Betwixt some noisy and frenetic visits to Lord’s for “The Hundred”, a quiet day of relaxed, county cricket at Radlett, as Middlesex were playing Yorkshire in the one day cup (50 overs tournament).
Long in the planning, this one. Yorkshire Simon had been waiting a long time for any Yorkshire cricket to visit Middlesex, so as soon as this fixture was announced Simon wondered if we might be able to keep this date free.
Attempts to watch out-ground cricket with Fran and Simon have often ended up soggy affairs. The lowest (or at least wettest) ebb being at Uxbridge six years ago – click here or below:
Ironically, given how very wet late July and August turned out to be in 2023, this particular day at Radlett was glorious sunshine made pleasant by kind smatterings of high cloud.
To some extent it felt like “a gathering of the clan”, as well as a gathering with Fran, as Janie and I ran into so many of the Middlesex supporting stalwarts, some of whom we hadn’t seen for ages.
In truth the cricket match was somewhat of a donkey derby – the last match for the qualifying group with both Middlesex and Yorkshire long since out of contention. But as it happens Middlesex dominated the match and for once chased down a decent-looking total without fuss.
Yorkshire Simon feigns uninterest while Ged observes rare Middlesex dominanceAfter chatting for a while after stumps, we wended our way home while the squad and stalwarts decompressed at the end of an unsuccessful campaign but a successful day.
Only one evening out that week – at Lord’s, for the T20 match between Middlesex & Sussex. I had planned to play tennis that afternoon and stick around for the match anyway, but the call from Jez suggesting we meet up sealed the seal.
I had a good game of doubles partnering our apprentice professional Nat. (I’m sure Nat must have learnt something by partnering me…such as “try to avoid partnering Ged in future.”)
“I can see the potential for a Middlesex win way off in the distance…2024 or 2025.”
I secured some good seats in the tavern stand, only to discover that I had plonked us behind Stephen Bough, another tennis player. I think the Tavern Stand might be “tennis player central” as running into tennis players there is becoming a habit.
Jez and his friend David (whom I hadn’t seen at the cricket for years) soon joined and we hunkered down for a good match.
I decided to stretch my legs for a while, given the exertions just an hour or two earlier, taking some decent snaps of where we were sitting from the Warner.
It was a gloriously sunny evening that whizzed by like a hobgoblin on speed..
It was an excellent game, albeit a donkey derby between two teams that had been consistently losing in the tournament. Middlesex contrived to come second yet again.
Thanks to David Wellbrook for the above picture of me, him & Rohan Candappa
Tuesday 23 May – Brasserie Zédel With Wellbrook & Candappa
I’ve known Rohan Candappa & David Wellbrook for very nearly 50 years now. Rohan is very good at keeping in touch and occasionally just saying, “let’s meet” and/or “there’s something I want to chat through with you fellas”.
We responded to the call. David booked Brasserie Zédel, a favourite place of his. As it happens, I had wanted to try the place for some time, ever since I discovered that my grandfather, Lew Marcus, worked there for decades as a barber in the Regent Palace Hotel, rising to the giddy heights of manager I am told:
Anyway, we were there to chew the fat, catch up and the like. I think I have persuaded Rohan and David to provide some “Fifty Years Ago” reflections on the opening overs of our Alleyn’s School career, as I remember so little about the very early days and didn’t start my diary until January 1974.
Rohan wanted to discuss his thoughts on positive proposals following his extensive fundraising around mental health, not least reframing the language used around that subject.
It became a little difficult to have profound conversation once the jazz trio got started. With two of them sporting flat caps, I thought they might name themselves “Jazz & Dave”.
Always good to catch up with those two. Good food & drink at that place too.
Always great to catch up with John – it had been a while so we had a bit of catching up to do. But we shall be seeing each other again within the month, along with “the girls” and Pady. Part of our catching up comprised planning that gathering.
Thursday 25 May – Lord’s For Sunrisers v South East Stars & Middlesex v Surrey, With Janie
Cullen Bowls To The Curran Brothers
Our plan, which more or less worked, was to get to Lord’s around 15:00 and watch as much of the double-header as took our fancy. The weather smiled on us, for sure, so we took root in Janie’s favourite place, the pavilion sun deck.
