Daisy for the burger and me for the bangers and mash.

Then a very pleasant walk across the estate. We took the picture (below) the next day, from the top of the tower, but it depicts the top of the archway through which we walked and technically I think you can see the Yeandle House in the distance, probably the size of one or two pixels in the photo.

Superb views of gardens and surrounding area from the top of the tower

Actually the Yeandle House is bigger than a couple of pixels and was awash with family and neighbours sitting around the swimming pool, eating strawberries and drinking Pimms. As Mark put it, “for some unknown reason, the Yeandle House seems to be very popular on hot summer days”.

Sadly, the strawberries were not the local Frittenden ones I have praised in Ogblogs passim…

England v Bangladesh Day 2, Lord’s, 28 May 2010

…yet still they were Kentish strawberries and tasted very good indeed.

Janie gave the boys (I should now really say young men), Freddie and Sebastian, the benefit of her views on how young men should interact with young women, which I am sure they will find immensely helpful. I’m not 100% sure whether the expression on grandfather Geoffrey Yeandle’s face was fascination, shock or a combination of both.

Later in the day, after we’d had a guided tour of the Yeandle estate and we muttered about leaving, Jane Yeandle offered to run us back to Sissinghurst village. Janie tried to decline this kind offer by suggesting that we would hail an Uber from our phones or – after she was politely told that there is no Uber in deepest Kent – call for a cab. No cabs either. So we gratefully accepted the kind offer of a lift.

Tired and happy, we had an early night.

Monday 25 June 2018

We enjoyed a super breakfast at The Milk House before checking out and driving to Sissinghurst for the centrepiece of our visit.

The gardens are spectacularly lovely and Janie did a grand job of photographing them – the large stack of photos from the whole trip, mostly taken by Janie, can be seen on Flickr by clicking here or below:

In the herb garden, one of the many wonderful areas in the grounds, an old seat has been turned into a camomile pot, with a clear message telling less sensible visitors not to seat there. I spotted one bumpkin trying to sit down there nevertheless:

A gormless bumpkin or a cleverly posed shot?

There are so many aspects and areas to the formal gardens and the house, you really could spend an enormous amount of time there. The Wikipedia entry gives a good overview – click here.

Janie doesn’t tend to linger anywhere, not even beautiful gardens, so we had a thorough walk around making sure we got to see all of the various formal gardens – we’d chosen “peak rose” season in a location that specialises in roses – then had a look at the house – in particular the library and tower.

We also took some light refreshment and looked at the exhibition about women and gardening – little did we know how closely the women’s suffrage movement was linked to the equally radical notion of women gardening, back then. Janie is fascinated by Vita Sackville-West – almost to the same extent as the Bloomsbury lot whose homes we visited in Sussex last year:

Sussex Sojourn Part One: Charleston Farmhouse, Then Family Dinner At The Jetty, 27 July 2017

Once replete at Sissinghurst, we drove on to Canterbury – less than an hour cross-country – to check in and freshen up at the Iffin Farmhouse ahead of popping down the road to see a couple of hours of cricket.

One thing I hadn’t counted on when I first arranged the trip was the fact that the cricket match was to be one of those day/night, pink ball affairs, until the pink-ballness of the occasion came up in conversation with Beefy Roberts at Lord’s one afternoon earlier in the season. Whoops.

Still, I learnt of my mistake far enough ahead of time to arrange for us to visit the cricket in two tranches – the second session (late afternoon) on the Monday and then the first two sessions on the Tuesday.

In changing those plans a few weeks ahead of time, I also phoned to see if I could slightly vary our arrival, departure and eating times at Iffin Farmhouse. Thus I discovered that the Iffin people were very friendly and sounded flexible. I also discovered that anyone who answered the phone might be named Sarah but would not necessarily be the same person. (Strangely, our hostess at The Milk House also turned out to be a Sarah).

When we arrived at the Iffin Farmhouse we in fact encountered a man gardening; he was not named Sarah – he turned out to be David who is the man of the house but not really the person with a pivotal role in the hospitality business. Still, he helped us to our charming bungalow and promised that Sarah would no doubt be back to see us some time soon, which she was, so we were able to finalise our dining arrangements just before we set off to Kent CCC, which is just two to three miles away from the Farmhouse.

We were well looked after in the Kent CCC Committee Room for the couple of hours we stopped by on the Monday, although we had said that we didn’t want formal hospitality that day.

Photo taken before Middlesex batted – obviously

We chatted with a few of the Kent regulars (more on them below) but particularly with a couple of MCC gentlemen who were guests of a Kent Committee member and showed signs of having been enjoying the hospitality for some hours before we arrived. One of them, named Rodney, was especially skittish.

Middlesex couldn’t quite finish off Kent before the second interval, but still appeared to be in a good position at that stage. We took our leave of the party and returned to the Iffin Farmhouse for dinner.

David and Sarah present dinner on our terrace at twilight

A very tasty chicken dish in a sort-of Spanish style with rice and a hearty salad. Janie wondered whether we were eating the kin of the chickens who were in full view while we ate, but Sarah assured us that they do not eat their own Iffin chickens. Still, it was local free range chicken with a superb flavour and texture.

Daisy much enjoying her grub in the open air

The only thing that rendered this outdoor dining experience less than blissful was the constant buzz of “wicket alerts” from Cricinfo, letting me know that Middlesex’s batting was falling apart rapidly.

