Ian Louis Harris

Shakespeare’s Globe Bankside, Tour and Exhibition, 15 June 2016

Janie and I put aside this day primarily for a preview of the new Tate Modern building, as friends were invited for a sneak peek before the general public on the Tuesday evening or Wednesday before opening.

We also wanted to do the tour and exhibition think at Shakespeare’s Globe, which I joined a few months ago and which we would be visiting as audience members that Saturday.

As Janie turned up late at the flat and as I ascertained that we would not see the theatre itself on the tour unless we turned up by 12:30, it was indeed the 12:30 tour we took.

It was good. Our guide showed us around the main theatre itself inside and outside, explaining the background to the project and the extent to which they have attempted authenticity in design and build.

Soon we were thrown out because they were getting ready for the matinee. I suppose the building is all a bit über-mock-tudor, but then we know all about that on the Hanger Hill Garden Estate.

We then went into The Swan (the pub bit, not the fine dining bit), for some light lunch; not bad food – Janie was more impressed with the place than I was. Nice quirky decor though; a mix of arty grunge and traditional/gastro pub.

After lunch, back for a quick look around the exhibition, which I thought was cool. Lots of interactive toys to play with and a lot of stuff about Edward Alleyn as well as Shakespeare (not least the discovery of the Rose Theatre ruins which helped with the Globe’s design of course). Still, this interested me more than it interested Janie, who called time on the exhibition by disappearing.

I found her again soon enough outside the building and we moved on to the Tate Modern, which I shall write up separately.

England v Sri Lanka, 3rd Test Days Two, Three and Five, Lord’s, 10, 11 & 13 June 2016

Friday

Day Two of the test match. My companions/guests were Ian Theodoreson, Chris Harrison and Mark Yeandle (aka Iain Spellright, Escamillo Escapillo and Uncail Marcas).

The picnic bore more than just a passing resemblance to the fare I provided on the Thursday. This time I brought a bottle of Giesen Riesling rather than Villa Wolf.

However, I had agreed to play real tennis at 18:00, so it was part of my personal master plan not to eat and drink too much on this day. As I had so much stuff to bring (including my kit) I got a taxi to the ground that morning. In any case, walking with a picnic for four really is a bit too much for the poor old arms.

The East Gate was absolutely clear as I arrived – very easy entry. I wandered round to the tennis court to drop off my kit. I ran into Paul Cattermull there, who was fearful of rain. I said that I didn’t think it would rain, so he introduced me to his pals as a forecaster who doesn’t trust forecasts. Anyway, on this occasion it didn’t rain.

We saw good cricket today. The picnic went down well with this group; supplemented by some delicious cherries (thank you, Iain Spellright) and Uncail Marcas’s famous local strawberries close to if not at their full-flavoured best. The others made up a bit for my low wine intake, especially as they all had a beer as well. Most of my bottle of Giesen survived for another day.

All of them were keen to get away a little before stumps, so we actually left our seats as a group at around 17:40 and parted company.

While I had been careful to drink very little and moderate my eating, especially the last hour or two, I realised that my body doesn’t move quite as well as it should after a day of sitting and watching cricket. In particular, my serve lacked the rhythm I have started to find for it. Still, I got better as the hour went on and my opponent (whom I hadn’t played for several weeks) felt that my game had come on markedly since we last played.

Taxi home – I got there about 19:40 – Janie turned up soon after – her late afternoon/early evening with Charlotte had gone well. Janie had walked home through Kensington Gardens, feeding birds from close quarters on the way.

Early night.

Saturday

Day Three of the test match. Just me and Janie that day. The picnic bore more than just a passing resemblance to the fare I provided on the Thursday and Friday; indeed Friday’s bottle of Giesen made a return trip, together with a fine Villa Maria Clifford Bay.

A taxi nice and early (about 9:30/9:40) to secure decent seats. The temporary steward at the Grace Gate beefed about my returning bottle of Giesen as there is apparently a rule (unwritten as far as I know) about bottles that have already been opened, just in case someone smuggles in hard liquor that way. If I wanted to smuggle in hard liquor I think I’d find a better method than a disguise as a half-drunk bottle of wine from yesterday. The steward relented.

