Still, you could be forgiven for thinking that the V&A curator might have been hanging out at our groovy happening taking notes ahead of the exhibition.
They used a similar mind-blowing sound-bleed technique as the one we used at the party in the themed rooms.
The penultimate room in the exhibition is a sixties festivals room, with festival memorabilia, Woodstock (the movie) on a loop and AstroTurf on the ground so you can chill in a sixties-rock-fest-stylee.
It is a great show. If you read this posting in time (I think it runs to February 2017) get thee a ticket to the V&A show and surry down to South Kensington to see the show. You won’t be disappointed.
We’ve known Simon for a very long time. He runs the book stall at the Royal Court while “quietly” (surely he tells everyone who’ll listen, not just us) nurturing an avocation as a writer/director. We’ve been to see a couple of his plays over the years.
He’s been talking about this collection of poetry for a long while; indeed I seem to recall that the original date he had set for the launch/performance was due to be in February while we were in Nicaragua.
We arrived in good time for the 19:00 start, although in fact the performers were rehearsing/warming up at that hour and the performance didn’t really start until 20:00ish. Towards the end of that waiting hour, a very talented singer sang to us for a while. Simon mingled and sold me a copy of the book. We spoke with one or two people and saw the backs of several others as the place got quite crowded.
One or two of the poems were very well performed. Beyond the Bank, for example, by a very eloquent actress. Some might have worked better had they been read rather than performed, especially as the performers were sometimes struggling for their lines. It was, after all, a book launch, so reading rather than performing would have seemed reasonable.
During the interval Janie and I went upstairs to the mezzanine, where it was less crowded and from whence we could make a discreet exit ahead of the pack if we so chose.
I needed to be back in London reasonably early on the 8th, so this time I went up the night before the start of my two days of cricket and drove back to London at the end of day two.
A couple of men in suits saw me checking in with Luke the Baroq-ulele and suggested that I provide some musical entertainment for the evening. I told them that they would need to ply me with plenty of drinks before I’d attempt that, the idea of which didn’t seem to put them off. Mercifully, though, I managed to avoid them while I took dinner and saw them briefly enough on exit merely to wish them goodnight as I returned to my room for a little solo jam and reading before bedtime.
Tuesday
I used the gym and leisure facilities of the hotel first thing. After breakfast, a very pleasant short walk to the ground. We were hosted in hospitality suites at the Radcliffe Road end today, a very good view, similar to the pavilion but which made a nice change of aspect.
Quite a large group of people; many of the usual suspects plus an expert on American rural history, Mark Friedberger, who originally hails from England and mostly follows cricket over in the USA via the internet. Mark and I had a long chat about various subjects, including professors, e.g. Ronnie Frankenberg, whom we both knew. The outcome of that encounter was a long list of stuff for me to follow up as homework. That’s academics for you.
Cracking cricket, with Middlesex bowling out Notts for 241, probably below par, but then succumbing to a Jake Ball hat trick to be 0/3 off five balls. First time I had ever seen a professional hat trick live.
The Trent Bridge hospitality is very generous, so I wanted little in the evening and spent my time reading, writing and playing Luke the Uke.
Wednesday
I used the gym again this morning and then drove to the ground after breakfast and check out.
We were in the pavilion today; a slightly smaller group. David Kendix, Chris Lowe and Shilpa Patel joined the usual suspects from the Middlesex side; we had some interesting chats.
At lunch, we were entertained at table by Bill “Wild Bill” Taylor with tales of his exploits, not least his cavalier match-winning performance against Sussex in 1975, retold in John Barclay’s excellent book, Life Beyond The Airing Cupboard…
“pages 72 to 73,don’t forget to look it up when you get home”
…I didn’t forget to look it up.
Middlesex bettered Nottinghamshire’s first innings score, just, but then failed to make any inroads in the few remaining overs.
I had a pretty clear run home, getting back to the flat not much after 20:30.
Our first visit to the theatre for a wee while, as there tends to be less of the stuff we like to see over the summer.