In truth, the afternoon women’s game, between the Sunrisers and South East Stars, was somewhat of a damp squib, both in terms of the cricket and also the atmosphere…or lack thereof. Midweek afternoon games work great when youngsters are off school. In term time, the timing virtually guaranteed a tiny crowd before the evening.
A reasonable number of member stalwarts (MCC and MCCC) turned up for both matches, but there was almost no atmosphere for the women’s match, which is a shame.
There was a decent (but not full) crowd for the Middlesex v Surrey fixture.
Anyway, we were enjoying ourselves. But the Surrey score batting first seemed high and the chill of the evening was starting to tell, so we decided to go home and watch the almost inevitable ending of the match on TV.
You probably don’t want to see the scorecards but here they are anyway:
Friday 26 May – Dedanists v Jesters At The Queen’s Club
I was delighted to be selected again to represent The Dedanists in this absolutely crucial real tennis fixture with The Jesters.
If anyone from Alleyn’s School is still reading at this juncture, you might be interested to know that the very first Jesters fixture was in late 1928 – a Rugby Fives match between the nascent Jesters and Alleyn Old Boys.
Actually, in truth, this is one of those fixtures where half the people playing are members of both clubs and half the time it’s hard to work out who is representing which club. Indeed on this occasion I found myself (together with Simon Cripps) playing for the Dedanists but playing against our team captain, Martin Village, who paired up with Anton Eisdell.
I’m glad to say I managed to maintain a winning streak in the matter of match play in Dedanists fixtures at Queen’s, having recently lost my Lowenthal Trophy crown there to, amongst others, Mr Eisdell. The piece linked here and below also describes this Jesters fixture from last year.
It was a thoroughly delightful afternoon and evening – my first (but hopefully not last) opportunity to partner Simon Cripps – who kept getting me out of trouble and who in truth was the key to our success as a pair. Also an opportunity to meet and chat with lots of delightful and interesting people.
It also gave me the opportunity to check up on the progress of the seats I have booked for me and Janie to enjoy the Wednesday of Queen’s this year.
Actually I visited Lord’s twice in the short week before Easter and on both occasions played real tennis.
Given the weather and my other activities, I got more tennis than cricket during those visits.
On the Tuesday, before the start of the cricket season, I had a really good game of doubles, partnering Graham Findlay for the first time and taking on some strong opponents. On paper we should have received some handicap but we played level and still prevailed over 90 minutes. The best I can remember me playing for a long time; perhaps the best I have ever played. Sadly, the CCTV camera stopped running a couple of seconds into our slot, so all I can show of the historic event is this warm-up shot from the hazard end.
Meanwhile Charley “The Gent Malloy” and I had planned to spend the first day of the season at Lord’s together, a bit of a tradition and, with Middlesex playing Essex, a desirable fixture for us both too. But Chas had to withdraw from the planned meet, so I arranged to play tennis first thing with a view to seeing a bit of cricket afterwards, all being well.
Another really good game of doubles, with an opportunity to partner Nick Evans for the first time since goodness-knows-when. Also a chance to play with Bill Taylor again, who was back on court playing competitively after quite a long absence. Again, we played level against the odds for my pairing. This time we lost by a smidgeon. I’d rather not talk about the four set points that went begging, nor my duff call on the opponents’ set point. Again I played well, I felt, but not as well as I had played on the Tuesday.
When I emerged from the dressing room, I ran into Ed Griffiths, Harry Whiteley and Arfan Akram from the London Cricket Trust, who were having an impromptu meeting (chat) about our next stage of activities. They asked me to join them.
In the interludes between the cricket conversation, Ed waxed lyrical about the real tennis, as only he can, suggesting it was a geriatric game, while studiously ignoring the rather good quartet from Prested Hall who were playing by then.
Then Ed collared young Nat, our apprentice professional, asking him why he wasn’t 60 years older than he looked and then asking Nat to provide a three word description of my real tennis.
Graceful, technically gifted…
…came Nat’s spontaneous reply, which I must say I thought was a fine contribution to the debate. I’m not sure what substances (or planet) Nat is on if he actually believes that, but it was a great answer for the context.