Still, we persevered with our food, enjoying a very nice pancake thing as a dessert and I even got to see a small owl in a suitably distressed-looking tree before we went to bed.

Tuesday 26 June 2018

Next morning, Sarah cooked us a splendid breakfast of Kentish kippers (kippers with a poached egg on top). We took our time, as there was no cricket until 14:00 and Janie really didn’t fancy an outing ahead of cricket. Sarah and David were very accommodating, allowing us to hang around the farmhouse until we wanted to leave. Janie read on the porch while I took the opportunity for a baroq-ulele jam, which David and Sarah’s ageing spaniel seemed to enjoy:

Me and the farmhouse spaniel; old enough to remember some of the songs I sing?

David and Sarah were very interesting and charming hosts. David is a child psychologist who has done fascinating work over the years, while Sarah was a civil engineer who used to specialise in sewers…she told us this after she’d cooked and we’d eaten dinner!

We certainly would and probably shall stay at the Iffin Farmhouse again…if Middlesex and Kent perchance are ever in the same division again.

On to Kent CCC where our host for the day was Kent President Jonathan “Jo” Rice, who was one of the authors of the Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles and Albums, of which I have several editions. Don’t take him on in a pop trivia quiz; he really knows his stuff. Excellent company though and he wore his popular music knowledge lightly…

…possibly just as well, as one of his other guests was the classical conductor Nicholas Cleobury, who was, along with his entourage, also delightful company. He is currently in England planning his return from Brisbane.

Also with us that day was former Kent player Derek Ufton, who, it transpires, was even better known for football than he was for cricket. His Wikipedia biography was a fascinating read when we got home – it was difficult to believe that he is 90 years old. Quite a trooper.

We enjoyed an excellent meal together at the rather unusual hour of 16:00 (that’s what day/night cricket does to the catering arrangements), then at the second interval, as if anyone was hungry again by then, scones, cake and a large platter of cheese which perhaps sustained those who were staying on to the final session – no-one was hungry for cheese at 19:00.

Before tea Janie and I had a very pleasant stroll all around the ground.

A different viewing angle but only one conclusion to be drawn on the likely result

Janie and I said our goodbyes and set off for home after tea; we got a pretty easy run through London.

It was a very one-sided cricket match; Middlesex’s performance was shocking – click here only if you dare see the card. The superb hospitality and charming company made up for the paucity of competitive cricket.

But Janie and I had enjoyed a thoroughly entertaining and diverse few days away, so we were very happy indeed with our short break overall. Sissinghurst really is a stunning and unique place.

The Strange Death Of John Doe by Fiona Doyle, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, Followed By Dinner At Fora With Dot And Randy, 23 June 2018

Janie and I were fascinated by the descriptive rubric about this play, so booked to see it as soon as the tickets went on sale, as oft we do for the Hampstead Downstairs.

Here (and through the embedded picture below) is a link to that rubric and other Hampstead resources about this play and production.

Even the programme for this one is downloadable for free – I haven’t seen the Hampstead do that before – a new initiative perhaps?

A few weeks before our booking, I got a message from Dot to say that “they” would be in England the weekend of 23/24 June and wondered if I could recommend a show for them to see and/or it would be nice to meet up. In the event, there were still tickets for this play available and Dot seemed keen to join us.

“They” turned out to be Dot (who came to Z/Yen from the USA as a summer intern a few years ago, recruited by me while I was experimenting with recreational on-line poker using my first ever smart phone – that is certainly an Ogblog story for another day)…

…plus her beau Randy. Randy came to England on this occasion primarily for work purposes, whereas Dot was in transit, on her way to watch some football World Cup live in Russia.

Anyway, it made a change for me and Janie to go to the theatre with some other people – it is years since we last did that. Dot and Randy made excellent company too, bringing a different perspective to the themes raised in the play and indeed interesting perspectives on the current geopolitical maelstrom on both sides of the Atlantic pond.

Before the show, we had a chance encounter with Ollie Goodwin, who was also at the Hampstead but he was watching the upstairs show…so it proved to be a brief encounter. Still, always good to see Ollie.

The play itself indeed proved to be very interesting and superbly acted/directed. All of the performers were very good indeed. Janie and I again noticed Callie Cooke as exceptional – we still remember Firebird (another Hampstead Downstairs triumph which Ed Hall himself directed) and Callie Cooke’s performance in it as one of the best:

Firebird by Phil Davies, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 2 October 2015

In those days (2015) the Downstairs studio eschewed official reviews, but the Hampstead’s policy has changed, so you will find official and unofficial reviews through this link – click here. The official reviews are good but not rave reviews, whereas some of the unofficial noise is unequivocally complimentary. My take on it is that the play has its flaws, not least the rapidity of the scene changes and the amount of walking on/walking off that goes on in short scenes, but that the flaws do not detract from the drama, tension and fine acting within the piece. This production is well worth seeing.

It’s not ideally suited for the very squeamish – it is mostly set in a post mortem lab – but I was able to cope with it which means that most people should be OK – the grizzly bits were mostly done with sound rather than visuals. I glanced at one grizzly point to see if our entourage looked OK and assessed that Randy might be as squeamish as me, whereas Janie and Dot were lapping it up. Indeed the two girls looked as though they might, had they lived in late 18th century Paris, have sat in the front row of the guillotine execution sessions, knitting.

