Tag: House of Lords

The Lords, Then Lord’s, Plus A Coincidental Segue Between The Two, 1 February 2018

Just before Christmas , I received an invitation from the House of Lords to give some follow-up evidence to the evidence I gave on Brexit back in October 2016 – click here or below to read about that first occasion:

Two Visits To Two Different Lord Places In One Day, 27 October 2016

You can also read the report that came out in March 2017, which (I was pleased to discover) cited me several times – click here.

Anyway, I decided to make it a Lords/Lord’s day again, so booked to play real tennis late afternoon.

On this second occasion, the chair of the committee, Lord Witty, was away, so Lord Aberdare took the chair. I have embedded the vid below:

You can judge for yourselves how it went. If you are a Facebookista, you can see how my Facebook friends reacted by clicking here.

I think my key moment was at c10:36 (about 30 minutes in) when I made the topical West London analogy of the slightly leaky pipe c/w the major burst water main. Much of West London had been without water pretty much all day on the day before the hearing – which I found rather nerve-wracking while I prepared, but it did lend me a useful analogy.

I did say some other stuff too, so it is certainly worth getting a bucket of popcorn and hunkering down for an hour of viewing.

16 months deeper into my real tennis career (and into Brexit of course), I kept thinking during the hearing that the name “Lord Aberdare” was familiar to me in a tennis context…then wondered whether I was getting confused.

When I got to Lord’s later, I saw that, as I had half remembered, the name “Lord Aberdare” was all over the real tennis Gold and Silver Racket honours board.

It transpires that our man, the current (fifth) Baron Aberdare‘s, grandfather, who was the third Baron Aberdare – click here or picture below for bio – had a twenty-or-so year cricket playing career for Middlesex County Cricket Club before and after the First World War and also went on to dominate amateur real tennis between the wars; probably one of the greatest amateur real tennis players ever.

by Walter Stoneman, bromide print, 1930.  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_3rd_Baron_Aberdare_in_1930.jpg#file – see there for full details of non-free use rationale, which also applies to my use.

You’d have thought that this wonderful coincidence would have inspired me to a great victory on the tennis court that evening…but you’d be wrong. The 3rd Baron would not have been impressed by my performance on the court…

…I wonder what he would have made of Brexit and or my performance before the Peers? Would he have yelled “better than half a yard” or “hazard the door” to mark the end of my pivotal speech?

Brexit, Middlesex cricket and real tennis…the story of a fair chunk of my life at the moment, I suppose.

Two Visits To Two Different Lord Places In One Day, 27 October 2016

A morning visit to the House of Lords, to give evidence to a select committee hearing on Brexit for Professional and Business services.

I don’t normally mention work-related stuff on Ogblog, but this one sort-of bleeds into “work life”, as Brexit is rather important stuff generally right now. Here is a link to the business write up on Now and Z/Yen – click here.

I wrote up a small piece about this on Facebook too – click here – as I know quote a lot of my Facebook friends are interested in Brexit. Some business around Lord Whitty’s coughing and Bob Fleming’s Folking Classics is quite amusing on that thread.

I think it went OK. I said what I really feel AND they let all four of us panellists go after the hearing, rather than “taking us by boat to the Tower”, so by that criterion I think it went really well.

In any case, you can judge for yourself.  The transcript comes out about a week after the hearing – but if you like telly you can watch the vid straight away and the latter remains live for about a year – click here or below: 

Back home to clear my backlog of messages and the like, then after a quick bite of lunch on to the other Lord’s to play real tennis. Perhaps liberated from the fear of noble shackles,  I played well today, in contrast with the shocker I played yesterday.

I was due to have a jam with DJ this evening, but he deferred to another date as he is a little poorly. So I ended up having a quiet pasta supper and an early night – probably just as well as I was very tired and had another busy day lined up for tomorrow.