This play looked very interesting in the Almeida leaflet. Unusually, this was the only play we booked at the Almeida this season; they seem to be doing fewer new plays these days.
It was indeed an interesting play. Mostly set in London, where a do-gooder jolly hockey sticks woman is trying to organise an awareness raising Congo Festival with the consent and co-operation of the local Congolese diaspora community. Funny and sinister in equal measure. But the play doesn’t shy away from also showing us a glimpse into the horrors of life in the war-torn DRC.
Michael Longhurst directed this one, as he did Carmen Disruption last spring. We found that play interesting with some excellent scenes, but a little disjointed. I’d suggest that They Drink It In The Congo is similar in that regard. In particular, some of the festival-organising intrigue was a little drawn out and convoluted, but some of the scenes were superb. Interesting set and scene changes. All performances very good indeed.
In our household, I’m with the “four stars out of five” reviewers (most of those above), while Daisy would be more with Fiona Mountford and the three stars brigade.
We went home with plenty to think/talk about and nibbled at cold compilations rather than our more regular routine; to take away a hot meal.
No business visits this time and only Days One and Two for cricket.
Again the excellent Eaton Hotel, but not before driving straight to the ground on the Wednesday morning, after a good early morning workout at the gym.
There’s a regular core of people in the Committee Room at Edgbaston, so it felt a bit like a regathering of the clan. A very pleasant clan too.
At the end of Day One we thought that Warwickshire were on top; just. At the end of Day Two, Middlesex seemed to be bossing the game. In the end, as has been so often the case this season, the weather determined the match, on the Saturday. Scorecard here.
Two overnights, affording time for reading, writing and ukulele playing. I took Luke the Baroq-ulele (of Thomas Gresham Society Soiree fame) this time.
I left Edgbaston just after 10:00 on the Friday, once my early afternoon meeting in London had been confirmed; otherwise I might have been able to enjoy the first two or three hours of play that day also. On the Friday evening, after a relatively frantic (albeit short) day’s work, I got my exercise playing real tennis.
When reminiscing on that subject recently along the Bristol Road, Nigel identified a dilapidated, disused looking place, The Lakeside Hotel, as the likely location. I said no, because the name did not ring any bells with me. But since my research for the above piece on The Beechwood Hotel, I realised that Nigel was right, that’s the address, so it is the same place, renamed.
So, after stumps on 1 September I took a slight detour along the Bristol Road on my way back to the charms and delights of The Eaton Hotel.
I discovered the place, hiding behind the untamed greenery of its garden:
Trust me, dear reader, I have put the above picture through the photo software’s “fix it” filters twice to brighten up the picture.
Why the name “Lakeside” I cannot imagine; there was no lake anywhere near, other than the hootch lake the “manager” chap was presumably dipping into regularly. As for the expansive leisure activities promise on the sign on the right-hand side…oh dear.
Sadly, although I managed to uncover hilarious on-line reviews of The Beechwood online, such as…
“hell-hole”
and
“DO NOT GO THERE, you’d be better off in a cardboard box”…
My trusty iPhone (Ivan) found me a delightful walking route back to the Eaton Hotel, walking further up Sir Harry’s Road on the other side of the Priory Club from our regular route; just subtly different from (though similarly lovely to) our regular walk. It occurred to me that the route might even be the tiniest bit quicker when heading for the Pershore Road entrance to the Ground, as we do. So my stroll might have some benefits for the future, as well as being a stroll down one of memory lane’s hell-holes.
But in the week leading up to that historic match, it felt as though I had more runs than England’s record runs. You know what I mean. It started with, I thought, indigestion in the early hours of the previous Tuesday and built from there. I’ll spare you the details, dear reader.
Not a good idea ahead of a bank holiday/birthday weekend; especially one where you are due to go to Lord’s on the Saturday.
On the morning of Lord’s itself, around 8:00, at the flat, Janie and I more or less gave up the idea of venturing to Lord’s at all. But I didn’t feel poorly over the next hour or so, therefore we hatched a plan to get a limited form of the picnic ready at a gentle pace, watch the first hour or so on the TV at the flat and see how I feel.