We wandered round to the Grandstand (the Warner is still under construction) and I surmised correctly that our best bet is entrance B – neither the nearest from Grace Gate nor nearest from the North Gate. We found a couple of seats by the aisle just three rows back.

Good cricket that day. Here’s the scorecard from the match – it should be in this piece somewhere – why not here?

My Stokes effort shows a playing cricketer in the background too

We got chatting with the people next to us. Christian, a barrister originally from my neck of the woods (Notting Hill Gate) and clearly still nostalgically attached to it, but now he lives in Cardiff and was there with a bunch of his Taffy mates. Nice bunch. Chatting to Christian was like spending the afternoon at a university debating society, except with test match cricket at Lord’s to watch while you debate. Mercifully there were no donkeys around to have their hind legs argued off.

Unusually, we stuck it out until the very end today. No hardship doing that when walking home via the Grace Gate.

Monday

Followed the match by radio/TV at the house after playing modern tennis Sunday. We were lucky to get our game of (modern) tennis in on that rainy day; the cricket was curtailed to about half a day.

On Monday, I drove home, dumped my things and then went to Lord’s by tube/foot to play real tennis. The weather forecast for the hours of (cricket) play was iffy, but the weather was gloomy but dry when I arrived at Lord’s.

I had a good game of real tennis, then (well prepared) hunkered down with my backlog of reading matter in the hope of seeing cricket. The weather flattered to deceive at times and we did get a few overs of play, but the main feature of the day for me was to catch up on my magazine reading before grabbing a taxi home in the damp gloom.

England v Sri Lanka, 3rd Test Day One, Lord’s, 9 June 2016

The first of three days in a row at Lord’s for the test match – the first time I have ever done more than two days total for a Lord’s test.

Conveniently, one of my guests for this day was Alex “King Cricket” Bowden, who wrote up the day on his King Cricket web site the following day, while I was busy doing it all again, so to speak. Alex’s report is pretty comprehensive, sparing me the need to write much.

England v Sri Lanka at Lord’s, day one – match report

If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, you can read a scrape of that KC report here.

I’d baked the Lord’s Throdkins and prepared the glazed drunken prawns (recipe to follow on the King Cricket site at some point way in the future) the night before. Still, an early start for me that day to get the picnic ready.

Postscript 30 March 2017: King Cricket has today published the glazed drunken prawns recipe – click here.

Cricket recipe: Ged Ladd’s “Home Of Cricket” Glazed Drunken Prawns

If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, that recipe has been scraped to here.

I had an interesting conversation with Charley and Al about the playlists for Kim and Janie’s party (lists downloadable towards the end of the piece for that event – click here). Charley of course was suggesting his usual peculiar mix of heavy stuff, most of which I had considered and rejected or not even considered. Al then started reeling off names of tracks he would want on the lists, almost all of which were on them!

In particular, the dance music, it turns out that Al was really into that Motown and Stax stuff back then – he even saw the Stax/Volt tour in Nelson, 1967 – lucky chap. It also turns out, when I mentioned that the lists had Joe Boyd’s blessing, that Al knows him well; another peculiar coincidence.

Just one other point to add. When I took Alex round to see the real tennis court, I deposited a small packet of the Lord’s Throdkins with Rachel on the reception desk. The following day I deposited a few more with Adam. If all goes according to plan, the Lord’s Throdkin really will become “a thing” at Lord’s.

Further Postscript

I wrote up my own take on one of the many conversations Alex “King Cricket” Bowden and I had that day, which he published, in February 2018, here:

A report on a 2016 England v Sri Lanka match on which we’ve already reported

If by any chance anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, you can still read that fascinating report, scraped to here.

The 2016 Cowdrey Lecture by Brendon McCullum, Lord’s, 6 June 2016

Janie had kept most of the afternoon clear and I had arranged to play real tennis before the lecture, so we hatched a plan for Janie to join me at Lord’s early and use the dedans gallery for a spot of watching and reading. She was yet to see me play until that day.

The plan worked well; Janie arrived soon after me, so by the time I’d changed she was already in the dedans gallery having a look at the combatants. Meanwhile, I had found out, somewhat to my surprise, that I was to play doubles that day, with Chris Swallow the coach as my partner and a couple of experienced doubles players as our opponents. It would be good experience for me but quite a challenge as I had only played doubles a couple of times before. It all went well enough and Janie said she enjoyed watching it.