The weather then started to smile and Ed wanted to go off to take custody of a ludicrously fast and expensive car for reasons that he did explain but they got a little lost in translation. It’s probably something to do with late-onset-mid-life-crisis.
Ed made a rather disparaging remark about my car, Dumbo, perhaps unaware that Dumbo tends to hang out with ludicrously fast and expensive cars these days:
Two Lamborghinis, Dumbo & a Ferrari: in Waitrose Bayswater Car Park
But I digress.
I got to see some cricket.
I sat for a while in the Writing Room, but then really wanted to get a feel for the outdoor nature of the game, so took up a position in the Warner Stand…
Then, around 3:15, I started to realise how cold I felt and how close the time was getting to the “afternoon showers” predicted by the weather app and increasingly feeling likely. So I went home.
Still, I had played a good game of tennis, had a useful chat about the LCT (between the bants) and seen a couple of hours of cricket. That’s a pretty good day in my book.
There weren’t too many opportunities to watch live county cricket earlier that summer, with the Covid “spatial distancing” (as Janie called it – probably a better description than social distancing) and all that.
We had hoped to meet up with Fran and Simon, but the former was unable to join us on that occasion. The inclement weather that tries to frustrate our purpose when we meet up with one or both of those two did its best to rear its ugly head, but stayed away for long enough to enable us to enjoy some outground cricket in the lovely setting that is Radlett.
Simon wondered if I might like to see a crude vegetableI suppose this courgette pic will be good for King Cricket
The rain came soon after the innings break. Daisy and I decided to go home and catch the end of the match (assuming the shower really was just a shower) on the stream.
The shower really was just a shower.
Exciting ending, that match, but we enjoyed observing it from the relative warmth and dry of the streaming service at home.
I saw several bits of cricket matches in the first 10 days of May, squeezed between lots of work, real tennis and other activities.
Wednesday 1 May 2019: Radlett & Lord’s
Originally, I had planned to block out that day for cricket, but I needed to fit a client meeting in mid to late morning, so had all-but abandoned the idea of seeing cricket that day.
Then I got a message from Fran to say that she and Simon were packing their sun cream, tee-shirts, thick winter coats, galoshes and brollies with every intention of going to the match come what may.
It also turned out to be a week for me being press-ganged into extra real tennis at Lord’s, so after I had stayed on court for an extra hour the day before to get some doubles experience, one of the pros asked if I could be a late stand-in at 20:00 on 1 May for a tough singles.
So the combination of the Fran message, the timing of that tennis press-ganging, together with some favourable weather and an interesting match position…
…persuaded me to jump into Dumbo to join Fran and Simon for a few hours at Radlett, where Middlesex were hosting Somerset, before driving home via Lord’s.
So, I got home from my client meeting, had a quick bite to eat while watching the closing overs of the Middlesex innings on the Chromecast/TV and then jumped into Dumbo who “rode like the wind” to Radlett. We arrived just after 15:00.
Dumbo wasn’t very impressed with the large public field in which he had to park – his previous visit, to a second team match, enabled him a parking space with a bit of a view.
I, on the other hand, was pretty impressed by the scale of the enterprise and how well organised the outground team seemed to be on a match day. Very friendly and helpful.
Having learnt from our rather chilly experience in the shade last time, Fran and Simon had grabbed some excellent seats on the sunny side. It was one of those “layers of clothes” days, on which I ended up in rolled up shirtsleeves when the sun came out and then donning my thick jacket, scarf and hat by the end of the match after the sun had gone in.
It was really pleasant to sit watching cricket with Fran and Simon again – they are very knowledgeable cricket followers; there was plenty to discuss in the matter of county and international cricket since we’d last met. Oh, plus catching up on our other news of course.
Middlesex took its time to take the last wicket and I had almost decided to give up on waiting to be sure to get out of the car park and back down to Lord’s in good time, but the trusty satnav kept insisting that the journey wouldn’t take long against the main flow of rush hour traffic.
So I did stick it out to the final ball and we did find it surprisingly easy and relatively quick to get out of the car field – the stewards operating very efficiently to keep the funnelling out of the ground decorous.
So Dumbo and I got to Lord’s nice and early. Moreover, as a special treat for Dumbo, it transpired that there were no functions on that evening so he was allowed to park in the Allen Stand gap and look out onto the field of play.
