Ian Louis Harris

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

On which day did Middlesex come second twice while Middlesex Seconds came first once?

Now that would be a really good sports quiz question…if it were located somewhere other than this clearly dated blog page.

Confused? Let me explain.

I arranged to go to Radlett with Charley “The Gent” Malloy to see Middlesex v Essex. Long overdue, was our joint visit to Radlett – we had planned to go together to a second team match about four years ago but the rain put paid to that plan, although I did write up our replacement culinary gathering for King Cricket – click here or below:

Middlesex Second XI v Essex Second XI at Radlett

Tempting the rain gods yet further, I contacted Fran to find out whether she and Simon intended to visit Radlett that day. Our previous attempt to watch cricket together at Uxbridge had been well soggy – click here or below:

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

Anyway, Fran and Simon were planning on showing up at Radlett, so we planned to all sit together.

Then Richard Goatley (Middlesex CCC’s Chief Executive) asked me if I could join him and some others that evening at the Oval for a London Playing Fields Foundation Sports Quiz Fundraiser. Not really my cup of tea, but given the functional connection with the nascent London Cricket Trust charity, for which I am a Trustee – more on that anon – I thought I should go. Richard promised me a lift from Radlett to the Oval if I wanted to help save the planet by limiting the number of cars criss-crossing London that day – I eagerly accepted that offer of a lift.

In fact, getting to Radlett by train was a doddle…

…certainly compared with Chas’s ludicrous hike across from Malloy Manor, which should have taken him 40 minutes and took more like an hour-and-40. I managed it door to door in not much more than an hour.

That enabled me to nab a few decent seats at the front, with Fran’s vertical challenges in mind. I also thought best to avoid the relentless sun, although I didn’t realise quite how cold the shade would be.

The night before the big day, I had a memory flash that Fran had written to me while I was in Mauritius in 1979 and that I still had the letter. She had…I did…I scanned & printed same and took the incriminating evidence with me to Radlett. Click here or below to see the letter and how all that went down:

A Letter From Fran To Me While I Was In Mauritius, 7 August 1979

Anyway, that correspondence proved an interesting conversation piece for the middle part of the Middlesex innings, during which time Middlesex turned a very promising start into a potential disaster.

While Middlesex rebuilt the innings to something approaching respectability (only 30-40 runs short, rather than the 60-70 runs short that the innings at one point threatened), Fran and Simon observed the Chas and Ged picnic much as a pair of field anthropologists might observe a remote tribe. They had read of such picnics on King Cricket and Ogblog of course, but never actually witnessed anything quite like it.

Not really picnickers themselves, Fran and Simon did bring some cashew nuts, enabling us to share and test the relative merits of Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Lidl in the cashew department. Result: little distinction in flavour, but the more expensive M&S ones are larger and would look posher served up in a bowl.

Unfortunately, just before the end of the Middlesex innings, Fran’s mum, who has been poorly of late, called with a minor emergency which Fran and Simon, kindly and dutifully, went off to attend. I hope I’ll be able to catch up with them again soon – e.g. at Merchant Taylor’s School.

Meanwhile I tried to convince Chas (and myself) that 250 might just prove to be enough runs (ha ha) while Essex set out to prove that even the 280-290 par score might not have been enough if Middlesex kept insisting on dropping catches all afternoon.

Mercifully I had to leave before suffering the indignity of the final nails being driven into Middlesex’s coffin by Essex – click here to see the scorecard and details – in short, Middlesex came second.

Then the drive across London, starring James Keightley behind the wheel, Bob Baxter (Chair of Middlesex Cricket Board) in the front seat, with the back seat navigators being Richard Goatley & me…especially me once we hit traffic and I figured that Waze might solve our navigation problems for us.

We got to the Oval in good time.

The opening overs of the charity event were stunning – it was a glorious sunny evening and we took drinks on that OCS sun deck.

Our team/table also comprised William Frewen (like James, from Teddington CC), Ed Griffiths, his nephew Alex (Richmond CC) and a young gentleman named Bruce (I think).

It soon dawned on me that everyone on our table, apart from me, was bringing quite a lot to the sports quizzing party. It also dawned on me that Richard and the others had sort-of assumed that I might be a useful addition to a sports quiz team. Oh dear.

Oh well, I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed.

Strangely, I was able to make a few useful contributions, more through general knowledge questions and sort-of knowing how quizzing works than through sports knowledge itself.

Example: as we were going in to the meal/quiz, James mentioned to me that the master of ceremonies/quizmaster/former Rugby Union international, Martin Bayfield, has appeared as Hagrid’s body in the Harry Potter movies. “Park that piece of trivia at the front of your brain, James,” I said, “that’s bound to come up in one of the questions.” It did.