After the show, Janie, Dot, Randy and I went to Fora in St John’s Wood for a very tasty Turkish meal and a chance to chat about the issues some more. Randy generously picked up the tab at Fora – he can visit again 😉 – so Janie insisted on dropping the young couple back at the Hotel Intercontinental, bringing a most enjoyable evening to an end. Yes, come to think of it, both of them most certainly can visit again.

Three Days In Leicester Mostly For Cricket, 20 to 22 June 2018

I had arranged a fair smattering of away county championship cricket for late June – this visit to Leicester was the start of that sojourn.

Wednesday 20 June

I went to the gym first thing and dropped off a test match ticket at DJ’s place on my way out of town, getting to Grace Road just after the match had started. I saw the first wicket fall as I walked around the ground to find the Committee Room.

The hospitality was warm and friendly at Grace Road. The food was very good too – roast belly of pork being the main dish of choice.

The weather, on arrival, was a bit cloudy and mizzley – indeed play was even interrupted for a few minutes in that first session – but Middlesex did not make as much progress with the ball as the conditions suggested they might. This was to be the story of my visit – the Middlesex under-performance bit – not the weather bit – the weather improved massively in the afternoon and stayed glorious for the rest of all time.

Bob Baxter from the Middlesex Committee was with us that day; it was a good opportunity to chat with him as well as our Leicestershire hosts.

This trip included my first ever use of Airbnb. I drove into town after stumps to my loft apartment in Newarke Street, where Jitesh and Rita met me (the owner, their son, Hersh, works in London during the week).

I simply got my bearings that evening, together with some light bite food for that evening and biscuits for the mornings. I played my baroq-ulele a little and went to bed early.

Thursday 21 June

A relaxing morning with a bit more music before walking to Grace Road today. A similar crowd in the Committee Room again today. Again I spent quite a lot of time talking to Paul Haywood (the Leicestershire Chairman) today…and being quizzed by John Lee, who seemed pleasantly surprised by my cricket trivia knowledge but a little put out that I have no such knowledge of football. Mike & Mrs Soper joined us for the day, somewhat unexpectedly, which added to the interesting mix.

Another very good lunch – this was the one and only time I had a little wine with my food; an excellent soft beef dish was the centrepiece today.

Richard Goatley was up for the day today; we had a wander around the ground and a chat during the third session of play, while the Middlesex first innings imploded. We chatted with the other Richards (Scott and Johnson) for a while. I thought about making a Richard III joke at that point, but that felt off colour while we were in such close proximity to that monarch’s Leicestershire Car Park.

After stumps, I walked back to my apartment, not realising how very close I was to the bodies of all those characters from the Shakespeare history plays.

A quick shower and change, then on to The Cosy Club to meet Mike Wardle and his charming girlfriend Zoe. That was a very pleasant evening indeed. The Cosy Club is basically a rather chic bar restaurant which enabled us all to eat as much or as little as we wished – an ideal set up for three people, two of whom had lunched and “tead”.

I had promised to report back to the Leicestershire grandees on this place, which I think they imagined (due to its name) to be a seedy Leicester establishment which had somehow manged to escape their attention all of these years. But in fact they didn’t need my help on the topic of the Cosy Club; Neil Dexter wandered in while we were there, so he can tell the locals all about it in his and their own time.

Mind you, having assured readers that the Cosy Club is not a seedy place, I’d better leave it to Mike and Zoe to explain why they placed a packet of Nude cheese on our table. before our food arrived.

Friday 22 June

I went for a stroll around central Leicester – not least to find birthday cards early morning – which were not so hard to find thanks to Mr Google – then I checked out of my Airbnb apartment – both Jitesh and Rita came to get the keys – and presumably get the place ready for the next guest. They might not be the “Bank of Mum & Dad” but for sure they are the “Housekeeping Team of Mum & Dad” when son Hersh is away.

I found a nice shady spot to park Dumbo for the day at Grace Road,

I spent much of Friday chatting with Jack Birkenshaw, who was very interesting and enjoyable company.

The lunch was once again excellent. We were joined by Glenys Odams, who was the first ever woman to serve on the board of a first class county cricket club and has continued to represent Leicestershire at county level (albeit as a veteran table tennis player) into her 80’s – respect – what an extraordinary person. She was also very jolly company.

Middlesex started to play a little better on the Friday, although it felt like a pretty hopeless cause at the time.

I was advised that the best way to avoid the Friday traffic was to stick around until stumps, which I did…and indeed got a surprisingly quick run back into London, driving straight to Noddyland from Grace Road after saying goodbye to my kind and charming hosts.

Postscript

So sure was I the next day that this match was a hopeless cause for Middlesex, I got on with things without really following the game, until right towards the end, when I switched on the internet radio. Janie and I were then utterly transfixed listening to the last few minutes of the match, huddled together in the Noddyland man cave.

Here is a link to the scorecard and Cricinfo reports for that match.

Bants about the end of the game, on the King Cricket website, are in the comments to this KC piece – click here.

But my main memories of this trip will revolve around the warm hospitality and interesting people I met while at Grace Road for a few days…and the Nude cheese incident in the Cosy Club.

Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, Curator Talk And Exhibition Preview, V&A, 15 June 2018

I don’t really have the words to describe how excited Janie was about this exhibition, ever since the V&A pre-announced it about a year ago. Then, when we learnt that we could see a preview of the exhibition and take in a talk by the curators of the exhibition that day, we booked out the Friday afternoon and Janie got even more excited about it.

So perhaps in some ways the afternoon was destined to be an anti-climax for us.