Indeed, by 11:30 I felt that England were very well placed and that we’d be able to cab it and just stroll in to Lord’s without queues or stress. I was grateful to myself for having impulse bought those front row seats I spotted on the on-line system, as the rover/membership pass route might have been a bit awkward in terms of getting half-decent seats at that hour.
To be honest, the match/crowd lacked atmosphere to a greater extent than I can remember at Lord’s for a long time. A sense of inevitability and the cricket being secondary. Very different crowd sitting near us, compared with the test crowd in the same seats. Unfriendly to say the least.
King Cricket readers straying here might, due to KC’s obsession with the champagne corks at Lord’s – for context click here – be interested in my cork report. Just one lone cork sitting on the patch of grass in front of us where, just a few months before, there had been a veritable sea of corks. The MCC instructs its members and customers not to project their corks onto the pitch; those members and customers obey. That’s what stewardship of the laws and spirit of cricket can achieve. Makes me feel proud that Lord’s is my local.
We met up with The Friends for a while in the Coronation Garden towards the end of the innings interval, which was a very pleasant interlude for us. They asked us to join them for the second half of the match – they had a spare rover for Janie, but we thought better of it, especially as I wasn’t sure that I could cope with much more and I sensed that Janie wasn’t desperate to stay much longer.
So, we went back to our seats, watched for another hour or so, convinced ourselves that the Root/Morgan partnership was a winning one and so chose to leave once Morgan was out.
Despite eating little and drinking nothing but water, I still felt pretty rough the next day, which is a bit of a bummer on your birthday but these things happen.
Janie’s healing skills got me better by bank holiday Monday, much of which we spent in the Brent Cross Apple Store trying to heal Janie’s very sickly iPhone. Apple chose to replace said phone, which was a good result, but frankly this was a bank holiday/birthday weekend to forget.
For my visit to Birmingham to see best part of three days of the Warwickshire v Middlesex match at Edgbaston (early September 2015) and to get some business visits in to boot, I decided to go for short versions of the same story told from four different perspectives, starting with Benjy the Baritone Ukulele and ending with Ged himself.
A short debate ensued, with most people siding with me and Kim. Janie was pretty sure it was Julie Andrews. Kim was absolutely sure it was Shirley MacLaine. Kim and Janie wagered a future meal on the outcome.
Kim and I were surprised. I was pretty sure I could visualise Shirley MacLaine in the movie, whereas I just couldn’t envisage Julie Andrews in the part. Kim similarly. I suggested that, in our subjective realities, it really was Shirley MacLaine. So at the very least MacLaine, not Andrews, was the star of our movie, Thoroughly Post-Modern Millie.
With the 2016 Olympic Games drawing to a close that evening, the conversation reminded me of a little thought experiment I put to some friends at the end of the London 2012 Olympics. An event named the modern pentathlon (fencing, show-jumping, swimming, running and shooting) was pretty much the last thing playing out. Loads of people (me and Janie included) watched it for the first time ever; we didn’t want the 2012 olympics to end.
My thought experiment was the post-modern pentathlon. I quote myself:
The post-modern pentathlon is all about subjective reality, so you may choose your own events. MY post-modern pentathlon events are pinball, table football, playing tennis with the wrong hand and payroll giving.
I know what you are thinking. That’s only four events; a pentathlon has five events. But in the subjective reality of MY post-modern pentathlon, four events is plenty.
In the post-modern pentathlon, of course, the scoring is down to oneself (subjective reality again). I am pleased to inform you that I won the bronze medal. You might have expected me to award myself gold, but I am surely not competitive enough to get the very highest score. I would naturally aspire to best-of-the-rest; silver, but my record in competitive sports has always been to disappoint myself to some extent, so at best I think I would achieve bronze. A little disappointing, but I gave my all for Team GB, did my best and left it all out there on the fields of play. That was all I could ask of myself.
On reflection, I think Janie would make an excellent Thoroughly Post-Modern Millie – see photo above – even more than Shirley MacLaine.
And with subjective hindsight, perhaps I should have a fifth event in my post-modern pentathlon after all; marathon ogblogging.
The connection is a bit tenuous, or at least idiosyncratic. Kim invited me and Janie at relatively short notice to join her groupie-fest to see Never The Bride. I explained that Middlesex were in line to be at T20 Finals Day this year and that I would only join the gig outing if Middlesex were eliminated before finals day.
As it happens, Kim and Janie were still enjoying a meal together when I started my drive back from that ill-fated evening in Northampton. I called Janie to let her know that Middlesex had lost. Both girls cheered at the thought that I would therefore join the gang for Never The Bride. Hopeless at understanding priorities and sensibilities, both of them.
So Kim was up for this gig big time; which meant the full works. Gang of eight: Kim, Micky, Alan, Janie, me, Joanna, Becky and Millie. Stretch limo with magna of bubbly (see photo above) and a rather OCD timetable which required us to leave NW11 at 16:00 just to be sure of arriving at a venue outside Milton Keynes in time to eat at the venue and take our reserved seats at 20:00.
We ended up with a lot of time to kill. Not that most of the entourage would have noticed; several of them were blotto by meal time. Some had started drinking before we left London. Meal time was 18:15 at the earliest and we arrived in the grounds at 17:00. I didn’t want to drink anything before eating and felt mighty uncomfy in that stretch limo, so I got out and had a good walk around the grounds.
The place is basically Cleo Laine’s house, together with the venue she and the late John Dankworth established in the old stable. The house itself is very beautiful and Cleo Laine is clearly happy for visitors to wander up the drive to see the beautiful ivy-clad front of the house and to have a peek through a locked gate at the very beautiful, well-maintained back garden.
The meal in the Stables Cafe was very bland but also therefore inoffensive. The concert was delayed by about an hour due to some technical sound problems, which must have been beyond fixing, in fact, because the band was already there sorting out sound checks and stuff at 17:00 when we arrived and continued to signal disapproval throughout the gig.
Nikki (vocals), Been on keyboards and guest Sally Jo on the electric violin
Kim is not the only fan of this band – indeed Whispering Bob Harris is an outspoken fan and was due to present the band that night. Instead, he sent a video introduction due to slight ill health. Or perhaps he knew something about the current state of The Stables sound system that neither we nor Never The Bride knew.
I felt sorry for the band really. They had recorded a live album and video at this venue some years ago and were recording (or at least trying to do so) that night. I suspect that things had changed at the venue somewhat in between visits. Not least the nature of the audience for this gig as promoted – click here; not very rock’n’roll; more Wigmore Hall or Lord’s on a members’ night.
Nikki and Been with guests Jolly Jumper from Norway on Harmonica and John Emms from Germany on Trumpet.
The band had lined up some terrific guest performers (see photo captions above). You don’t get to see much of Been, “because she hides behind that mass of hair” according to Janie, but she is a super keyboard player and also played two other instruments just to show off.
Been on Guitar
Been and Nikki write many of their own songs, although in truth I feel their strongest skill is as performers and that their covers of suitable, well-known material, such as the Janis Joplin stuff and the blues numbers they played with their guests worked best. Both sets of covers they performed at Kim and Janie’s party were superb throughout.
I don’t think the band were that fussed about an entourage turning up from London in a limo. Nikki only mentioned it two or three times during the show; the last time she mentioned it she also suggested a post-show tequila party in the limo.
Kim insisted on hanging around for an hour or so after the gig – she didn’t want her groupie day to be over (or perhaps she fancied that tequila party), but in the end was persuaded by the others that it was time to go home.
No M1 roadworks that night, thank goodness. Not that I would have noticed. Three glasses of wine over the evening and the clock nearing midnight – I was “gonnnnnnne”.
I’m Only Sleeping
Not sure I ever was very rock’n’roll. Am absolutely sure that I’m not rock’n’roll now. Janie went with the flow of the evening more readily than I did, although in truth she also drank little and was, like me, pleased for a nice quiet day on the Sunday.