Here is a link that tells you all about the LPFF sports quiz.

It was a reasonably relaxed atmosphere on our table, at first. But as we started to do better and better on the leaderboard, the competitive spirit on the Middlesex table started to really take hold.

Heading up the Middlesex competitive spirit big time was Ed Griffiths. I have got to know Ed quite well over the last few months, as he is leading on our London Cricket Trust initiative, to put cricket facilities into parks and commons across London. I have a huge amount of admiration for the way Ed is gently but relentlessly driving our initiative forward. I’ll be writing a fair bit more about the London Cricket Trust in the coming months.

If you cannot be bothered to click the links, Ed was the uniting Chief Executive of the South African Rugby Union in the early post-apartheid days and latterly Chief Executive of Saracens.

So I suppose it should come as no surprise that Ed is a very competitive chap. But his response to the conclusion of the sports quiz, when it was announced that we had come second (out of sixteen), had to be seen to be believed.

At first I thought Ed was joking, as I might have done, melodramatically bemoaning our “close but no cigar” outcome. But when he nearly smashed a glass in frustration and then went to the quiz adjudication table in order to audit and question the results, several of us realised that Ed really was a ball of combative anger.

Ed returned to our table with the news that we had lost by a mere two points, which, given the charitable circumstances, was news that would satisfy less driven individuals (e.g. me) to conclude that we had done really well and that it was for charity after all and that, but for fortune, we might even have won.

Yet the closeness of the defeat seemed to anger and frustrate Ed yet further. He nearly smashed a wine glass again. Writing this up five days later, I think Ed Griffiths might just about be over the disappointment now…but perhaps not. Middlesex had come second again. Albeit this time in a field of 16 rather than a field of two.

Earlier in the evening, the admirably dedicated Ed reported that he had spent the day in Southend-On-Sea watching Middlesex Second XI defeat Essex Second XI – click here for a match report on that match. Middlesex Seconds had come first.

Coincidentally, sitting at the next table to us, was a lady who kept looking across at us and who eventually came over to introduce herself; Tom Lace’s mum. Tom is one of our up and coming second team players who, as the coincidence grows, also plays for Teddington CC. Tom’s mum went on to take selfie photos of herself with William and James from Teddington. I am absolutely sure that breakfast time in the Lace household the next morning will have thrilled young Tom, when mum showed him the evidence of her fun evening with the Middlesex CCC/Teddington CC great and good. In my (limited) experience, youngsters love that sort of thing.

On the evening, I chose not to mention that Tom Lace is (the coincidence simply grows to bonkers proportions) my long-form kit sponsorship player this year. I surmised that such news would have been a relative sub-plot to what was already a bit of a sub-plot, so I kept schtum about that.

But I don’t suppose anyone at that fundraiser was left in any doubt that Middlesex had attended and contributed to the evening big time. Not only did we come second in the quiz (I will get over it eventually, really I will) but two of our number bid very generously in the auction. Ed Griffiths bought tickets to a show he didn’t even know existed (until he was bidding for it), while William Frewen procured one of Harry Kane’s football boots.

As William lives quite near me, I offered to cab him and his new boot home on my way. But I signally failed to find a cab or Uber at the end of the evening…

South of the river? Do me a favour!

…so William and I walked to Vauxhall together and journeyed by tube, with William carrying an unfeasibly expensive soccer boot in a presentation box that had been cunningly disguised, through the use of a simple cardboard box exterior as…

…any old cardboard box. Fiendish.

William and I sat on the Victoria Line train discussing the finer details of Middlesex Cricket Board governance and its integration into Middlesex Cricket…like you do.

It was a fitting end to an odd but hugely memorable day.

Samuel Pepys The Guitarist, Gresham College, 16 May 2018

To St. Sepulchre Without Newgate for the last time (at least for the purposes of this lecture series) to see Christopher Page’s last Gresham lecture. This one covers Samuel Pepys’s interest in the guitar later in his life.

I have long been fascinated by Pepys – indeed one of my working titles for Ogblog was “Mr Poopys’s Diary” – based on the notion that it would be like an on-line cross between Mr Pooter’s Diary and that of Mr Pepys…

…but I digress.

Here is a link to the full Gresham College resource on this lecture, including the video. If you simply want to watch the vid, I have embedded it below:

I had missed the previous lecture, The Guitar At The Restoration Court, in March, due to work commitments, but did find the time to watch it on the web ahead of my May visit, so my attendance at today’s Pepys meant that I have seen all six of them; three live and three on the web.

I got to the church in good time and chatted ahead of the lecture with an interesting gentleman who encouraged me to watch Ian Christie’s lectures on early motion pictures and stereo photography – both areas of special interest to me.