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

We chose to book our timed tickets to view the exhibition after the talk. We got to the V&A early enough to have a lite bite there before the talk.

The new members’ cafe was heaving with people and a queue, so we went instead to the new public cafe at the new Exhibition Road entrance, which did not have a queue and did have outdoor seating available – a bonus on a glorious sunny June afternoon.

Then to the talk. Here is a link to the V&A resource for the talk. It was a bit folksy and disorganised, as V&A talks tend to be, but in this instance it seemed especially so. The curators, Claire Wilcox and Circe Henestrosa seemed unfamiliar with the microphones, making it hard to hear them at times. Circe in particular moved around a lot, which is fine, but surely the V&A has clip-on mics for roving speakers – I’m sure I’ve seen those used there before.

Frida Kahlo is such an interesting character; the intersection between her life, her personal tragedies and her art work is a fascinating topic. It was intriguing to learn, for example that her photographer father, Guillermo Kahlo, took so many self portraits – he might be seen as the founding father of the modern selfie craze.

In the context of Frida’s work, though, given that so many of her pictures were self-portraits, it seemed an insightful point about her father and his work.

Yet much of the complexity and confusion between the truth about Frida Kahlo and the cultural icon she has become (to some extent through her own design, to some extent through cultural appropriation) was glossed over in the talk.

The central conceit of the exhibition is that it is displaying a large selection of Frida Kahlo’s personal artefacts, which were kept locked away at La Casa Azul for fifty years after her death. The reason for this lengthy secretion was not well explained by the curators. Diego Rivera’s will stipulated that they should remain unseen for 15 years after his death, but they were not uncovered for a further 30.

We tried but didn’t get a chance to ask that question during question time, whereas a Mexican woman with verbal diarrhoea was allowed to waffle on for five or ten minutes raising about half-a-dozen obscure points without pausing for breath or answers from the curators.

In truth, the Wikipedia entries for Frida Kahlo and for La Casa Azul explain matters better than the talk. I guess the truth of the matter is quite mundane. The cult of Frida Kahlo didn’t really get going until after the 2002 movie “Frida” – which Janie and I loved at the time btw. So although La Casa Azul became a museum immediately after Diego Rivera’s death, it was a very low key (and probably low budget) one until this century.

Never mind – then on to the exhibition itself.

At the entrance they hadn’t yet differentiated between those who had acquired timed entry tickets and members who had just turned up, so everyone had to join the same lengthy queue. Unaware of this, we walked past the queue and walked up to the ticket dude who we imagined to be our timed ticket dude.

“We have timed tickets”, I said.

“Certainly”, he said, scanning the tickets. We then realised that he was actually the entrance for the Ocean Liners exhibition, so how our tickets scanned for that goodness only knows.

He tried to get us in to the Frida Kahlo, but we were sent to the back of the queue, there to wonder whether our tickets would now scan for Frida Kahlo having been scanned for Ocean Liners.

Somehow we got in. Perhaps those scanners merely go “bleep” without really doing anything.

Above video (or click here) from FashionUnited TV.

It was pretty crowded in the exhibition and we found some of the preview members rather too pushy and elbowy for our taste. I’m not sure that members’ preview days at the V&A are such a good idea for us in future, unless we can find a less crazy-busy slot. In any case, the V&A should do something about the lighting of the Frida Kahlo show – some of the exhibits were hard to see and the explanatory rubric hard to read. Hopefully they put that right on the back of feedback from members like us.

Still, many of the exhibits are truly stunning and fascinating. Don’t let my rant about how disorganised the V&A can be put you off seeing the exhibition; it really is worth it. You get to see a lot of Frida Kahlo’s paintings as well as the artefacts and some superb films and photographs taken during her lifetime, providing a great deal of visual context to Frida Kahlo’s life and work.

But don’t ask about the leaflet that explains the artefacts and exhibits in each room, which we strove so hard to obtain but failed in the end to secure. Different members of staff told us that:

the leaflets had all run out (on preview day?),
they had simply run out of leaflets at the desk and they’d have some more for us shortly,
a leaflet would be brought to us once we were inside the exhibition (some hope, despite chasing),
the leaflets weren’t ready yet but would be available in a few days’ time,
there wasn’t to be a leaflet for this exhibition at all…

…I think staff are “trained” (to the extent that the word “training” applies in that place) to make up whatever comes into their heads at the time and say it kindly but with an authoritative tone to mollify the unsuspecting punter.

No doubt Rebecca, who promised to get back to us by e-mail with a definitive answer (and hopefully a copy of the leaflet) will come up trumps for us, if trumps there are to be had. While we were engaging Rebecca in this task, one of the elbowy blue-rinse members elbowed me away from the corner of the members information desk (upon which I was merely leaning to support my aching back) without a please or a thank you. I don’t approve of manspreading, but femshoving of that kind is even more overtly aggressive.

It’s a shame, really, but by the end we couldn’t wait to get out of the V&A that day. Yes, the Frida Kahlo is a fascinating exhibition, but the place seemed so disorganised and we just felt the V&A could have done better with this one.

Janie consults Frida on how to curate herself…that IS Frida’s type of question

Middlesex v Australians At Lord’s, Then Django Bates Belovèd At Wigmore Hall, 9 June 2018

There are only two places remaining on the planet where stewards and on the odd occasion even fellow patrons…

Three Days On The Trot At Lord’s For England v Pakistan, 24 to 26 May 2018

…still refer to me as “young man”: Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall.