I watched the next pair with her for a while, then went to sauna, shower and change before watching the end of that later pair’s game for a while. Then we put my equipment into the car (Janie had found a top spot on the St John’s Wood Road) and then wandered round to the Nursery Pavilion for the event.

The first hour was a drinks reception; very pleasant. We met Ian Lovett as we went in and spent some time talking with him, Mike O’Farrell, his wife Sue (whom we met for the first time that evening), Geoff Norris and a gentleman named Tim whom I’ve spoken to at Middlesex events in the past. Ian also introduced me to Colin Graves, who seemed very pleasant once you get used to his slightly scary grimace-like smile.

We spotted a little late that most people had filed into the lecture area, but I also realised that it was the central block and the near block that had almost filled up. We quickly walked around the front to the furthest block, where we were able to get excellent seats in the second row quite near the podium. I realised how good the seats were shortly after, when I realised that Mike Brearley and Andrew Strauss had taken up seats in the row behind us.

We sat next to a couple of antipodean gentlemen, both named Mike, which was easy to remember as I observed that the podium stood empty except for two mikes awaiting McCullum’s speech. The antipodean Mikes reported that they had been drinking in the tavern before the reception and had shared a jar with Brendon McCullum in there; they showed us photographic evidence which seemed pretty incriminating. The two Mikes were jolly company for the few minutes we waited for the speech.

Roger Knight welcomed us all to Lord’s in his inimitable style. He’s far more convincing in the welcoming role of President than he was as Secretary, if my Guardian-reported “Cow Corner: Up The Revolution” tussle with him in 2003 over women in the Bowlers’ Bar is a fair way to judge his previous tenure. Probably isn’t.

Then the speech, the full transcript of which is available here. Public speaking is clearly not what Brendon McCullum does best. Janie said afterwards that she didn’t think Brendon McCullum was coherent. Actually I think he was both eloquent and coherent in the content of his material, which was scripted, but he was a little garbled in delivery. Whether that was nerves or the Dutch courage he took before the lecture or a bit of both it’s hard to tell. In any case, it was very interesting and it was a privilege to attend and hear the lecture live.

Then after a quick podium change, video malfunction and tie-clip mike malfunction, a round table discussion led well by Mark Nicholas, with Kumar Sangakkara and Eoin Morgan joining Brendon McCullum to answer questions. Interesting, but our tummy’s were rumbling by the end of it, especially as Janie had been led to expect Big Al DeLarge’s veal meatballs with pasta and salad for dinner, which in the circumstances was a relaxing and enjoyable alternative to the grand pavilion dinner which we had considered and rejected.

We discussed Kumar Sangakkara’s erudition, relative to that of Brendon McCullum, but Janie opined that she had heard enough of Sangakkara for now, “we all know how clever he is”, so she awarded higher marks to McCullum for bravery. An interesting echo of their relative cricketing skills/appeal too, perhaps.

Regardless of all that, we’d both had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening at Lord’s.

Giving by Hannah Patterson, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 4 June 2016

Janie wasn’t sure that she was in the mood for the theatre when we set off for Swiss Cottage that evening, especially when I said that the subject matter was big donor philanthropy. “More your sort of subject than mine,” she said.

Still, there was the promise of a different oriental restaurant to try afterwards, Singapore Garden, a result of Janie’s research. Plus the fact that the play was billed as a short one; 90 minutes without an interval.

Janie’s spirits were further dampened when we took our seats, as a group of four people asked us to budge along our row to the end. At first Janie simply said no, so they split their group around us. Frankly, I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t gone to the other side where there were at least two blocks big enough for their group. Still, I told Janie that I thought she had responded rather abruptly, so Janie relented and we ended up tucked in the corner. “They didn’t even say thank you and I’m stuck with a lousy view,” fumed Janie.

After a while, I turned to the gentleman next to me and arranged for us to sit more centrally while they took the four corner seats, which seemed fairer in the circumstances. One woman in front of us turned round and said to Janie, “good on you; I hate it when people badger me like that.” Oh for the relative simplicity of allocated seats.

Anyway, it turned out that this was a really good play/production. The set is simple but clever, as furniture representing different locations get tucked away into the walls of other locations; not original but well done in this play. The acting from all four was excellent.

The plot satisfying enough. We aren’t really made to dig too deep into the moral dilemmas around conscience-salving donors, but there is enough intrigue, love interest and moral uncertainty to keep you guessing and to make you think. Well worth the 90 minutes and the modest price for tickets downstairs. We continue to see the Hampstead Downstairs as a gem of a place with a terrific hit rate from our point of view.

Downstairs productions don’t get formal reviews, of course, but it is covered well on monkeymatterstheatre.com, also on the oughttobeclowns blogspot. The latter points out how very special Sinéad Matthews is as an up and coming actress. We first spotted her more than 10 years ago, in The Wild Duck at the Donmar, when she was but a nipper.

Later, to add compliment to remedy, we thoroughly enjoyed our Singapore Garden dinner. Where has that place been all our lives? Well, it’s been in Swiss Cottage/South Hampstead for some while I gather.

A Rather Strange Mix of a Day, 3 June 2016

Unusually, I spent Thursday night at the house, as the kitchen ceiling at the flat was being done over the Thursday/Friday.

I spent a couple of hours first thing, working on my latest “why Brexit would be an act of collective commercial and geopolitical seppuku” article.

Then I set off by tube for a mixed day of peripatetic work and leisure. First stop; Lord’s for a game of real tennis. I thought I played well again today; perhaps starting to get my head round some of the tactics needed to win big points and close out games.

I didn’t hang around too long at Lord’s, as I wanted to visit Lock and Co. before meeting Chris Harrison for lunch. My beaten up old Chepstow trilby really had become an embarrassment and yet was still a favourite hat; I probably wanted a direct replacement. I tried a few different ones, but basically concluded that in the Chepstow “I look like me” so went for it.

About 150 yards down the road, as I was walking past St James’s Palace, I walked past two young American women, one of whom said to me (without pausing for breath in the middle of her conversational sentence with her friend), “I really like your hat”, which I felt endorsed my buying decision.

Another 150 yards towards Chris’s offices, I am crossing The Mall at the pelican crossing there and I see a cyclist, who has stopped for me at the lights, who looked the spitting image of Boris Johnson. On closer inspection, I realised that it WAS Boris. “You’ve made a really bad call to go for Brexit, Boris”, I said, “a shocking and dangerous decision. Think about the geopolitics of it. Think about the world”.

“No I haven’t, no it isn’t” mumbled Boris as we parted company. I wonder whether I made him think at all? I wonder whether he liked my hat?

Postscript: November 2018

I realise, in retrospect, that my intervention with Boris might be considered to be a microaggression, or even a macro-aggression, frankly.

Imagine the scene; a be-suited gentleman in a sharp Paul Smith suit and a brand new Chepstow from Lock & Co, carrying a rather peculiar looking bag, which happens to contain nothing more than a real tennis racket, waving the bag in anger at a stationery Boris on a bike:

Here are some of the items for you to peruse

That real tennis bag, a kind “hand-me-down” gift from Angela Broad, has some antiquity to it and is a rarely seen thing these days. Indeed, when I was playing as a refugee at The Queen’s Club in September 2018…

Tennis At Queen’s Followed By Dinner With Simon Jacobs At Brasserie Blanc, 12 September 2018

…the young professionals there were convinced that my real tennis bag contained a sawn-off shotgun rather than a tennis racket…

…which is a bit odd at one of a handful of places in the world where there is more than one real tennis court.

Coincidentally, one of those young professionals, Jack Clifton, transferred to Lord’s when it reopened in October and spotted straight away that one of the real tennis exhibits in the reception is a very similar bag; that which belonged to the late, great actor, Sir Ralph Richardson:

The inscription in part reads, “Although not a very gifted player, Sir Ralph was a real tennis devotee…” Sounds like my kind of guy.

Anyway, point is, I did not intend my intervention with Boris Johnson to be quite as aggressive as it might have seemed. Further, I apologise unequivocally for my unintended aggression towards Boris. I should, to use language that lawyers and Boris understand, have aligned my mens rea with my actus reus.

Back To the Original 2016 Piece

A delightful lunch with Chris, at which I handed over his ticket for Friday at the test. A small family-run Italian place near his offices; I had a very tasty seafood pasta. Good strong coffee afterwards too. I had texted Janie to let her know that I had accosted Boris in the street, so she phoned to make sure that I wasn’t joking and/or hadn’t had a psychotic episode. Chris and I wondered why Boris was cycling away from the Commons at lunchtime and where he might have been going.

After lunch, a tube ride to Hammersmith and time to do a spot more on the Brexit paper before my one client meeting of the day, which went very well. Then a simple tube ride back to North Ealing, beating Janie back to the house by a good few minutes.

After clearing my e-mails, it was time for a little ukulele practice with Benjy the Baritone Ukulele, who thus photo-bombed the above picture of me sporting my new hat.

Janie and I then enjoyed an unusually early Persian food supper from Boof, a very good local Persian place.

A strange but pleasant day.

A Groovy Happening In Cricklewood, Kim and Janie’s 60’s Party, 28 May 2016

This party was rather a long time in the planning. The date was set at least 18 months before the event. Kim’s birthday is late April, Janie’s is late June, so the last Saturday in May, which is also a bank holiday weekend, seemed ideal.

60’s as the theme, given the “big zero” milestone year both of them were to be reaching. It did help just a bit, of course, that Kim is in the themed party planning business. It also helped that several vivid imaginations went to work on the ideas.

On arrival, everyone was given a little bottle and a pewter cup (see photo above). People only heard 1960s style sitar music – the following playlist was playing on a loop: 60’s Warm Up Ravi Shankar To Beatles Playlist Final.

People were kept in a relatively small reception area, part courtyard, part entranceway to the Theme Traders site.

Actors dressed as Hari Krishnas welcomed new arrivals and mingled with the guests.

Then the Hari Krishnas led all the guests through the warehouse, past all the nooks and crannies that would later be party breakout rooms. At that stage the 60’s Warm Up Ravi Shankar To Beatles Playlist Final was playing throughout the warehouse.

In the garden at the back of the site, the guests were crowded into an enclosed area, not realising that the walls were paper and that behind the walls was a band ready to play and a barbecue ready to grill. In that area one of the actors was dressed as a guru. Janie had briefed him on the sorts of things to say, which ended up being a mixture of Timothy Leary, Beatles lyrics, general “peace and love” messages, getting people to chant back his incantations and the like.

It’s hard to explain why this was very funny, but it was. Some people seemed to be really into it. Only a small handful of us knew what was really going on; we of course egged on the guests, although they didn’t need much egging. Everyone must have realised that it was all meant to be a bit of fun.

Then the guru started to get very excited and even more rambling in his incantations, the drums started to roll and the guru tore down a paper wall to reveal the band.

With everyone looking towards the band, I realised that someone needed to make a start on the wall to reveal the food, which I did and found rather cathartic after all those months and especially the last few days of preparation. Soon others were helping me and the whole process probably took 5-10 seconds.

The band, Never The Bride, were really excellent. They are friends of Kim’s, or is it fairer to say that Kim is one of their groupies? Both statements are true I think. We’d seen them perform before at a small party at Kim’s house, but I hadn’t realised from that scaled down performance they had the oomph and repertoire to create a “60’s rock fest” atmosphere – but they did just that.

They performed two sets during the evening. The first had the most impact, naturally, but the second was a good “watershed” period for the party…

…a different atmosphere in the dark and a good foil for presenting the cake, butlers removing their trousers and other such merriment.

Between live sets, there was a DJ. We had supplied him with a strong playlist of sixties dance music…

60’s Dance Soul and Funk Top 100 Playlist Final

…but he played little from that and showed reluctance when several guests (including Janie) made specific requests, unfortunately. Later in the evening, I switched the sounds in the Mods breakout area (see below) to the above playlist so that some of us could have more appropriate bop.

Breakout Rooms and Music

The breakout rooms were fabulous. I curated different music for different zones, the playlists for which (but not the music) are all downloadable here:

60’s Surf, Lounge, Jazz & Tropical Playlist Final

60’s Folk, Hippy and Psychedelic Zone Playlist Final

60’s Carnaby Street, Quintessential Playlist Final

60’s Mods, Go-Go, Ska & John The Only One Dancing Playlist Final

Between the surf lounge area and the hippy psychedelic area was a small breakout room with everything upside down, “Alice In Wonderland”-like. When we went over to set up the sound the day before, Kim’s team were worried because there was so much sound bleed between those two other zones in that area. I listened for a while and realised that the very different types of music, one type coming from one side, the other type coming from the other side, created a very strange soundscape and decided that this was exactly what music in the upside down room should sound like! It became a real feature.

