Tag: John Random

A Marcus Evening But Not A Family Gathering, De Hems Dutch Café Bar, 7 February 2019

I have no idea why people think I would be a useful member of a quiz team. Perhaps it is because I am so intelligent and witty and knowledgeable about the topics I am willing to discuss.

It doesn’t seem to occur to people that top notch quizzers aren’t very much like me at all – or rather the selection of topics that top notch quizzers are knowledgeable about don’t overlap much with my topics of interest.

Anyway, every so often I get asked…

…once…

…but on the occasions I have said yes, I cannot recall ever being asked back…

…and very often I say no. In fact, unless the event or companionship pleases me, I say no.

On this occasion, Jasmine Birtles asked me to join her, Brian Jordan, John Random and others. I have known those three since the early 1990s, through NewsRevue – here’s but one write up of a fairly recent regathering, including a picture of Jasmine and John.

An Amazing Week Of Grazing And Moral Mazing, 1 to 7 December 2017

Brian Jordan I hadn’t seen for a very long time. While John Random was the first NewsRevue director to use my material:

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

…Brian Jordan was the first performer to take my material to Edinburgh, in his gloriously-named show : Whoops Vicar is That Your Dick? (Sadly, you couldn’t get away with that title today):

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

Anyway, my point is, I was keen to meet up with this charming crowd as long as Jasmine recognised that I am not the quizzer she might have been hoping for. So when she asked me to join her MoneyMagpie team, I replied:

How could I possibly say no to that? But surely we have better general knowledge quizzers than me in our orbit?
Still, it would be lovely to join you and your team if I’m as good as it gets.

Hence, I ended up in De Hems Dutch Cafe Bar in Soho on a cold February evening as a guest of Marcus: By Goldman Sachs via MoneyMagpie.

In fact, I arrived in Soho a little early, so took a stroll down Chinatown memory lane at New Year time for a few minutes before entering De Hems.

It was great to see Brian Jordan again after all these years and it is always a treat to spend time with John and Jasmine. Also on our team were Susan and Annie, who were also delightful company, as was Annie’s son (who works for Marcus) and Tony Elliott who was our Marcus host on our table.

As usual, nothing that I really know about came up. No theatre, no early music, no sixties and seventies popular music, no cricket, no real tennis…

…what’s the matter with these quizzes?

On the few occasions I could answer a question with authority, at least one other person if not several others on the team knew the answer.

So I opted for the role of team cheerleader, to try and maintain the concentration and positive energy of my teammates. I also acted as the runner to take our answer sheets in – a role I tried to perform with as much gusto as my aching body could muster.

In the former matter, I (and indeed the team) was only moderately successful – we came fourth out of seven teams.

Somewhere on my bookshelves is a so-called humorous book from the 1980s called The Mackeson Book Of Averages – which was an alternative, stout antidote to the Guinness Book Of World Records. It is a very ordinary book. But if there is ever an update to the Mackeson Book Of Averages, perhaps The MonyMagpies team result in this pub quiz should be recorded in that book. That would enable me, Brian, Jasmine and John to add to our stupendous Guinness World Record via NewsRevue, plus my other Guinness World Record via Goodenough College.

But I digress.

In the matter of my role as team runner, I was awarded an MVP award (MVP normally means most valuable player, but in my case it was presumably most volatile player) – in the form of a bottle of Prosecco, which I proudly displayed in my trophy cabinet for about 2 minutes (long enough to photograph it):

…before handing it over to Janie for a more suitable purpose (drinking).

I think that Janie thinks that I won the bottle of bubbly for quizzing, so please, readers, do not disabuse her of that belief.

And talking of abuse, Jasmine reminded me that she wrote The Little Book Of Abuse some years ago, which is a bit of a coincidence because I had spent the preceding Tuesday evening with Rohan Candappa and others, also doing silly things in a room above a pub:

The Rohan Thing, My Short Performance Piece As Part Of Rohan Candappa’s Inaugural Threadmash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2019

…and of course Rohan is the author of The Little Book Of Stress. I think Janie’s waiting area needs copies of both of those books…

…while the surgery itself is of course, in book terms, dedicated to The Price Of Fish.

On that final subject, I did a very clever deal with Tony Elliott of Goldman Sachs, who offered to buy a copy of The Price Of Fish if I, in turn, shovelled thousands of poundsworth of savings towards Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Good deal makers, these Goldman Sachs people – who knew?

Anyway, I shall not be using “mother’s maiden name?” as one of my security questions.