Janie and I ended up going to both of those places on the same day, but sadly, no-one referred to me as “young man” in either place. Perhaps our mistake, in this regard, at Lord’s, was to take the youngsters, Charlie and Chris (Lavender & Escamillo Escapillo), as our guests. These terms are comparative, after all. In other regards, however, this was not a mistake, because we all four had a most enjoyable day at Lord’s.

Janie and I got to Lord’s really early, to secure enough seats in Janie’s favourite pavilion spot; the upper sun deck. And in order to achieve that, we both got up ridiculously early. Janie was on picnic duty for this one – never a quick and dirty process in the morning however much preparation can be done the day before.

Janie had sourced quite a lot of the food (and indeed other weekend food) at Finn’s – which seemed most appropriate with Steve Finn skippering Middlesex for this match.

Steve Finn congratulating Max Holden for his fine bowling. Holden can bowl – who knew? Image embedded from Middlesex CCC Website

So the picnic basically comprised some cheesy biscuit nibbles, ham rolls, sweet nibbles, beef rolls, carrots, tomatoes and grapes. A bottle of Vouvray and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Yummy.

Our little group got quite jolly and at one point there was a round of hat swapping, which left Chris looking a little unusual in Janie’s big colourful floppy sun hat. I primed my camera for a photo, but Chris felt that, as I am a captain of industry, it would be best not to have a permanent record that showed me to have been in Chris’s company…or something like that.

The occasion was, in part, timed to coincide with Chris’s birthday. He mumbled about producing a birthday honours list, on the basis that, if the queen could have such lists, why couldn’t he?

Meanwhile Charlie (the only one of us not drinking) occasionally went into schoolmarm mode in a vain attempt to restore decorum. She seems to quite like that role these days.

Also meanwhile, Middlesex bowled really well, we felt. At no point did Australia really get away and we kept revising our estimates of the potential Aussie score downwards. Nathan Sowter took an absolutely stunning catch to secure the first wicket and perhaps settle the nerves of some of the younger players such as Barber, off whose bowling that catch was taken.

The Middlesex batting looked a little weak on paper for this standard of opposition and so it proved on grass. It’s a shame that one or two of the more senior batsmen didn’t dig in a little more, which might have given the less-experienced players a bit less to do. Still, young Holden batted beautifully and the Middlesex players for sure did not embarrass themselves. They gave the Aussies a good workout and the crowd a good match to watch.

Here is a link to the Cricinfo scorecard and resources for this match.

The weather smiled on us – the sun was out much of the time but not too hot – it was warm throughout the day, even when the sun went in.

We sat and chatted in the members’ lounge for a few minutes after stumps, to let the crowds subside then walked together to St John’s Wood before going our separate ways; the youngsters further north-west, while we went two stops south to Bond Street and on to “The Wig”, to see Django Bates Belovèd and guests play jazz.

Here is the Wigmore Hall resource on the concert we saw.

While here is separate Wigmore Hall interview with Django Bates about the gig.

An interesting mix of bluesy, Charlie Parker type jazz and more modern, experimental (almost free) jazz – the latter type pleasing us (especially Janie) less.

Below is a vid of the trio performing without guests.

One of the guests was an incredible saxophonist, Marius Neset. Below is a vid of him performing, but not with Django:

I liked the female vocalist, Claire Huguenin, more than Janie did – I thought her vocals added subtle texture to the music, whereas Janie felt that her voice got lost in the instrumentation. Below is a vid of her performing with her own crew:

Django Bates traditionally wears hats and has adopted the beanie in recent years. His beanie on the night had a sort-of blood and vomit colouring that might have been in honour of the MCC and our earlier visit to Lord’s…

…but on the other hand the colour match was almost certainly a coincidence.

One thing I do realise about no longer being so prone to the description “young man” is that days that start early and end as late as this are no longer in my comfort zone – nor Janie’s. We were ever so happy at the end of a successful and enjoyable day, but also ever so knackered…

…and both of us feel some sense of trepidation about taking our aching backs onto the tennis court…we’re leaving in five minute’s time as I write.

Postscript 10 June

Well, Janie managed to get her body moving again marginally better than I did. But as we came off the tennis court after a long session trying to get moving again, we saw Gerry – an elderly Irish dog-walker, with whom we quite often converse.

Good morning to you, young man, good morning young lady,

said Gerry. So there is a third place where we might still, just occasionally, be addressed in that manner – Boston Manor.

Utility by Emily Schwend, Orange Tree Theatre, 2 June 2018

We thought this was a fabulous piece, beautifully portrayed.

The synopsis sounds like a great many plays; a domestic drama about a woman trapped in an unsatisfactory marriage, struggling to keep the household together domestically and financially.

This is kitchen sink drama to such an extent that there is even a kitchen sink with a somewhat intrusive window as part of the set. I think the theatre had accidentally withheld two decent seats (our usual favourites) and sold the two that were restricted by the set; so we made a late seat swap to return to “our” regular seats. Minor stuff for previewistas like us – I’m sure the Orange Tree will resolve/have resolved for post preview audiences.

In short, the play is extremely well written and the performances are all excellent, making this an exceptional production well worth seeing.

Here is a link to the Orange tree resource for this play.

All of the performances were excellent, but Robyn Addison as the lead role, Amber, was a standout performance in this piece.