I also realised when Christopher Page made his closing remarks that I would find several of his earlier lectures (before this year’s series) fascinating – all early music (apart from his first series which was on romantic period guitar) – and they are all on-line too:

So that will no doubt be some interesting evening activity over the coming weeks and months.

Leading Lights Before The English Civil War, Phantasm, Wigmore Hall, 14 May 2018

When Janie said, “viols again?”, even I had to admit that I’d gone a bit crazy booking mid 17th century viol music this season.

“But this is rarely-heard English viol consort music from just before the Civil War”, I protested.

While Janie announced afterwards that she couldn’t honestly tell the difference between English style and European styles…

…and I had to admit that I’d struggle to pinpoint time and location in a “blind tasting”…

…we both agreed that, as usual, we thoroughly enjoyed hearing this type of viol consort music.

Phantasm are supremely professional, masters of their instruments and seasoned at coping with the complexities of this multi-voiced music.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall stub for this concert.

I don’t think I’d knowingly heard any William Lawes before – certainly not his viol music.

He looks like a quintessential cavalier of the period, which sums up his career and untimely death (reportedly “casually shot”) soon after entering the theatre of war for the first and last time.

There’s not a lot of Lawes viol music played by Phantasm to be found on the web, but here is the paven from the consort set in F, which we heard on the evening:

…we didn’t have the organ accompaniment, but we did have a sixth viol player in the second half for those pieces that demand six viols.

Likewise, I was not familiar with the work John Jenkins – his viol music was a little lighter in tone, although all such viol consort music is, by its nature, pretty moody.

Even harder to find on line, here are some other dudes playing a John Jenkins Fantasy a6 other than the ones we heard. You’ll get the idea and it is still lovely:

Something about this sort of music heard live touches the soul – I think it is the close proximity to the vibrations of all of those viols.

We both felt so calm and tranquil after the concert we could hardly get our act together to eat when we got home, but somehow we managed it. A very pleasurable end to a Monday off work.

Two Fine Baroque Concerts – Versailles: The Improbable Dream & Paris-Madras, With Some Fine Grub In Between, St John Smith Square, 12 May 2018

There were two London Festival of Baroque Music concerts at St John’s Smith Square that evening and we really liked the look of both of them.

So that’s what we did – we went and looked at them both.

Versailles: The Improbable Dream

The first was Fuoco E Cenere – all music pertaining to Louis XIV and Versailles.

Here is the SJSS card for this concert.

This ensemble was recently involved in a French TV series about Versailles – said to be the most expensive ever made in France – here is a short musical extract from the TV programme:

Mercifully for the down to earth SJSS audience, Fuoco E Cenere did not ponce about in 17th Century wigs and outfits for our concert.

Here is a more down to earth vid and interview about Les Folies d’Espagne by Marais, which they did play on the night:

The highlight of this concert, for us, was the singing of the young guest soprano, Theodora Raftis. She has an outstanding voice and tremendous stage presence. She seemed a little overwhelmed by the occasion at first, but it was great to see her warm to her work and become the highlight of the show by the end of the concert. She was clearly well appreciated by the audience and her fellow performers. Remember the name: Theodora Raftis. Not much of her to be found on-line, but here is some Donizetti – trust us, she’s upped her game big time since this vid was recorded:

The Platters

No , we didn’t see a 1950s vocal group, but we did eat charcuterie and cheese platters with salad and a glass of wine between the concerts. I won’t dwell on the shenanigans involved in booking a table and arranging the platters – let’s just celebrate the fact that waiters David and Ramon did us proud and that we thoroughly enjoyed our twixt concert supper.

Paris-Madras

It was this second concert that really inspired me to book the evening – the notion of a fusion of French Baroque and Indian raga music. How on earth might that work? Well, it pretty much did.

Here is a link to the SJSS resource for this concert.

Le Concert De L’Hostel-Dieu provided the baroque element. In truth, we got more out of the ragas than we got out of the Leçons de Ténèbres. The wonderful weather of the previous week had turned to miserable cold weather that day, so neither of us was much in the mood for the lamentations of Jeremiah. More seriously, we’d seen the Leçons de Ténèbres quite recently and didn’t realise that the concert would pretty much give us the whole lot un-fused with the ragas…plus ragas unfused with the lamentations.

On the ragas, in particular, we liked the bansuri flute and the sarod. Soumik Datta, the sarod virtuoso involved, is far more rock’n’roll than the rest of the performers on show that night. Here is his showreel:

Below is the explanatory vid in French about the Paris-Madras project, in which you can hear Ravi Prasad sing and Patrick Rudant play his flute, as well as the baroque players of course:

The absolute highlight of this concert for us was the few passages when the musicians segued between the two styles and the ending when they all played together. Perhaps they judged the fusion to be risky, so they minimised its use, but to our mind it was a risk that came off big time and the fusion was the reason we went to see the concert.