Don’t tell Dumbo that there was no cricket on; I’m not sure he noticed.
Dumbo and I returned to Lord’s for tennis on the Friday morning (3rd) when, very unusually, Dumbo was again allowed to park in the Allen Stand gap, as a result of works vehicles blocking the way to his regular Car Park No 6 spot. Actually the above photo was taken on the Friday morning.
I had long-since pre-arranged a tennis lesson on this morning, so rumours that I was having the equivalent of a “naughty boy net” after our somewhat bruising visit to Middlesex University at the weekend are simply not true. Fake news. Perhaps I shouldn’t have spread those rumours myself in the first place.
Anyway, I found myself at two major cricket grounds on the same day for the first time ever, I think, as a result of being asked to attend a somewhat last-minute ad hoc London Cricket Trust meeting with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), for which the only convenient venue was the Oval, where England were supposed to be playing a one-day-international against Pakistan.
It was a horribly rainy day and I thought it unlikely that there would be any cricket at all, but heck, I wasn’t really there for cricket, I was there for a meeting. Still, the way to get us in to the ground on a big match day was to provide us with comps, so I did have an OCS stand ticket for a rather good balcony seat.
Strangely, as there were no rooms available for the meeting, we ended up on the top level of the OCS stand having the meeting on outdoor (albeit covered area) tables and chairs. Even more strangely, the rain stopped and some play was possible for just over an hour, which coincided almost exactly with the hour we spent meeting.
Some people in the meeting must have been making very profound points, because as soon as they had finished their sentence the crowd oohed and aahed – especially if the speaker was talking during one of Jofra Archer’s overs. I didn’t manage to time any of my pearls of wisdom to coincide with an ejaculation of crowd noise, sadly. Perhaps my pearls of wisdom are not so spectacular after all.
After the meeting, AccuWeather told me that there might be 15 minutes or so before the next short but heavy rain storm, so I thought I might as well make full use of my comp for three or four overs before heading home.
A rare glimpse of sunshine on a very wet dayAs seen from the OCS Stand 2nd tier balcony
I did well, thanks to AccuWeather, as I managed to get home between showers too.
Friday 10th May 2019: Lord’s…Just Lord’s
Just one cricket ground that day? What was the matter with me?
Still, one ground, two purposes; real tennis and cricket. I had arranged to play real tennis on the Friday afternoon long since, with no expectation that Middlesex might have a home draw at Lord’s in a knockout tournament. After all, it is several decades since Middlesex has had one of those, so it hardly falls into the “expectation” category.
I watched the start of the Middlesex v Lancashire match on the TV at home, while having lunch. My plan, which worked well, was to head off for Lord’s in Dumbo at around 14:30, enabling me to put Dumbo onto a four-hour meter near the ground and then not have to worry about him for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Plan worked.
So I watched about 30-40 minutes of cricket before getting changed for tennis. Janie (Daisy) informed me that she’d probably arrive while I was playing tennis, which she did.
Daisy tried very hard to distract my opponent, Stuart, with sledging and left-field questions, but seemed better able to distract my concentration than Stuart’s. All the more so when she was joined in the dedans gallery by Dominic and Pamela…followed soon enough by John Thirlwell. The more they tried to help me with their crowd noise, the more they seemed to help Stuart.
Actually it was a very good, close game of tennis, which I lost very narrowly and felt I’d done well to stay that close, given how well Stuart was playing.
Meanwhile, by the time I got changed, Middlesex were in all sorts of trouble and it looked as though our evening watching cricket might be severely foreshortened.
Still, Janie hunkered down with some wine and nibbles up on the top deck…
…then soon after John Thirlwell joined us.
“And how are you today?”“Better than half-a-yard”
James Harris (no relation) got Middlesex infeasibly close to the 300+ target having been 24-5 at one point, but (as I had suspected throughout the innings) it wasn’t quite enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Still, it was a very pleasant couple of hours of cricket watching and chat. Janie and I rounded off the evening by picking up some of our favourite Chinese grub from Four Seasons, Queensway on the way home.
Further, all of my previous attempts to watch cricket at Merchant Taylors’ School (I believe three) had been totally rained off on my attempted day, to such an extent that I hadn’t even ventured to the ground before.