Formal reviews have just started to come in at the time of writing, but they seem to be coming through as deservedly good ones – click here for a link to find them.

Did Janie and I go to Don Fernando to chew over the issues and some Spanish food afterwards? By heck we did.

If you get a chance to see this production of Utility, we suggest you take it.

Our Annual Streatham BBYO Alumni Gathering At Bill’s, 31 May 2018

Is it really a year since the last gathering?

A Winning Day, Culminating At Bill’s For A BBYO Youth Club Regathering, 1 June 2017

Yes.

This regathering of the youth club crowd has been going on for a few years now and has settled on the second May bank holiday week, mostly for practical reasons to do with school half-term and those involved in teaching.

This time the turnout was even bigger than the previous year, with the re-appearance of Ivor Heller, a first visit from David, Ivor’s “big” brother (all adjectival things are relative), plus a special guest appearance by that giant personality, Simon Jacobs.

Booking Bill’s for this group is an odd business. We’ve been there several times now, but I always deal with a different person on the phone for the booking – they won’t take on-line bookings that large. This year they didn’t seem to want to take such a large booking at all. When I pressed the point with the manager, explaining that we are a regular, reliable group, they reluctantly took the booking. Perhaps such places get a lot of large group no-shows or something – but they could always take a deposit rather than almost turn good customers away.

Anyway, once it was booked and we turned up, we were very well looked after, as we have been previously.

Linda, Me, Sandra, Martin, Liza, Andrea, Mark, David, Simon, Ivor

The waitress did a grand job of snapping all of us looking cheery and engaged in the above photo. Eighth time lucky, eh?

A few members of the clan who have been before couldn’t join us this year; Jacey and Natalie for example. Wendy didn’t join us in person this time but did join for a while via Facetime – that was a first for this gathering but might not be a last. Some time soon we’ll probably need a video link between London and Hollywood…or something of that ilk.

Without meaning to repeat myself, I do really feel at home with this group of people. The years seem simply to peel away and it really is like a gathering of the youth club; just forty years on. None of us has really changed that much since our late teens. Of course we have all lived several decades of adult life and had some very different experiences since our youth, but the essence of our personalities and why we gelled as a group back then is still there.

It was a very enjoyable evening and several of us, me included, already seem to be looking ahead to the next one.

A Day Watching Cricket At Merchant Taylors’ School With Fran And Simon, 30 May 2018

Previous attempts to watch cricket with Fran and Simon had been foreshortened for one reason…

Two Forms Of Soaking And Two Friendly Gatherings In One Day, Uxbridge and Southwark, 13 September 2017

…or another.

An Unusual Day In Radlett And At The Oval, During Which Middlesex Came Second Twice, 17 May 2018

Further, all of my previous attempts to watch cricket at Merchant Taylors’ School (I believe three) had been totally rained off on my attempted day, to such an extent that I hadn’t even ventured to the ground before.

So I suppose it was understandable that the weather forecast a few days ahead of the game somewhat spooked Fran:

Oh heck, just seen the weather prediction for Merchant Taylors on Wednesday; rain, thunder and lightning. You couldn’t make it up!

By the time I got to see Fran’s message, about 12 hours later, the weather forecast was showing rain for the previous couple of days but clear weather for the Wednesday itself. Me to Fran:

Unreliable forecast, yours. Look again – problem solved. Seriously, I won’t go if the forecast on the day is poor but I suspect it’ll be ok.

Nearly 24 hours later, when Fran picked up my message and by which time the forecast was again showing thunderstorms spilling over until Wednesday, she was unconvinced:

Yeah, as long as you don’t mind being struck by lightning! Charles the gent did mention you were a perpetual optimist…

In the end, the weather pretty much did what the forecasters were inferring – i.e. we had quite a lot of rain, thunder and lightening on the day before the match including some into the early hours and even the morning of the game, but all passing through before the match was due to start.

I guessed there’d be a delayed start but with the forecast clear for the hours of play, it was highly likely that, once they started, they’d get a game in, even if a reduced one.

I kept an eye on the on-line information. Almost as soon as I saw that the 11:30 inspection confirmed that play for a slightly reduced match would start at 12:00, Simon called me to tell me same. I told him I’d probably get to MTS around 12:30, which I did.

Fran and Simon had got there pretty early and saved me a seat with them at the front at a pretty handy “third man” view, quite near the hospitality tent.

What a lovely setting Merchant Taylors’ School is for watching cricket.

I knew that Fran lived nearby, but I hadn’t realised that her son, Paul, went to MTS, so she really does know the school well:

A view of the school across the playing fields

I learnt last time that Fran and Simon are not picnic lovers, so I simply took some nuts, fruit and liquids for sustenance, as had they.

It was actually perfect cricket watching weather; warm but not hot. Not sunny, but not gloomy either. Out-ground county cricket has a lovely relaxed atmosphere to it; you are watching a very high grade of cricket but you are watching it in an environment that feels more like a club or even a village match.

Time passes, the scoreboard ticks round…

We chatted, we watched, we engaged with one or two other spectators and with one or two players.

Such a day passes very quickly and very pleasantly.

This wasn’t a good match for Middlesex. Yet again Middlesex batted first, stalled/didn’t really get going and thus ended up short of a total that would really enable our bowlers to apply pressure. 30 or 40 more would have been a different story, I sensed. It was the same story in several such matches this season.

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

But as a day out and gathering, for sure it was a success. Fran and Simon got to see a whole match. And we actually got to spend best part of a day watching cricket together; third time lucky. A very enjoyable day.