The actors changed from Hari Krishnas to characters from the Sixties and mingled around the party and the breakout areas. By way of example, here is a picture of “Andy Warhol” in the Hippy Zone:

Movie

One of the breakout rooms was a mini cinema, which showed an amazing short movie that Kim and Janie had made a few weeks before the party. It depicts the two of them talking about the heady days of the sixties and mingling with many big names from that era. It is really very funny. If you haven’t seen it and want to have a look at the movie, for the time being drop me an e-mail or a comment and I’ll arrange for you to see it.

Photos

There are loads of photos. For now, if you go to my Flickr albums area, you can see all the mini albums that friends have sent to me and Janie, click here. More are coming through and we plan to sit down with Kim and make up a consolidated album over the next few weeks.

More

I’ll write more about the food and the photos and the music in the fullness of time, but it is (at the time of writing this piece) nearly two weeks since the party, so the public deserves to read something about it by now. Although those of us who were there will struggle to forget this party…

…although they say that if you remember the Sixties you weren’t doing it right…so in that sense, I suppose, this memorable evening was contra-Sixties. Or perhaps uber-Sixties.

Anyway, it was fab and groovy. Peace and love.

A Couple of Days spent mostly at Lord’s, Middlesex v Somerset, 23 & 24 May 2016

Monday

I played real tennis at the convenient time of 10:00 – convenient that is for seeing a fair chunk of county cricket afterwards. I played a good game this morning by my own sporadic standards. By the time I had showered, changed and chatted best part of half the morning session had passed, but I found a nice sunny spot in the pavilion and hunkered down with my book, A Confederacy of Dunces, which I was determined to finish today, along with some more business-oriented reading.

I had taken with me the simplest lunch of nuts and fruit. A resuscitating coffee in the pavilion afterwards and then I went in search of more sun by relocating to the front of the Mound Stand. Fine spring weather it was.

Trego and Gregory were trying to ruin Middlesex’s day, but once Trego fell the wickets tumbled. Then Robson and Gubbins got to work in fine style.

Meanwhile I was making similarly light work of A Confederacy of Dunces; I shall write up that book in its capacity as cricket reading for King Cricket.

Postscript: my “review” was published on King Cricket on 13 March 2017 – click here.

If anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to here.

Once that was done, I read the Economist and then, as it started to get a little colder, decided to bail out while I was still enjoying myself – after all, I’d be back tomorrow for some more and wanted to clear some work from home.

Tuesday

A couple of meetings first thing towards the Middlesex strategy, then a few minutes before lunch to watch the cricket. I joined Brian and Judy for the first time this season, hoping to witness the completion of a couple of tons and a double century stand between Robson and Gubbins, but Robson fell on 99 with the team score on 198. But Gubbins did go on to complete his maiden county championship ton.

Again some reviving coffee at lunchtime, while watching Andy Murray snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Radek Stepanek in the first round of Roland Garros. Then I wandered over to the Upper Compton stand, in the hope of finding James Sharp of Googlies and Chinamen fame. So much for one man and a dog at county matches – there must have been a couple of hundred people up there. I asked a few people, who I recognised as Middlesex regulars, if they knew James, but they didn’t, so I e-mailed James with my location. But it transpires that James travels incognito, or at least without an e-mail device. He says he also looked out for me, but it wasn’t to be.

One of the more senior regulars up there suggested to me that Middlesex were batting so slowly that they might lose the match. I said I thought they were getting close to the position when only Middlesex could win, although the draw remained the most likely outcome.

Here’s the match scorecard, btw.

Then as 15:00 approached, I wandered back round towards the main gate, as I was expecting cousins Ted and Sue as guests. I ran into Steve Tasker along the way and we had a good chat. Then I saw Harry and Blossom Latchman, and spoke with them briefly, until I spotted Ted and Sue at the Grace Gate. The stewards did their wonderful bit of making guests feel like honoured visitors. I showed them around the lower pavilion and we watched the last few overs before tea from there.

Then I showed them the upper pavilion and Bowlers Bar, where we had a drink and watched for a while, until Ted casually mentioned that he’d like to see the museum. I thought we’d missed the closing time, but the stewards kindly let us follow the last tour in so Ted and Sue could at least see the Ashes. Then I showed them the real tennis court, which they enjoyed for a while, then round to the Presidents Box for the last few overs before stumps.

An early dinner at The Bridge House (home of the Canal Cafe Theatre) and then a walk back to their Paddington hotel, followed by a short hike back to the flat for me.

Splendid, it all was.

Lawrence After Arabia by Howard Brenton, Hampstead Theatre, 21 May 2016

It has been said that his majesty and I bear some slight resemblance… https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Feisal_I_of_Iraq.jpg

Oh dear.

It sounded like a good idea when we booked it. Such an interesting period of Middle-Eastern history. Howard Brenton, who did such an interesting job on Ai Weiwei, taking on an interesting character in T. E. Lawrence. Timely, as it is the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement this year…

The problem is, that period was also a period when English theatre was in its dull Edwardian through 1920s drawing room drama doldrums. Howard Brenton seems to think it a good idea to parody the very worst of that period’s drama for this play. Director John Dove takes the idea further with a staid, static style to the piece. There are some good actors in this play but frankly we couldn’t care less what happened to any of the characters, which doesn’t give the cast much room for manoevre.

Neither Janie nor I could tell you too much detail about the first half; we both slept through much of it. It was a deathly dull hour, even when sleep spares you much of it. It would have been a deathly dull two hours, but we agreed to cut our losses and leave at the interval. So we can’t tell you anything about the second half. I am reliably informed by Grant (someone I know from the gym who did suffer the whole thing) that it gets no better in the second half.

The Hampstead Theatre area for this play has lots of good reviews – here , so it has clearly received good reviews, not least in both of the Telegraphs. The audience certainly looked like they had all been bussed in from Telegraph reader central casting. However:

Congratulations to all of you critics for managing to stay awake sufficiently to review the piece, or alternatively for covering up your lack of wakefulness deftly in your columns.

I did wake up for the bit where Lawrence shows off the thawb, bisht and igal, the garments of a bedouin leader, gifted to him by Prince (later King) Faisal. I liked that bit. Firstly, I am said by some to resemble Faisal (see picture above); I certainly resemble him far more than the actor who plays him in this play.

Secondly I have a fine collection of natty thawbs, bestowed upon me by one of Janie’s wealthy Saudi clients. Indeed I do much of my writing at the flat wearing a thawb; especially in the summer when it is a very sensible way to dress when writing.

But I digress. The play is deathly dull. Did I mention that before? Is irritating when people waste your time simply repeating stuff they have said before? Or is it a quirky, whimsical touch, that could maintain your interest and tickle your sense of humour for a couple of hours.

On a positive note, the programme is a really interesting read. We highly recommend it. The programme is well worth the trip to Swiss Cottage and its £3.50 cover price. Just don’t waste your time and money on this turkey of a play.

Mustang, Curzon Mayfair, 20 May 2016

After an intense afternoon of baking in Borough Market, Janie and I sullied forth to the Curzon Mayfair, laden with bread, cheese and charcuterie, to see Mustang. We’d both read about it and had both agreed that this was a rare “must see movie” for us.

It was just that.

Details and reviews about Mustang are available through the usual sources – here on IMDb, for example…

…and here on Rotten Tomatoes.

We thought it really was a cracking good movie. It deserves all the plaudits and awards it is receiving. The acting is terrific and the style captivating. Janie and I were both tired, yet we were both gripped and moved from start to finish.

While I can understand why so many people are comparing it with The Virgin Suicides, I think there are so many differences in plot, context and style that the comparison is positively unhelpful.

Not least, I found The Virgin Suicides an eerie, even creepy micro story about mysterious happenings in a small town. Whereas Mustang, to me, is a far more straightforward narrative mirror, reflecting the schism in Turkish society between modern liberal and traditional conservative cultures.

Anyway, don’t listen to me; the only way to judge this film properly is to see it. Then discuss it with your companion(s) afterwards, as Janie and I did at length. In our case, over bread, cheese, charcuterie and some rather jolly red wine.

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