So I suppose it was understandable that the weather forecast a few days ahead of the game somewhat spooked Fran:
Oh heck, just seen the weather prediction for Merchant Taylors on Wednesday; rain, thunder and lightning. You couldn’t make it up!
By the time I got to see Fran’s message, about 12 hours later, the weather forecast was showing rain for the previous couple of days but clear weather for the Wednesday itself. Me to Fran:
Unreliable forecast, yours. Look again – problem solved. Seriously, I won’t go if the forecast on the day is poor but I suspect it’ll be ok.
Nearly 24 hours later, when Fran picked up my message and by which time the forecast was again showing thunderstorms spilling over until Wednesday, she was unconvinced:
Yeah, as long as you don’t mind being struck by lightning! Charles the gent did mention you were a perpetual optimist…
In the end, the weather pretty much did what the forecasters were inferring – i.e. we had quite a lot of rain, thunder and lightening on the day before the match including some into the early hours and even the morning of the game, but all passing through before the match was due to start.
I guessed there’d be a delayed start but with the forecast clear for the hours of play, it was highly likely that, once they started, they’d get a game in, even if a reduced one.
I kept an eye on the on-line information. Almost as soon as I saw that the 11:30 inspection confirmed that play for a slightly reduced match would start at 12:00, Simon called me to tell me same. I told him I’d probably get to MTS around 12:30, which I did.
Fran and Simon had got there pretty early and saved me a seat with them at the front at a pretty handy “third man” view, quite near the hospitality tent.
What a lovely setting Merchant Taylors’ School is for watching cricket.
A lovely setting for watching cricket
I knew that Fran lived nearby, but I hadn’t realised that her son, Paul, went to MTS, so she really does know the school well:
A view of the school across the playing fields
I learnt last time that Fran and Simon are not picnic lovers, so I simply took some nuts, fruit and liquids for sustenance, as had they.
It was actually perfect cricket watching weather; warm but not hot. Not sunny, but not gloomy either. Out-ground county cricket has a lovely relaxed atmosphere to it; you are watching a very high grade of cricket but you are watching it in an environment that feels more like a club or even a village match.
Time passes, the scoreboard ticks round…
We chatted, we watched, we engaged with one or two other spectators and with one or two players.
Such a day passes very quickly and very pleasantly.
This wasn’t a good match for Middlesex. Yet again Middlesex batted first, stalled/didn’t really get going and thus ended up short of a total that would really enable our bowlers to apply pressure. 30 or 40 more would have been a different story, I sensed. It was the same story in several such matches this season.
But as a day out and gathering, for sure it was a success. Fran and Simon got to see a whole match. And we actually got to spend best part of a day watching cricket together; third time lucky. A very enjoyable day.
It has to be said that, up until this day, our attempts over the years, with Lavender and Escamillo Escapillo, to watch Middlesex and Lancashire play cricket, had been soggy experiences to say the least.
Indeed, previous attempts by just me and Escamillo Escapillo to watch our respective counties play each other had been thwarted for one reason or another until last season, where we managed to squeeze in a half day – Ogblogged here.
We aimed to get to the ground in time for the start, but hadn’t counted on the local Sunday trading laws, so although M&S (other sources of sandwiches, crisps and water are available) opens at 10:30, it doesn’t actually open the tills until 11:00.
Shopping is not something I like to do; I like to buy things I want/need, I don’t like to shop. So 10:35 to 11:00 that morning was not the most enjoyable/memorable part of the day. I won’t be making that mistake again on a Sunday morning.
Still, we had the Escamillo-mobile on stand-by, so we were still inside the ground and wandering around by 11:20.
Cricket En Famille – But Who Is The Third Man?
We took up good front row seats in our chosen position quite quickly. Soon after that, Daisy got quite shirty with me because I didn’t want to start drinking at 12:00 on a Sunday. Escamillo Escapillo was driving anyway and I knew what was coming later, so we left it to the girls to start drinking that early in the day.
There were quite a few Middlesex supporters around on the Sunday – some came and sat quite close to us. Soon after lunch was called by the umpires, Barmy Kev came and joined us for a while.