Three Days On The Trot At Lord’s For England v Pakistan, 24 to 26 May 2018

Three Days On The Trot At Lord’s, Mr Harris?

It had not been my plan personally to spend three days on the trot at Lord’s for this test match.

The plans, hatched many, many moons before, revolved around a request from Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nigel “Father Barry White” Hinks for me to assist those two in a mission to spend three days together at the Lord’s test.

The plans were:

Thursday – I would join Chas and Nigel;
Friday – just Chas and Nigel;
Saturday – Daisy and I would both join Chas and Nigel.

The logistics of implementing those plans to the point that we had tickets to enable all that were complex, onerous and uninteresting to the casual reader. Still, the plans were all in place…

…but we all know what can happen to plans…

…and Nigel’s knee decided to muck up the plans by rendering Nigel unable to attend Lord’s. Here’s wishing Nigel a rapid and speedy recovery.

The logistics of reworking the plans to the point that we were not dumped with unwanted tickets were complex and uninteresting to the casual reader. Hats off to the MCC ticket office for helping to minimise the onerousness of it.

But the upshot was that I agreed to join Charles on the Friday, so he could avoid being “Charley No Mates” that day.

Hence three days on a row for me.

Day One: Thursday 24 May

I went to the gym early and then got to Lord’s really early to avoid the crush and to observe the real tennis for a good few minutes before taking up my seat. I had learned that Mr Johnny Friendly was to be playing at doubles that morning; I wanted to observe his technique now that I play.

When I got to my Upper Compton Stand seat, about 10 minutes before the start of play, I observed that Chas had not yet arrived and that a well-built gentleman was sitting in the seat that would have been Nigel’s.

Chas arrived some 15-20 minutes after the start of play, bemoaning the length of the queues for security at that hour at Lord’s…as if he’s never been before.

“How come I’m sitting next to the big bloke?” asked Chas, in a voice that sounded, to me, loud enough for said big bloke to hear. Soon enough, though, we were both in conversation with Liam Big Bloke, who turned out to be a really pleasant young man, well-versed in matters cricket and also in matters food – he is a trainee chef working for Sat Bains in Nottingham’s only two-star Michelin restaurant.

At one point in the conversation, Chas talked up Daisy’s cooking ability in glowing terms. “Really good homely cooking,” I interjected, “not two-star Michelin style”. “I understand”, said Liam gently; I’m quite sure he did.

In fact, everyone in our immediate vicinity on our row seemed very nice. A very friendly couple to my right; the woman, Marilyn, said, “excuse me, young man” to me, on the first occasion she wanted to leave her seat. I told her that I am thus addressed all-too rarely these days, even at Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall. She seemed to find that funny but found different appellations for me each time for the rest of the day.

I wish I could speak highly of other people around us, but sadly the group of young men behind us were very loud, very drunk from very early in the day and really quite a nuisance. My back was soaked in lager at about 11:30 – anyone can have an accident, but I really didn’t appreciate them finding the incident funny and needing to be told to apologise and to try and sort out the mess.

By the end of the day, that group was singing raucous Barmy Army songs and trying (without success) to start a Mexican wave in the crowd. It’s the first time at Lord’s that I have really felt stuck in front of an unpleasant crew all day. At least the rapidly drunken posh boys in 2014 only managed to stick the first session.

In front of us was a very grumpy couple, the man of which wanted to read his book in the quiet and seemed as pissed off with our row for being gently convivial as he was with the raucous row behind us for being raucous. The woman of the couple left early.

Still, the day had its compensations, not least one of Mrs Malloy’s splendid picnics, complete with personalised notes in ornate gold-coloured calligraphy describing our sandwiches in mouth-watering detail. The centrepiece of one being corned beef, the centrepiece of the other being smoked cheese. I brought a bottle of wine, an Austrian Grüner Veltliner since you asked, which we had agreed would be enough for the two of us that day. I also brought arm-extending quantities of liquid and fruit, as promised, but Chas had forgotten that promise so also brought heavy quantities of liquid.

At stumps, as Chas and I left the ground, we ran into three of the Tufty Stackpoles from charity matches back in days of yore…

Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society, North Crawley CC, “Match Report”, 30 July 2006

…Mike Archer, Trevor Cooper and Geoff Young. It was really nice to see them – it had been a while – we chatted behind the Compo stand for a while before going our separate ways.

I walked home.

Day Two: Friday 25 May

Same morning routine as the previous day – early gym, cab to the ground, virtually queue-free passage through security, followed by 30 to 40 minutes of observation from the dedans of Mr Johnny Friendly and others at real tennis doubles.

Seats at the front of the Lower Compton for today. Chas was already in his seat when I got there, chatting with the two gentlemen who were to be our neighbours for the day; Michael and Peter. A pair of cricket fans who had known each other for years and whose sons – also keen young cricketers – had ended up at the same school.

After a few casual questions, we ascertained that Michael had grown up very near me, around Tooting Bec Common and that Michael had been very friendly with the Rich family from around the corner. Michael (and Steven Rich) are a few years younger than me, but I grew up with the older sister Gillian, who was my contemporary. What a small world it is.

That pair were really good company for most of the first two sessions, until Michael got called away to a family emergency just before tea and Peter agreed to collect their children from school.