Anyway, we came out the other side of the evening feeling very pleased with the whole occasion.

Tennis, Estonia, Bullshit Jobs, Pear Tree, Cricket And Party Time, 8 to 11 May 2018

An unusual week to say the least. A short one, as the Monday was a bank holiday. The bank holiday weekend weather had been glorious – Janie and I had spent most of the weekend enjoying the benefits of the garden in good weather.

On the Tuesday (8 May) I was asked to join the senior doubles at lunchtime, while I had my regular court booked at 18:00. It was a beautiful day and I was busy writing my pamphlet on Bullshit jobs, so thought that a few hours writing long-hand would do the piece and my posture no harm. I was right.

On the Wednesday morning I went to collect my Estonian e-Residency card, so i am now officially an e-Resident of the Republic of Estonia. Once I had finished my heavy writing sessions, I looked at some Arvo Pärt music in the evening to celebrate my new status.

On Thursday I had a rather frustrating music lesson as my machine kept playing up – in fact all of my machines seemed to be on go slow for some reason. Then Janie and I went to the Pear Tree for dinner with Toni, John and Tom Friend, plus Deni & Tony. Excellent food and an interesting evening.

On Friday morning my Bullshit Jobs pamphlet went up…

…before I went on to Lord’s, playing a good game of tennis at 10:00 and then sticking around for the cricket. Janie joined me for most of the final session of the day, before we both went to the Middlesex kit sponsors party, which was fun. Always a nice bunch of people there.

Not only all that, but I got a lot of work done that week too. No wonder I was well-tired by the end of it.

An Afternoon At The National Gallery And Stuff With John Random, 4 May 2018

John Random and I had originally intended this National Gallery visit to take place on 6 April, but for reasons explained in the Ogblog piece here and below, the National Gallery element of our get together was postponed:

Lord’s-related Lunches 6 & 10 April 2018, Then Middlesex v Northants Day One, Lord’s, 13 April 2018

No matter – perhaps we had been over-ambitious trying to do everything in one day, so Plan B was to meet for lunch 4 May and then go to the National Gallery.

John suggested Gaby’s on Charing Cross Road – a real blast from the past – I hadn’t been in there for donkey’s years. John had ful medames, but I didn’t want to risk jet-propelling myself around the National Gallery, so I went traditional with a salt beef sandwich and pickle. Substantial – but I had worked up an appetite playing an intense hour of real tennis that morning.

Then on to the National Gallery. John had planned five pieces with interesting/quirky stories to show me – then we would wander freestyle.

The First Four Of The Five Random Tour Items

First up – the Boris Anrep mosaics. John took great pleasure in quizzing me on the famous folk depicted in that mosaic. At first I thought he was kidding (and with one or two examples, he was kidding) but there are some quite quirky choices for some of the depictions. If you click this link (also up front in this paragraph) you get Wikipedia chapter and verse.

Second – Portrait Of The Duke Of Wellington by Goya. Far from the most interesting work of art in the gallery, but it has a fascinating story to it’s theft, the subsequent trial of Kempton Bunton and the reference to this incident in the James Bond film, Dr No – just click this or the preceding link to read about it.

As a curious aside to the Duke Of Wellington story, John Random and I tried (and failed to remember the name of the famous QC who defended Kempton Bunton; it was of course Jeremy Hutchinson. That made me wonder whether Hutchinson had ever worked with my friend Robin Simpson, one of the senior gentlemen with whom I sometimes play doubles at real tennis. It turns out that both Jeremy and Robin were involved with the defence of the Fanny Hill obscenity prosecution, see pp192-196 of the attached thesis , as was Richard Du Cann. (Makes mental note to Ogblog the crazy day in the mid-to-late 1980s when I ended up dashing to the Old Bailey to brief Richard Du Cann ahead of a fraud trial, the facts of which had taken an unexpected, last-minute turn.)

Third – An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’. I did recall having seen this picture before in my childhood. Indeed the whole visit to the National Gallery reminded me of visits with my dad in the 1970s – possibly even before I started to keep a diary – I must have a skim of the early diaries to see if I can find any references. John and I mused on whether the scientist resembles Peter Stringfellow (John’s choice) or Frank Finlay (Jenny’s preference). I don’t like to take sides, but on reflection, I think Jenny (Frank Finlay) wins the lookalike contest by a 1970s hair’s breadth. Janie also plugged for Frank Finlay. John and I struggled to work out the main source of light in the picture, but that is explained in the National Gallery piece on this painting, click the link here or the preceding link in this paragraph.

Fourth up – The Toilet Of Venus (aka The Rokeby Venus) by Diego Velázquez. A favourite of John’s family, in part due to their proximity to Rokeby, John and I agreed that it is not, in our view, the finest example of a Velázquez to be found. John reminded me of a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch, set in an art gallery, in which Pete muses that well-painted bottoms follow you all around the room – referenced here. John and I mused briefly on that characteristic in the context of The Rokeby Venus’s bottom, concluding that it does follow you around the room – judge for yourself below and/or click here or the first link in the paragraph for more details:

Diego Velázquez, 1599 – 1660 The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’)
1647-51 Oil on canvas, 122.5 x 177 cm Presented by The Art Fund, 1906
NG2057 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG2057

The Fifth Random Tour Item – The Non-Existent Man With Theorbo

This fifth item was due to be the highlight and indeed was probably the initiating idea for the entire visit. John and I had been talking about my interest in early music and early music instruments. Then John wrote to me, mentioning that he had seen some interesting paintings in the National Gallery, depicting people with those instruments.

Unfortunately, fragments of John’s memories of the conversation and the paintings themselves apparently got mixed up, but John promised me that he would show me a painting entitled “Man With Theorbo”. This was a very exciting prospect for me indeed; a veritable highlight was in store for me.

Or was it?

When we got to the appropriate room, John showed me the following painting

Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1588 – 1629 A Man playing a Lute
1624 Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 78.7 cm Bought, 1963 NG6347
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG6347

I explained to John that the instrument depicted was a lute, not a theorbo. I showed John a picture of a theorbo.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence – with thanks – http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co5900/theorbo

Even John had to agree that these were different instruments. I politely pointed out that the painting John showed me is actually named “A Man Playing A Lute“…no mention of a theorbo.

We looked around that room, in vain, wondering whether there was also a picture of man with theorbo, but eventually John admitted that he must have been mistaken.

I decided to put my foot down at this juncture. After all, a promise is a promise. And my previous visits to the National Gallery took place when I was a small child, so I knew how to behave there.

“I’m not leaving the National Gallery until I have seen the man with theorbo,” I declared.

If John had thought about it clearly, he could have rapidly released me from this fixation by offering to buy me an ice cream outside or something. But instead, John seemed to resign himself to a long – perhaps eternal – trawl through the National Gallery in the vain hope that the non-existent grand master, Man With Theorbo, might miraculously emerge – perhaps through the power of magical thinking.

So we wandered on, through the Rembrandt Rooms and the Rubens Rooms, which felt very much like home turf to me from visits with dad in days of yore. A large party of schoolkids were having Belshazzar’s Feast explained to them by a teacher. John asked me if I could read and translate the writing on the wall. I demurred, loosely translating it as “you’ve had it, pal” – not bad for a rank amateur.

Then, quite by chance, we happened upon Room 16, where John spotted A Woman Singing And A Man With A Cittern. John then remembered that he had intended to show me this room and that particular picture too, as we had, on that musical instrument discussion occasion, explored briefly the distinction between the mandolin-like cittern and the guitar-like gittern.

Then, in the exact same room, I spotted the following picture, A Young Woman Playing A Harpsichord To A Young Man :

No! Don’t look at the main subject – look at the little fella on the stairs

“Oh look”, I said, “the little fella on the stairs is carrying an instrument that looks very much like a theorbo…”

“Thank heavens for that”, said John, “can we go now?”

“…but on the other hand, that might be an archlute, not a theorbo,” I said, “it’s hard to judge the scale of the thing at that size and distance.”

“Do you fancy a cup of coffee and a piece of cake,” said John, at this juncture realising that a few well chosen words might help him finally escape from his theorbo debacle.

“Great idea”, I said, so off we went in search of a decent caff.

In Trafalgar Square, I wanted to take a proper look at the new fourth plinth item: The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist by Michael Rakowitz:

Then on to find a cafe where we could enjoy some coffee and cake out of doors – we soon found Tasting Sicily Enzo’s Kitchen in Panton Street, where we indulged in cannoli – i.e. we each tried Cannolo Siciliano and some Italian-style coffee.

Ever wondered what John Random might look like with cannolo at an outdoor Sicilian style cafe? Wonder no more:

Ever wondered what people like me and John talk about over such an afternoon treat? Well, the conversation somehow got on to Carlos The Jackal, the fact that John had once met a Venezuelan lady who had once shared a taxi with Carlos The Jackal, Leila Khaled, the fact that Graham Robertson’s dad’s gardening was interrupted by the unscheduled arrival of said Leila Khaled at Heathrow on El Al Flight 219 in 1970 (frightfully inconvenient of her), then inevitably, The Teardrop Explodes, the fact that I had once rubbed shoulders with Julian Cope of the Teardrop Explodes, Laurence Corner and the fact that Janie and I met through the Laurence Corner family.

In short, it had been a fascinating and fun afternoon.

Dreams And Dances Of The Sun King, Hille Perl, Lee Santana, Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concert, 30 April 2018

I booked this concert (along with others from the Wigmore Hall spring programme) before Christmas.

Strangely, Janie and I went to the cinema a few days later and saw Happy End…

Happy End, Curzon Bloomsbury, 23 December 2017

…in which Hille Perl makes a cameo appearance as the viola da gamba and sexting interest…

…it really isn’t often you’ll see those two terms – viola da gamba and sexting – in the same sentence.

Then, recently, DJ kindly bought me an electric ukulele in the style of an oil can:

…inducing me to comment to Ian Pittaway, after my last baroq-ulele lesson, that I now no longer know whether I seek to emulate Lee Santana or Carlos Santana.

Anyway, Janie and I were very excited that we would be seeing this remarkable couple, Hille Perl and Lee Santana, playing at the Wigmore Hall.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource on the concert we saw.

After such a build up and such high expectations, it wouldn’t be surprising if the concert turned out to be a disappointment, especially as we needed to brave unseasonably awful weather to get to The Wig. But no such thing – we were truly entranced by the music and their performance as a couple. It really was a beautiful concert from start to finish.

We found their style of remaining on stage throughout and looking so captivated by each other’s music making was quite touching. In particular, when Lee Santana played a few solo pieces on a slightly smaller theorbo; a “théorbe des pièces” to be precise, Hille Perl looked transfixed. As were we – what a sweet sound that solo instrument version of the theorbo had – I don’t think we’d ever heard one of those before.

You don’t have to take our word for this if you are coming to this Ogblog piece soon after the event. It was broadcast by BBC Radio 3 as a lunchtime concert and is still available for most of May 2018 – click here.

Hille Perl and Lee Santana concluded the concert with Les Folies d’Espagne by Marin Marais, which is the very piece that Hille Perl plays solo in the movie Happy End. If you want to see what Hille Perl and Lee Santana look like playing together, here is a little embedded vid of them playing that very piece together:

They played us an encore on the afternoon which was unexpected and unannounced. I’m pretty sure it was O’Carolan’s Dream, which you can see/hear them play on this embedded vid:

The afternoon was an absolute treat; a super way to enjoy a Monday off work!

Masterpieces by Sarah Daniels, Finborough Theatre, 28 April 2018

Image borrowed from Amazon, from whence the text might be bought.

I’d been keen to see this one. I remembered reading it “back in the day” and had wondered how it might work as a performance piece.

In truth, it didn’t work for either of us.

Here is a link to the Finborough’s resource on Masterpieces.

The subject matter of the play is fascinating; pornography, the objectification of women, violence against women and how all those things might interrelate. But, to me, the play fails to develop characters and plot sufficiently to make the audience care about the drama; only about the issues.

Janie thought that maybe it was the production that was a bit stilted rather than the play. Hard to tell.

Perhaps we were a little jaded because we were both tired after a longish day at a tennis match…

A Week Dominated By Intense Middlesex v MCC Contests, 24, 27 & 28 April 2018

…but then again, I played the same fixture the previous year, after which we saw and loved The Ferryman at the Royal Court:

The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth, Royal Court Theatre, 29 April 2017

A little unfair, perhaps, to compare a Finborough production with a Royal Court one, but the point is we do have the stamina for long days and long plays if/when the quality is high enough.

Returning to Masterpieces, I can understand why it seemed timely to revive the play, given the topicality of its issues in a subtly different context 35 years on. But as a play, it seemed very old-fashioned to me and the style in which the Finborough directed and produced this play very much locked it in as an 80s period piece, which (for me) was a mistake.

We rarely walk at half time, but on this occasion, tired and cognisant that the second half contains gruelling material, we did walk.

I believe this production is getting mixed reviews at the time of writing, so you don’t need to take our word for it – click here and skim the various reviews. Indeed, the piece has c3 weeks still to run at the time of writing, so you can go judge for yourselves.

On the matter of Sarah Daniels writing style, I cannot find an extract from Masterpieces but here is a short monologue from The Gut Girls which gives you a feel for the style:

Anyway, we have seen far more hits than misses at the Finborough, so we remain fans of that super place.

Postscript: An Extract From Masterpieces…

…has subsequently emerged on the web. Here is an embed [pun unintended]:

A Week Dominated By Intense Middlesex v MCC Contests, 24, 27 & 28 April 2018

Middlesex University Real Tennis Court, by Matt Brown, CC BY 2.0

Once again I found myself selected to represent the MCC against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club; a match scheduled for 28 April. But that was not to be my only Middlesex v MCC experience that week.

Tuesday 24 April – Middlesex v MCC

On the Tuesday, 24 April, there was an historic cricket match between Middlesex CCC Women and MCC Women at Lord’s. As it happens, largely by coincidence, I had arranged to play tennis at Lord’s that afternoon. So I rose early to get my work out of the way, taking the afternoon out to watch a couple of hours of cricket and do some leisure reading before playing tennis.

I commuted to Lord’s by public transport and found myself in a swirl of schoolkids and teachers on the Wellington Road – some arriving at the ground for the match and some leaving (there had been another exhibition match in the morning).

Do not be deceived by the empty stands in the photograph below, which I took from pride of place in the Warner Stand. The Grandstand was ram-packed with youngsters watching the game. As I understand it, 5,000 to 6,000 people attended the day, making it the largest ever crowd for a domestic women’s cricket match.

In truth the quality of the cricket was less than special. It reminded me a bit of Janie’s and my first experience of Women’s test cricket, at Shenley in 2003, in cricket quality terms. So there is room for improvement but also proof positive that improvement can come quickly – by 2009 when Janie and I attended the Women’s T20 World Cup final at Lord’s…

England Women v New Zealand Women and Pakistan v Sri Lanka, ICC World Twenty20 Finals Day, Lord’s, 21 June 2009

…the quality had shot up markedly and has continued to go up markedly ever since:

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

From my vantage point at the front of the Warner Stand, I did need to keep an eye on each ball in case it came sailing my way, but equally was able to do some reading too. I was re-reading chunks of “What To Listen For In Music” by Aaron Copeland, with a view to helping my nascent instrument-playing, not least in the matter of transcription, adaptation and shifting modes/keys.

But I was interrupted quite early in my reading by a young woman with a strong Scouse accent who had never been to a cricket match before and wondered whether I could explain “the rules” to her. She in particular wanted to understand wickets.

Unfortunately Middlesex Women at that time seemed signally incapable of taking any wickets – not even the relatively frequent potential catches that were being offered, to help me demonstrate the ideas.

Nevertheless, my pupil seemed to get the idea of catches and clean bowled wickets quite easily. Stumped and run out seemed a little further from her experience, so we both struggled a bit when I tried to explain those. I then paused momentarily to try to work out how (or even whether) to explain LBW, when the young lady told me she needed to meet a friend, thanked me profusely and took her leave of me. I was a little relieved to be honest…as was she, I suspect, as I spotted her at the end of the innings sitting on her own at the front, a few blocks away from where she had collared me. Perhaps she was now explaining “the rules” to an “imaginary friend”. Nevertheless, she waved at me as if greeting a long-time pal.

It was well cold that day. I watched and read from the comfort of the pavilion for a while, before changing and playing two hours of tennis; an hour of singles which went very well and then an hour of doubles, to help me get my head into the doubles side of things for my impending match. After I played, I tried without success to find out the result of the women’s cricket match – both the MCC and Middlesex websites put up photos straight away but not the result.

It transpires that the Middlesex Women, on their first ever outing at Lord’s, managed to win the match – click here for more information and that rather charming photo gallery which went up straight away.

Friday 27 April – Warm-Up Practice Doubles Ahead Of Middlesex v MCC

When I realised that, by chance, my Friday singles match was to be against one of my MCC team-mates, David Mitchell-Innes, I mentioned this fact in bant form in response to one of the organising e-mails from Carl Snitcher, the team captain and my doubles partner for Saturday’s match:

I hope you are training hard for our role in this fixture. Mr Mitchell-Innes and I are due to do battle towards the cause on Friday…

…so you’ll either have two perfectly honed team members or a last minute need for two substitutes.

This kicked off a flurry of e-mails, initiated by Nick Hewitt (David’s doubles partner), that resulted, instead, in the four of us having a practice session together.

This sounded like a brilliant idea; an opportunity to have four perfectly honed team members. Except of course, when the competitive instinct kicked in, we soon realised that there was the risk we’d end up with a last minute need for four substitutes.

Carl bowed out a little early (it had been kind of him to stay on to join us at all) so when the practice match reached its inevitable denouement at one-set-all, five-games-all, forty-all…

…and I somehow, single-handedly managed to prevail…

…naturally emotions were running high. I don’t have a film clip of real tennis concluding in such a competitive spirit, but I have found a similar-looking example from women’s ice hockey:

Being Friday morning, fortunately, both Mark Ryan and Chris Swallow were on hand to help all of us to leave the court with our dignity intact and mop up ahead of the senior gentlemen, who were next on court.

In retrospect, I think this style of preparation worked better for Messrs Mitchell-Innes and Hewitt than it did for Messrs Harris and Snitcher.

Saturday 28 April – Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) v MCC

So to the big day. Janie had kindly agreed to join us for the afternoon and help us to eat what I predicted to be, based on my previous experience of this fixture,…

Three Courts In One Day, 29 April 2017

…a sumptuous lunch provided by David Sloan. I was right about the lunch.

Janie and I attempted to play modern tennis first thing, but the weather was unexpectedly shocking at 8:40 when we arrived on court and we gave up, drenched, at 9:00.

We got to Hendon while the first rubber was in full sway; a close-run affair which MURTC took by a hair’s breadth. Heartbreaking, it was. Almost enough to put one off one’s food. “ALMOST” I said.

So while the next rubber was in full sway, most of us took advantage of the delectable spread. The highlight was a superb joint of roast beef, but there was also smoked salmon, a fine selection of cheeses, plus bread, potatoes and salad.

We socialised. We ate. We got to meet John and Catherine’s delightful cocker spaniels. We watched Messrs Mitchell-Innes and Hewitt take full advantage of their practice session from the previous day to level the match 1-1.

At that stage of the afternoon, Carl seemed less concerned about the impending battle with MURTC and more concerned about doing battle with his internet service provider, who had simultaneously threatened to cut off his services unless he paid his account, while seemingly making it impossible for Carl to pay. At roughly the same time, David and Will did battle with a computer, a large television set and a TV subscription website, to enable us to see the final chapter of the 2018 World Singles Championship.

Next up for MCC was Sebastian Wood and Chris Stanton, the latter I have, coincidentally, known for over quarter of a century from my time writing for NewsRevue – he was the first professional actor ever to perform one of my lyrics:

You Can’t Hurry Trusts, NewsRevue Lyric, 7 May 1992

No comedy involved in the fierce contest of this tennis match, though. But by the time that third rubber was concluded, MURTC were leading the fixture 2-1 and most of the crowd was watching the telly rather than watching the live tennis.

Naturally Janie (Daisy) took pride of place in the dedans gallery, along with a few others, to watch me and Carl Snitcher do battle with a pair of mighty gladiators from MURTC. Even more naturally (to anyone who has seen Daisy play modern tennis) she was cheering and applauding points won from false shots, dodgy bounces and net chords as vociferously as good shots.

In short, it is probably just as well that most of our MCC team-mates were watching the telly during that final rubber. It was all over rather quickly, MURTC winning the match 3-1, at which point those of us still on court mixed it up and played for fun for a good few minutes longer.

After that, we all decompressed and enjoyed some social minutes while watching the very end of the 2018 World Singles Championships on the TV.

Sadly, I don’t have any film clips of this year’s MURTC v MCC match, nor of the 2018 world championships that people were watching on the TV. I do have a couple of similar clips, but they have got all mixed up and I really cannot tell which is which – I’ll have to leave it to the viewer to judge:

Anyway, the match was a great success, both as a sporting and as a social occasion. With thanks not least to David Sloan for organising the fixture and food, Will/MURTC for hosting and making the match run…and of course to Carl for trying to organise the MCC team – a task that might be described as, “like trying to herd cats”.

Janie and I went on to the Finborough Theatre that evening, where, most unusually for the Finborough, the drama was not so much to our taste.

Mayfly by Joe White, Orange Tree Theatre, 21 April 2018

We thought this was another really good Orange Tree production of a new play by a new playwright. Once again Paul Miller and his team showing a consistently good eye for talent.

On paper it sounds like yet another small-scale drama about lonely lives and handling grief. But the dialogue sparkles, the mix of tragedy and comedy is elegantly handled and the production values are quite outstanding for a tiny theatre like the Orange Tree. Very clever design with the odd coup de theatre thrown in for good measure.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree’s excellent resource for this play/production.

Below is the trailer:

All four performers were excellent, with Irfan Shamji as Harry the standout performance amongst stiff competition…not that it IS a competition.

In truth, it is a slightly slow play – a lot of build up and back story – but the dialogue is so well written and the piece so well acted and directed, the 105 minutes seemed to whizz by in a jiffy…

…much like the life of a mayfly.

No reviews at the time of writing – ahead of press night – but I’d expect this one to be well received, so (if you are reading this during the run, which ends 26 May), book early to avoid disappointment.

Here is a link to a search term that will find all the reviews once they get here.

For once we did not indulge in Spanish food after the show – my indulgences over the preceding 24 hours, which included a sashimi feast when I returned from Chelmsford…

A Day At Chelmsford With Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, Essex v Lancashire Day One, 20 April 2018

…had done me in food-wise – but in any case we both felt sated by this excellent evening at the theatre.

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Postscript: An Extract From Masterpieces…

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Tuesday 24 April – Middlesex v MCC

Friday 27 April – Warm-Up Practice Doubles Ahead Of Middlesex v MCC

Saturday 28 April – Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) v MCC

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