Barmy Kev didn’t take it upon himself to remind me that I owe him a drink or three and I don’t need reminding. But I didn’t want to drink that early in the day; I knew what was coming later, plus I didn’t want to reciprocate Barmy Kev’s generous hospitality at Lord’s with the less salubrious (I really mean less expensive) offerings at the Trafalgar Ground.
Meanwhile Escamillo Escapillo and Lavender were both as happy as Larry; the former because Lancashire were doing well in the match, the latter because EE was as happy as Larry and she was getting a bit merry with Daisy on the fermented grape juice.
“So who is the third man?” I hear readers up and down the land asking, as we are now several paragraphs on from me setting that puzzle.
If that makes no sense to you, click the blithering link where the strangeness is explained. The long and short of it is that John Easom at Keele Alumni Central put me and Frank back in touch with each other and when I told Frank that we would be coming to Southport for the cricket in a couple of week’s time, he responded by saying that he had been half-planning to show up at that match anyway.
We’d bought plenty of sandwiches for everyone, while Frank wanted us to know unequivocally that, while we were visitors on his patch, he was going to buy the drinks aplenty. Perhaps there is some sort of by-law about this for Merseyside.
Escamillo Escapillo was becoming even happier than Larry, despite sticking strictly to driver’s lemonade, as Lancashire’s position went from good to seemingly impregnable. Lavender likewise for both of the reasons expressed earlier.
As tea came round, so the young couple said their goodbyes to us, as planned; they were heading home that afternoon/evening, whereas Daisy and I were staying on the extra night.
Frank said that he too would only stick around for another hour or so after the young couple left, but that was plenty of time for us to finish catching up with some of our news, swap some old stories and discuss the current political maelstrom.
Cricket, wine, water, memories, news, political maelstrom…
In addition to his generosity with the drinks, Frank seems to have decided that I should be the curator of his Keele picture memorabilia, handing me an envelope with a few photographs, all of which will find their way onto Ogblog when I write up the relevant stories but can now all (all seven) be seen on Flickr, click here.
It was a really lovely day – at last Daisy and I have spent some time actually watching cricket with Lavender and Escamillo Escapillo – indeed it had been a lovely weekend with them. The years just fell away chatting with Frank; I do hope to see him again soon, probably in London next time.
We agreed that the weather forecast for Saturday looked shocking and (I thought) agreed that a day out in Liverpool would be a good substitute for sitting around in (probably) vain hope of any cricket. We also agreed to liaise in the morning.
About 9:00 a.m. Daisy received a text from Lavender to say that, as the weather was so poor, they had decided to take the train to Blackpool for the day.
Liverpool – more front than Blackpool?
“What’s Blackpool like?” asked Daisy.
“I’ve never been on a wet June day and I’m not about to either,” was my reply, “what the hell was wrong with the Liverpool idea; I thought we’d all agreed a plan last night?”
Daisy phoned Lavender to ascertain that she had, in fact, confused the names Blackpool and Liverpool. The whole of the north of England is just one huge swathe of vaguely-named towns and cities to some people.
So we were as one with the plans and headed off to Southport railway station. For the princely sum of £5.10 each we were awarded the freedom of the Wirral and Northern Lines for the day.
We ran into some Middlesex supporters as we went to board our train. They seemed to think there might be play from 11:30 and wondered why we were fleeing town. The truth will have dawned on them as the day panned out – there was no cricket at all that day.
From Liverpool Central, we headed towards Albert Docks; our first stop being the Tate Liverpool. Daisy took some photos along the way.
Are you SURE we weren’t in Blackpool?
We were really impressed with the Tate Liverpool and spent quite some time there.
Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock
We started with the Tracey Emin and William Blake in Focus exhibition. I’m not 100% sure about the connection between Blake and Emin – this seemed to me more a marketing ploy than a genuine connection – but I had never actually seen the Tracey Emin bed before, nor had I ever seen so many William Blake pictures gathered in one place. Well worthwhile.
We then went through the upper floor (i.e. same level as the Emin/Blake) of Constellations – which is the main regular exhibition at Tate Liverpool. We all enjoyed that enormously but felt in need of a sit down and some refreshment at that stage, so we went to the cafe for a while and then looked at the rest of Constellations.
Buoyed by our refreshments, we wandered round the block to the Beatles Experience, where there were long queues and a rather touristic look to the place, so we decided to go to the Cavern Club instead but, before leaving the docks area, to take Mike O’Farrell’s advice and visit the International Slavery Museum . I’m really glad we did.
I find it hard to try and articulate how that International Slavery Museum made me/us feel. It is very interesting. Some of it is shocking, not least the matter-of-fact inventories and documentation that makes it so clear that people were seen as commercial commodities. But much of first section of the museum is a wealth of information on the African culture from which so many of the slaves came and much of the last section is a celebration of the modern culture that has emerged through the descendants of former slaves.
One especially thought-provoking section is about modern slavery – in particular sex workers – which reminded me that slavery in all its horrible forms has not entirely gone.
Between the museums and the Cavern Club, we wanted to see Judy Chicago’s Fixing A Hole mural, at Stanley Dock near the Titanic Hotel. We took a cab there, on the advice of some helpful police-folk:
Judy Chicago’s Beatles-Inspired Mural “Fixing A Hole”
We didn’t hang around in the plush Titanic Hotel, nor the Stanley Dock. We were told we’d have no trouble getting a cab to the Cavern up on Great Howard Street, but we walked 5 minutes or more along that road without a sniff of a cab.
Chris cleverly suggested that we try Regent Road (along the side of the Mersey) instead. That worked rapidly…and we landed up with a Scouse cabby from central casting who told us his life story, how many he smokes and yet how far he walks, tales of seeing John Lennon’s ghost, everything he thought we ought to see in Liverpool…you get the picture. He was great.
Yes, it is possible for Ged to look this spaced out after just a few sips of wine and no narcotics, honestly, officer.
As always, Janie was keen to demonstrate her skills at Sixties-style dancing in a hippy-hippy-shake-stylee:
These pictures look even better in the iPhone mini vid mode, but you should get the idea from the still. Escamillo Escapillo feigns not being with Daisy.
As we leave, Daisy chats with security but does not have her collar felt.
We decided to head for a train between 18:00 and 18:15 to get us back to Southport in time to freshen up before dinner.
Dinner was at a family-run Italian restaurant named Volare, about 30 seconds crawl on hands and knees (not that we did it that way) from the hotel. The food was excellent and the staff helpful/friendly. The highlight (or perhaps low-light) of the evening was towards the end, when the staff with great fanfare played “Happy Birthday To You” at full volume over the sound system and presented a rather embarrassed-looking lady at the table behind me with a candle-lit tiramisu.
Unbeknown to me, Daisy signalled to the staff that it was also my birthday (which of course it wasn’t), so five minutes later they went through the rigmarole again for me, much to my discomfort and the glee of the other three. I shall exact my revenge; don’t know where, don’t know when, but the dish will be served cold.
In truth, we’d done many interesting things and had a lot of fun that day, despite most of it being distinctly “Plan B” activity.
The Handmaiden is everything we were told it would be, hence our reservations about it. Beautifully shot with exquisite settings, absolutely no problem with that aspect.
But the film is extremely long for the relatively straightforward thriller plot (just a few twists and turns) and fairly predictable ending.
The female leads are both very beautiful and the soft pornish love scenes between the two of them are all in the best possible taste, as a well-known arbiter of such matters used to put it.
The torture scene towards the end, which we knew to expect, simply had me looking away from the screen for a few minutes.
We both found the whole experience a bit disappointing, but at least we can now tell people that we’ve seen it, which makes them stop lecturing us on how we would definitely love that movie.
On leaving the movie theatre, I checked the cricket score and it looked as though Middlesex had bowled themselves into a position where they were likely to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Gloucestershire.
So we diverted to Lord’s on the way home and watched the last 90 minutes of the match from the President’s Box (temporary Middlesex Room), witnessing Middlesex then snatch defeat from the jaws of the victory that had early looked like the jaws of defeat.
So that was two cringe-making torture scenes in one afternoon; the second of which panned out far more slowly than the first and it would have been a bit peculiar to have looked away from the field of play for the whole of the last hour.
We ran into Brian and Judy as we were leaving, so at least we had a pleasant chat with friends before departing the day’s second torture scene.