Meanwhile, I had learnt that Simon “Awesome Simo” Jacobs…

England v Pakistan at Lord’s, Day One, 14 July 2016

…was at Lord’s that day, just above us, with his mother, Awesome Mummy. We had arranged to meet behind the Compton at tea, but with the unexpected departure of our neighbours, I texted Simon to suggest that the Awesome Duo join me and Chas in the front row of the Lower Compo for the final session, which they did, with predictably convivial results.

Chas and I had agreed that Friday would be a light picnic and dry day. Mrs Malloy had provided some mini pork pies, sausage rolls and nibbles just to ensure the absence of the wolf from the door.

During the final session, we nibbled at some sweetmeats and Awesome Mummy’s strawberries, although we lost a few of each to the delightfully friendly but increasingly clumsy passers-by on our row during the latter stages of the game.

Chas asked me, quietly and sensitively, whether he should offer the remainder of the porky snacks to either of the Awesome Duo. I suggested better not, unsure but suspecting that Awesome Mummy might not approve.

I had pre-warned Chas (and latterly the Awesome Duo) that I would need to leave before stumps, as Friday had not been part of my plan and I had a late night concert to get to at the Wigmore Hall.

So I personally upped sticks at six (about half-an-hour before the umpires did same) and walked home.

Day Three: Saturday 26 May

Due to the change of plans, Daisy very kindly took over picnic responsibilities and we thus switched our overnight location from the planned night at Cityland to Noddyland.

So a very early start, Daisy made up a splendid picnic and we set off for Lord’s early to secure good seats in the Warner. We timed our arrival to perfection.

…Pakistan getting ready…only England seemed unready and unsteady

Chas arrived about 30 minutes after the start of play, by which time a very nice gentleman from Fulham had done a superb job of manspreading onto the seat we had saved for Chas. Mercifully we all managed to come out the other side of that etiquette-dilemma socially unscathed.

Daisy’s picnic was a slight variation on the theme of the amazing picnic she produced for the Women’s World Cup Final last year:

When Everything Went The Right Way, Women’s World Cup Final, Lord’s, 23 July 2017

The wasabi mayonnaise had gone down so well last year, Janie used it with the turkey as well as with the beef. We took a bottle of white (Vouvrey) and a bottle of red (Jip Jip Rock Shiraz) but no option for a bottle of rose instead.

I got a message from Awesome Sue (Awesome Simo’s sister) wondering if we were at the ground, as she was there with her sister Ruth and daughter Lily. I knew that, of course, having spent best part of a session with Awesome Simo and Awesome Mummy yesterday. In fact I had intended to message Sue myself, but she beat me to it. So we agreed to meet up behind the Warner at tea. Which we did.

Only after Daisy had finished taking photos did we realise that Awesome Lily was temporarily absent from the shoot. That is a shame, not least because Lily is probably the only member of that family to have, in cricket terms, earned the moniker “Awesome”, having consistently taken five wicket hauls so far this season for Gloucestershire Under 15s et. al.

When I subsequently reflected that we had not taken any pictures of Lily, Chas instigated a conversation about The Who:

Anyway, it was really nice to catch up, albeit briefly, with Simon’s awesomely lovely family. We needed to keep the catch up brief, for fear that we might all miss the end of the match if we didn’t keep a watchful eye over the England cricketers for the next two hours or more.

For in truth, although we had a good time at Lord’s, as always, the England cricket team had a shocker pretty much from start to finish. In fact, that final session on the Saturday was England’s only decent session in the whole match.

Not just a bad match for England – a shockingly bad one. All credit to Pakistan for playing really well, but England didn’t even compete. Click here if you dare.

At the end of the day, a steward kindly takes our picture…

The Erlkings, Wigmore Hall, 25 May 2018

I hadn’t planned to go to Lord’s on the day of this concert, but as I explained in the piece about my three days at Lord’s…

Three Days On The Trot At Lord’s For England v Pakistan, 24 to 26 May 2018

…things don’t always pan out as planned.

Still, that Friday I had an abstemious day at Lord’s, with a view to having dinner with Daisy and then going to the concert. Daisy indeed came over to my place for a Four Seasons dinner, but then decided that the whole idea of going to a late night concert and then rising for a crack of dawn picnic preparation was too much, so she returned to Noddyland and let me go to this concert on my own.

Probably just as well – she’d have absolutely hated it.

The rubric had inferred a folk/jazz interpretation of Schubert’s songs…which in a sense it was, but it felt a bit gimmicky, at times verging on naff. The tuba/trombone giving the music an Oom-pah-pah band sound…

…if I mention the song where the leader, Bryan Benner, got us to yodel along with him…

…you’re probably getting the gist.

There was a small claque of Erlkings fans sitting behind, but the front row mafia, comprising Wigmore Hall regulars, seemed a little stunned by the style.

The idea is laudable and I even enjoyed some of the tracks. The song which Bryan Benner sang unplugged on the guitar, for example, had a lovely sound to it transposed from piano to guitar. His translations of lyrics generally worked well and he has an outstanding baritone voice. The voice was somewhat wasted with most of the louder arrangements.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for that concert.

Below is one of the songs they performed on the night, with a relatively minimal arrangement:

Below is their signature song, the arrangement of which I thought overpowered Bryan Benner’s powerful voice:

…and here is one from their latest album/project:

At the end of the gig Bryan said an emotional goodbye to Gabriel, the brass instrumentalist, who is leaving the band and for whom the Wigmore Hall was a final gig.

It all felt a bit “ego project” to me, but perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: