Tate Modern has a new offering for members – opening a couple of hours earlier on Saturdays and Sundays for members only. Great idea.
We plugged for the Sunday, which was a sensible slot for us…
…except I should have thought to shift our Boston Manor tennis court back by an hour…
…I’ll get that right next time.
Meanwhile, London is almost a pleasure to drive through at 8:00 on a Sunday morning…and places to park when you get there.
Rather a stunning carpet on arrival at the Tate Modern
Quite a lot of members milling around the exhibition, but not crowded the way the public slots for the Picasso exhibition are likely to be. A real members’ benefit, for those of us willing to get up early on the weekend. The show is really popular, btw – you’ll need to book if you want to get in for a regular slot.
There are lots of top notch pieces on display in this show. It is mostly the story of Picasso’s miraculous year, 1932. You do get to see a few works from other periods, but not many.
Plenty of variety in Picasso’s work during 1932 and lots of interesting stuff about his life at that time too.
These days the Tate allows punters to take pictures of some but not all the works. Not quite sure how they decide what is and isn’t allowed. Janie nearly always wants to take home the book of the show if she likes a show (as she did in this case)…but still on this occasion she took some pictures as well…perhaps for your benefit, dear reader/viewer. They certainly make fine eye candy for the blog piece.
Not without controversy – it was originally set to be performed in New York and then withdrawn under political pressure.
It is controversial material from a controversial author. The piece is the story of a Palestinian couple returning to Haifa in 1967, some 20 years after abandoning their home and (inadvertently) their infant child in that city.
Here is a short vid about Kanafani and this play – basically it was the fundraising vid for the production:
Kanafani was clearly a serious intellect who could see the Israeli/Palestinian debate from both sides. There is nuance in this piece which is rarely seen in dramatic material on this subject.
It took me a while to identify the name and author of that play, despite the fact that it was written and directed by my old friend Rebecca Wolman. Weird – I remembered that play so clearly and I separately of course remembered going to see Rebecca’s play in 1999 and getting a chance to see her again briefly after so many years, but I hadn’t connected the two until I dug out my old archives. But I digress.
Rebecca’s play, similarly nuanced, used the fertility of the gardens as an allegory for the impotence of the displaced Palestinians. Kanafani’s piece uses the abandoned child as that symbol.
Both plays I believe contain sufficient insight to make strong arguments for a peaceful resolution, but whereas Wolman’s piece is firmly oriented towards peace, Kanafani’s protagonist, Said, suggests that only fighting could resolve the conflict, even if that results in brother fighting brother. Kanafani’s own political career and life sadly went in the violent direction, although there is evidence that he renounced violence (certainly of the indiscriminate kind) shortly before he was assassinated.
A humorous aside – the play was performed in the round at the Finborough, with the audience seated on benches. The usherette (who admitted it was her first day) told us all that we needed to sit five to a bench as the show was sold out. I think she meant that some of the benches seated five people and that those would need to accommodate five people – some of the benches (ours for example) were quite modestly sized even for four people.
The result was a fair bit of jostling for position before the play started. I wondered briefly whether the mistake was deliberate, to get the audience into a “there’s not enough space for all these people…how do we resolve this?” frame of mind. But in truth I think it was just an honest mistake. It soon became clear that common sense could prevail and that, as long as four people sat on the four-seaters and five people sat on the five-seaters, there was enough room for everyone. If only the Israeli/Palestinian problem could be solved so easily.
Returning To Haifa is a fascinating play, extremely well acted and produced – it deserves a much larger audience than a short run at the Finborough will provide for it, which is a shame. I do hope it gets a transfer on the back of its success.
The above photo of The Red Lion is courtesy of TripAdvisor
When the e-mail came through from the Keele Alumni office, suggesting an informal “Keele In The City” at The Red Lion on Parliament Street, the timing seemed perfect to me.
I expected, by chance, to be in Westminster that afternoon, a few hundred yards away from The Red Lion pub.
This photo of The Red Lion is courtesy of TripAdvisor
I e-mailed Bobbie Scully (who is often at work in the Supreme Court, across the road) and John White (who often hangs around in the Palace of Westminster lobbies) to see if they were around and/or up for it. John said no, while Bobbie said yes to meeting around there, but suggested that we make it a quick drink and then a longer meal to catch up after so long – good thinking in my book.
As it turned out, my afternoon meeting in Westminster was somewhat curtailed, so I sloped back to the flat for a couple of hours, waving at the pub as I descended into the underground, then sloped back to Westminster early evening.
I hadn’t seen Steve for ages. He wasn’t an official photographer for this MBS visit, but apparently he had been the Prime Minister’s official photographer for the general election. He told me one or two things about our dear leader that didn’t surprise me but still horrified me. The word “chaos” is the one that sticks in the memory, perhaps due to frequent repetition.
I returned to Westminster about 18:50, some 20 minutes after the appointed hour with the Keele Alumni but 40 minutes ahead of the sort of time I figured Bobbie might show up.
Derby Street – the side road on one side of the pub – was chock full of police vans, which were themselves ram-packed with policemen. I recalled the wise words of Malcolm Cornelius, formerly of the Keele parish in our day:
“it is extraordinary how many policemen you can get inside one of those vans”.
I wondered whether the police had been tipped off about the Keele Alumni gathering. Facebook, after all, is said to be a fine source of security intelligence. The Keele Alumni announcement was full of key words that might trigger security concerns for the authorities…
I wandered through the pub in search of the basement, then saw the roped off stairs, jumped the barrier, went downstairs and found it was all locked up. Confused, I wandered back through the pub and then got caught up in a massive swarm of policemen on Parliament street, all heading from the vans towards Downing Street.
Now dazed as well as confused, I was unwilling to go back inside the Red Lion, which was absolutely heaving with people – unlike my previous visit there, to decompress after the Payroll Giving Awards. 2011 I think that was, when we held the event at Number 11 Downing Street and I met GOD – I’ll certainly retro-blog that evening in the fullness of time.
Seconds later, a drove of legal-looking folk marched purposefully down the side of Derby Street. Although I recognised no-one, the look and demeanour of this flock could only possibly have been the Keele Law Moot lot.
I joined the throng, as the advanced members of that party threw aside the basement rope and stormed the basement.
“I tried that five minutes ago – it was all locked up down there”, I said, dolefully.
“Oh, don’t worry, they’ll soon negotiate our way in”, said a cheery member of the moot party…
…which indeed they did. Very rapidly. Of course they did. They’d just been mooting all day.
I was assured that no actual donkeys were separated from their actual hind legs in those negotiations. On reflection, by the standards of mooting in the Supreme Court, persuading a publican to open his doors and sell drinks to thirsty Keele Alumni was probably not an especially tough argument to win.
So we were in.
I didn’t recognise anyone, but soon I was approached by a gentleman named George who had studied Psychology and Sociology in the 1970s. We chatted for a while as the moot brigade got their drinks orders in and started to quench their debate-weary thirsts.
Soon after that, Zoë Hollingsworth from the Alumni team came up to me. She had clearly mugged up on some of my post Keele activities and we chatted about charities a bit – a shared interest.
Then a very pleasant surprise – Andrea Woodhouse (formerly Collins) showed up; unexpectedly (to me), although she insisted that she had mentioned her intention to visit on her Facebook page. Perhaps I live on Facebook less than most people, but unless a Facebook posting specifically hails me, I’m unlikely to see a friends posting, unless, quite by chance, I am on-line around the time it is posted. But no harm done – it just made it a nice surprise for both of us on the evening.
Then Bobbie showed up.
Then we all chatted and drank for a while – drinks gatherings are a bit like that.
Around 20:00, Bobbie and I figured we should go and claim our Roux At Parliament Square table, so said goodbye to the drinks party. A shame in a way, as it was a very jolly, not overly noisy and not over-crowded gathering. We’d have enjoyed meeting some more of the people there.
Still, Bobbie and I really wanted to catch up with each other – we hadn’t had a chance to do that for a long time – so a quiet restaurant with some fine food and wine was probably a more suitable setting for that.
Out on the street, the police vans had all gone. The mean streets of Westminster had returned to a more tranquil state – perhaps those dodgy-sounding key words from the Keele Alumni message had now been reinterpreted as benign. Bobbie and I strolled the couple of hundred yards to Roux.
The food at Roux really was superb. They sort-of specialise in tasting menus, but I didn’t really fancy those and Bobbie was happy to go along with a more regular choice of dishes, so we had:
Dorset crab with Apple, Fermented chili, Dashi (Bobbie’s starter);
Pork cheek with Carrot, Ale, Mangalitsa black pudding (my starter);
Venison with Savoy cabbage, Pine, Alsace bacon (Bobbie’s main);
Halibut with Cauliflower, Grape, Tarragon (my main).
Dig those mains – mine in the foregroundA closer look at Bobbie taking a closer look at her main
We even both had a desert. Wines by the glass to complement the food.
It was great to catch up with Bobbie – no excuse really for leaving it so long but we have both had a lot of family stuff to deal with over the past few years, not least conclusive parent stuff.
Bobbie insisted on picking up the tab, noting that she (and Dave) had enjoyed our hospitality several times in succession…
…then Bobbie suggested that, on that basis, she probably should have taken Janie out to dinner rather than me.
I passed on that last reflection to Janie, while showing her the above photos.
Janie expressed envy at the sight of the meal and agreed with Bobbie that she has suffered an injustice…
…I don’t yet know how Janie expects me to redress this matter, but no doubt I’ll find out soon enough…
…I might need some of those Keele moot people to help argue me out of this tight corner.
Heck, but whatever the penalty, it was worth it – a most enjoyable gathering and then dinner.
Thank you, Keele Alumni team, for setting up the evening.
As the rubric infers, all is not as it seems in this play. Our assumptions and prejudices get tested to the limits, as do those of the characters.
Below is the trailer, with short interviews with the cast and creatives:
The young prodigy obsesses about some Bach, so I was tempted to headline this Ogblog article “Baroque And Enroll”, but Janie says that such a headline would be crass for such an emotive play.
It is certainly a very thought-provoking play and it is potentially a very moving production too.
We saw the second preview of this play/production, so it is possible that one or two of the wrinkles we observed will have been ironed out by the time it gets to press night.
The main wrinkle for us was the see-through screens that divide the stage from the audience. The purpose (if any) behind this device was unclear…as was some of the sound that emanated from the stage as a result of these clear screens. More importantly than the slightly muffled sound was the sense that we, as audience, were somewhat separated from the action. This is a highly emotive piece, yet the audience seemed strangely numb to it – I think the audience would far better be able to embrace and respond to this piece without the screens.
Another wrinkle, for me, was the complete absence of the particular piece of music that seemed so central in many ways to the story; the Mercy Aria – Erbarme Dich, from Bach’s St Matthew Passion.
While I imagine that the cast and crew didn’t want the play/production to be compared too readily with Death And The Maiden, the differences between the two plays are great and the similarities are there whether you use Erbarme Dich or not.
Erbarme Dich is described in so much detail, referred to so often and is so significant to the plot. Even if they simply played the violin part of Erbarme Dich right at the end of the play, I think it would have helped.
Even as seasoned Baroque-oholocs, Janie and I had to dig out Erbarme Dich and listen to it when we got home to remember exactly what the piece sounds like – most of the audience would have been even more in the dark.
Below is a beautiful rendition of Erbarme Dich:
I really thought Acceptance was a superb play – just the second play by Amy Ng, another new playwright to watch. The disturbing issues raised by this play are covered with a confident blend of subtlety, sensitivity and visceral moments.
The acting was truly excellent.
I would thoroughly recommend seeing this play/production even if the production team doesn’t make a few changes, but I sincerely hope that they will gauge audience reaction and make the few tweaks I think it needs to turn this production into an absolute stunner.
But did that make me even the slightest bit nervous about driving beyond Zone 3 of Greater London to Reading in Berkshire? Well, yes, to be honest, I was slightly nervous, except that the weather report was pretty sure that we weren’t to expect too much snow to the west of London until Wednesday or Thursday.
I needed to do some work before I set off, otherwise I’d have taken up Janie’s suggestion and popped in to see George and Amal at Castle Clooney before seeing Ted & Sue – it’s only a couple of miles up the road and I’m sure Amal and George would have been pleased to see me.
Anyway, Ted and Sue were glad to see me, as was the newest member of the Marcus family, little Max.
Little Max Marcus
Little Max showed his approval of my visit by yapping at me incessantly and giving my shins a violent hug.
It is a tradition in our tribe to name youngsters after passed but fondly-remembered family members. Ted and I share the Grandpa and Great-Uncle shown below, the latter being Max Marcus; Little Max’s great-great musical forebear.
Grandpa Lew, sitting, with Great Uncle Max standing
Janie says she can see the resemblance between Little Max and his Great-Great-Uncle Max.
Lunch was a rather grand affair – pumpkin & butternut squash soup followed my salt beef & trimmings, followed by a spotted dick pudding.
Janie remarked afterwards, when I described the meal, that it was a miracle I was able to get up and drive to Reading after that meal, let alone give an address and lead a discussion.
Ted, Sue and I discussed the family genealogy project, with which Sue is making slow but steady progress. She seems to be getting further with the other side of Ted’s ancestry at the moment, having recently traced some Dutch ancestors back to Baroque times.
Ted and I also talked about music, as most often we do. Ted knows a bit about almost any genre you can name, as he has always enjoyed exploring different styles and periods. Like me, he has inherited from our impressively talented musical family a love for music but not the talent for playing it…
…other than playing music on the hi-fi of course, for which he (and I) have an abundance of talent.
Every so often, Sue would gasp that it had started snowing, but in truth these were small flurries rather than troublesome snow proper – it was just horribly cold out of doors. Still, soon enough I did need to set off for Reading, so Sue, Ted and I said our goodbyes.
The Ethical Reading people seemed a very friendly and thoughtful crowd – only to be expected I suppose as the introduction came through Gill Ringland. There were more than 20 people on the night which, given the weather, I thought was a pretty good turnout.
Before the main group of people arrived, I chatted with Gill, Jim Bignal and Gurprit Singh, who comprise the founding team. Gill kindly asked after Janie’s health; I explained that Janie is well and keeping healthy by doing lots of exercise, such as her latest hobby, pole dancing. I think Jim and Gurprit thought this was a turn of phrase rather than a literal remark, as they seemed most surprised when I showed them pictures Janie had sent me from her lesson the day before:
But Janie’s physical gymnastics are/were no more impressive than the mental gymnastics demonstrated by the Ethical Reading group, who grappled with truly challenging ethical dilemmas around artificial intelligence with aplomb.
The journey home looked a bit more treacherous than it was – the snow was now falling but not too hard; I got home and to bed long before the worst of the snow landed in London overnight.
I sensed that the event had gone well, but I was still very pleasantly surprised to receive a kind e-mail from Jim Bignal the next day which read:
Many thanks for talking to us last night – you got 100% on the scoring.
This was a quite extraordinary piece. Weird, in a way that, it seems, only German plays can be weird.
Janie and I often walk away from such strange stuff baffled and dissatisfied, but certainly not on this occasion – we found the piece compelling to watch and entertaining, as well as baffling.
Sixteen very different scenes, ranging from videos with voice-overs, to seemingly straightforward two-handed romantic strife, to a Mandarin Chinese lesson for the audience…
…I suppose it’s all about the abuse of trust – domestic, financial and governmental.
…and below is the trailer, although the play only gives a passing mention to Brexit – you might expect more Brexit based on the trailer.
Excellent performances from Pia Laborde Noguez and Zephryn Taitte…and indeed from Jude Christian, the ubiquitous director who chose also to appear in this one.
Exceptional use of an infeasible quantity of props in a small space.
We thought the piece was very imaginative indeed and would recommend it highly. Yet another feather in the cap for Ellen MacDougall and her Gate tenure.
It will be interesting to see how critics and other people react to this piece. We saw a preview, but Daisy and I were interviewed for reaction on the way out – so we might well “form part of the conversation”, as the young folk say.
Update: yes, I got my 1.5 seconds of fame in the vox pop – see below but don’t blink or you might miss it:
Go see this show for yourself, if you are able – at the time of writing it has three weeks more to run.
It was John’s turn to chose and mine to pay – John almost apologised for booking a place we’d been to before; The Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell. That place needed no apology for a revisit – I remembered it being excellent.
John suggested that we meet at Ye Olde Mitre, as he had some vital business to conduct in there ahead of our evening. This idea also seemed like no hardship.
I had a very interesting audience with Nathan Myhrvold that afternoon, before getting some bits and pieces done at the office and then joining John in The Mitre.
John’s vital business seemed, to me, to be a few beers and a chat with some friendly colleagues, at least one of whom I had met before. Actually I had a feeling I’d met both before at one time or another.
Vital business concluded, John and I then strolled from Hatton Garden to Clerkenwell proper for our dinner.
Cornish brown crab rarebit, yuzu guacamole, shichimi – my starter
Lime leaf & red chilli marinated chicken breast, braised rainbow chard, crispy salsify, black garlic & ginger dressing – John’s main
Red wine & star anise braised ox cheek, truffled celeriac puree, mange tout, runner bean & turnip salad, lemongrass & Aleppo
chilli dressing – my main.
We talked about all sorts of things, like we do. I should write up the highlights…
…or should I? That would be predictable almost to the point of being dull. I’m always writing up the highlights. This time, here are the lowlights.
John informed me that he would be going to see Leyton Orient play in the FA Trophy that Saturday. When I playfully quipped that, like him, Janie and I had nothing better to do that day, John informed me that it was only £10 a ticket and that Janie and I would be most welcome at Orient.
I explained that Janie feels cold at Lord’s in June and that she is probably, if such is possible, even more averse to football than I am.
John and I then hatched a small practical joke along the lines that I really wanted to go to this football match…which, as I suspected, didn’t work very well, as Janie knows only too well that I’d be hard to persuade to the football even for a very big match on a very warm day.
John and I then swapped school play stories for a while. John had played Private Hurst in Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance at school. John especially remembered finding the scenes between Hurst and Annie very difficult for his (then) shy nature:
Fair use image from stage play uploaded for a non-profit, educational purpose – for source & more details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sparky_and_Annie.jpg
I think Hurst would be the deep-set eyes geezer watching on from behind in the above image – that Hurst bears more than a passing resemblance to John, as it happens.
When I got home, I read the play for the first time in decades. I reckon John’s shyness in the liaison scenes would have worked fine. My reading of the Hurst character is that he projects himself as a soldier who is/has been a womaniser, but the character is in the zone for his mission during the play, with no interest in the attentions of poor Annie.
Not exactly the Stanislavki or Lee Strasberg way to achieve the desired effect, but as long as the young woman was showing the requisite enthusiasm, I should imagine that John’s lack of electric response would have made those scenes worked better than John imagined.
Perhaps John is now planning to reprise his role as Private Hurst using “the method”; that might explain him conducting his vital business in traditional taverns like Ye Olde Mitre.
However, the later scene which, as John described it, went as wrong as any scene in any school play could possibly go wrong, was so amusing a story I laughed long and loud. I felt bound to insist that John write it up as a guest piece for Ogblog and now feel bound to pre-announce it.
No rush John, no pressure.
Anyway, once again we’d had an excellent meal at the Modern Pantry. The food we think is outstanding. Perhaps the service was a notch below the level I remembered from the first time, but that might have been caused by as little as being as little as “one down” on staff, which can happen to the best of places.
The urgency, it seems, was that Rohan had read a super review of this place and thought , “I always read these super reviews and never actually try these places. This time, I really must…”
Yes, Rohan, I was there for you. I just hope that you would be there for me in a similar emergency.
Indeed, Rohan’s stipulations went beyond the location…
we’re having Yum khao tod, Peek gai sai and menage phuket. They’re three small plates from the menu. You can choose the rest.
Actually, when I looked at the menu, all three of those starters were probably the very ones I’d have chosen, so I suggested that we both choose the mains, which was an equally easy task – we both liked the sound of the stuffed squid with mushrooms and the slow-cooked pork belly.
In truth, it was a near miracle that we were able to eat the Peek Gai Yud Sai – stuffed chicken wings.
When I pointed out to Rohan that this Thai restaurant was possibly the only source of Kentucky fried chicken wings in London…
…while he was eating his Peek Gai Yud Sai…
…Rohan couldn’t stop laughing for quite a while.
In truth, the culinary highlights were:
Yum khao tod starter, which was a sort-of sophisticated Thai-style chat;
Moo hong – Phuket-style pork belly.
But of course the highlight, more than chewing the pork belly fat, was chewing the fat conversationally with Rohan. A bit of reminiscing. A bit of swapping notes on the stuff we are writing.
Rohan clearly appreciated the fact that I had responded to his emergency call, as he presented me with a kindly gift – a book named Pop Sonnets – click here.
I’d like to show the image of Pop Sonnets cover, but sadly that image is subject to copyright, so all I can do is encourage you to click the above link and show you the image and vid below:
As we left Supawan, Rohan and I took a look at Keystone Crescent – click here – an extraordinary place – which I took to be late Georgian but is in fact as recent as 1855 – not that much older than my own place.
A fun evening – happy to have been able to help in your time of need, Rohan. Any time…within reason.
This was a lovely concert of English viol music, specifically William Byrd, from the late Tudor/early Jacobean period. Phantasm are seriously good at this stuff.
Janie was up for this one. Wigmore Hall – warmer, much warmer. Byrd too.
An evening of early music with my ByrdFunnily enough, come the interval I realise that, sitting behind me, was the very couple I sat next to at the Ancient Montreal concert the previous week, with whom I had swapped stories about the cold…
…we all agreed that the Wigmore Hall is much warmer. There’s something warm about Phantasm too. They come across as a very mellow, gentle ensemble. Laurence Dreyfuss always explains things and reads things out as if he is sitting in your private parlour having a comfy chat.
Anyway the music was very soothing and relaxing, although it didn’t quite manage to do the de-stressing job on us that particular Tuesday night, while we were both having “a bit of a week”. That is the thing about Tuesday evening concerts.
That’s not Phantasm’s fault, nor the Wigmore Hall’s I do realise.
For many years I have claimed that there are only two places left on the planet where people still refer to me as “young man”; Lord’s and The Wigmore Hall. I must admit, though, it’s been a while since anyone has addressed me as such in either of those places.
As it happens, ahead of this Gresham Society event, I spent the early part of the afternoon at Lord’s, playing real tennis, as has been my wont since the spring of 2016. Real tennis is a fiendishly difficult game to play. The professionals point out that the 150-200 court hours I have put in so far leave me “barely out of nappies” in real tennis terms. Presumably I will go through a “young man” phase eventually before becoming a senior player.
We have several senior gentlemen who continue to play into their late 80s and even into their 90s.
Sadly, the video from that bout did not get saved – my opponent that day quite possibly asked for all evidence to be destroyed and frankly, given the circumstances, I don’t blame him.
After tennis, a relatively quick visit to the Z/Yen offices to sort out one or two work things before setting off, with Michael Mainelli, to the London Capital Club.
I think Michael was hoping that we’d be about five minutes late, thus missing most of the AGM, which Tim Connell had promised to keep to seven minutes.
In truth, we arrived just as the formalities were starting, so were able to appreciate all 12 minutes of the promised seven minute AGM.
Then some pleasant chat with several friends before descending to the dining area.
There was no seating plan, but I was lucky to sit with the Ayliffes to the right of me and Margaret Hodson to the left. Discussions with the Ayliffes mostly revolved around the political mess our nation (and indeed much of the western world) seems to me making of itself.
I knew about the musical side to the Hodson family, but was unaware of the horsey side, until that evening. The work that Margaret Hodson does with horse riding for disabled people is truly remarkable – click here for an independent view on it about 10 years ago.
The food was pretty good. A chicken salad round thing which was very well presented and tasty. The toast was quite hard – so much so that Margaret Hodson (and several others at our table) gave up on it. When she saw me persevering, Margaret gave a running commentary on my efforts, which could easily have been horse trials commentary, including the slightly disapproving/disappointed voice when one piece of the toast went flying towards the floor – no doubt a four-point penalty.
Then a slow-cooked lamb shank dish – a good idea for a large function and a very full-flavoured. The dessert was a crème brûlée.
Afters at Gresham Society – no waffle hereGyles Brandreth gave an excellent address to the Society. Clearly he was well briefed, so after an amusing potted history of the ups and downs of his career, he spoke highly of the Gresham Society. Gyles placed emphasis on the fact that we are the Friends of Gresham College, waxing lyrical about the benefits of societies that are genuinely friendly.
I totally agree. The Gresham Society is, above all, a very friendly bunch of people. We have a shared pleasure in and purpose through Gresham College, but it is above all a friendly group. For sure that is why I like to attend whenever I can…
…even if Basil teases me almost every time about my aversion to filling in forms and Tim Connell tries to find increasingly convoluted ways to avoid having me play my baroq-ulele…
…but I digress.
Towards the end of his talk, Gyles Brandreth mentioned younger members of the Gresham Society and I thought he might have glanced at me as he said it.
There was a little time left after the address for some more chat with friends before I realised that it really was time for me to head home.
As I was leaving, when I went up to Gyles to congratulate him on his talk and say goodbye, he told me that he was looking at me when he mentioned the younger members. I told him that I thought my days of being addressed as “young man” at Lord’s and The Wigmore Hall were behind me, but perhaps the Gresham Society, now a third outlet for what remains of my perceived youth, will revive my fortunes in that department.