In short, the food, the wine, the company and the event were all top notch and most enjoyable. Our team’s quizzing though? Very average.

A Random Concert With John Random: Flauguissimo Duo, The English And French Gardens, St John’s Smith Square, 10 January 2019

It wasn’t really a random concert. Katie Cowling was supposed to be delivering a programme named Blow Ye Winds with Johan Löfving, but Katie was poorly so Johan showed up with another of his regular pairings, flautist Yu-Wei Hu, to perform a slightly different programme named The English And French Gardens. The medieval element had gone but a fairly similar Baroque assortment to that originally planned.

Here is a link to the SJSS archive page for the concert. Or if that doesn’t work, here is a link to a scrape thereof.

From and linked to http://www.flauguissimoduo.com/ – photo by Aiga Ozo

So, it might not have been a random concert but it was a Random concert, by which I mean John Random was going to join me. Or was he? There was some traditional too-ing and fro-ing with “can make it”, “can’t make it”, “can make it but might be late” messages. In the end, John arrived in time to see all but the first sonata.

John and I have been on a theorbo quest on John’s behalf for a while. Some Ogblog readers might recall our “hunt the theorbo” session in the National Gallery:

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

Others might recall John’s visit with me and Janie to see the Les Kapsber’girls, at SJSS but their instruments of that sort were
smaller than theorbos.

Les Kapsber’girls, St John’s Smith Square, Then On To The New Extension Of The Royal Academy, 18 May 2018

So this concert closed a loop or two. John really did get to hear and see a theorbo. In fact, I think the concert included a little first for me too, as Johan Löfving played a short theorbo solo piece – I don’t think I had ever heard the theorbo as a solo instrument before. It was a lovely little piece. Coincidentally, it was by Kapsberger, which also closed a loop for John, as although he had seen Les Kapsber’girls, on that occasion the girls did not perform anything by their eponymous composer. I managed to find a snippet of Johan Löfving playing the very piece in question:

Not the best recorded audio nor video you’ll ever see, but a rare sighting of solo theorbo

Here is another short vid, which shows both of the Flauguissimo Duo – the Sonata by Johan Helmich Roman which they played as the closing number of our concert:

It really was a very charming lunchtime concert – these SJSS ones are such a treat when I can get to them and it was such a pleasure to be able to share that musical experience with John.

Afterwards John and I had a bite of lunch together in the crypt, which is a great place to eat and drink. John described it as his favourite crypt. Janie would agree wholeheartedly with that – she is also a devotee of the SJSS crypt, claiming that the crypt is the best thing about the whole place and that some small scale concerts should be held down there.

Our conversation covered many topics, some of which I mentioned had Ogblog pieces devoted to them, such as the story of the day I bought my hat and accosted Boris Johnson in the street while wearing it:

A Rather Strange Mix of a Day, 3 June 2016

John suggested that he would like to spend far more time reading Ogblog than he has available and that a decent length of custodial sentence might provide him with the time and inclination so to read.

I suggested that, on our way back to Westminster Tube Station, we might ask some of the more pugnacious Brexit protesters on College Green to provide John with the means to such a custodial sentence, but John demurred. Not dedicated enough to Ogblog, then?

Time flew by and I realised that I really needed to get back to the flat, as I had arranged further Renaissance/Baroque style activity for the rest of the day – a lesson on early music guitar technique with Ian Pittaway…

…who subsequently sent me a link to this lovely 10 minute vid by Elizabeth Kenny explaining everything you ever wanted to know about the theorbo but were afraid to ask…

…followed by a real tennis bout at Lord’s against a nemesis-like adversary, formerly a seriously top-ranking amateur cricketer, against whom I had never previously emerged victorious at tennis. But, steeled by all this early music, I did prevail for once this day.

After we parted, John had a similar second half to his day – journeying to Sidcup to see our mutual friend Colin Stutt perform in the Petts Wood Operatic Society production of 9 to 5.

John subsequently reported that:

Colin’s Dolly Parton impression is outstanding.

Sadly, we have no photo or video of Colin’s performance. Actually, that might be just as well.

Let’s sign off instead with some more Flauguissimo Duo – not a piece we heard on that day but a really lovely rendering of some Gluck and a chance to see Johan Löfving’s guitar playing and some beautiful virtuoso flute playing by Yu-Wei Hu:

A Few Very Pleasant Evenings, 28 September, 2 October and 4 October 2018

28 September 2018 – Dinner With Deni, Tony, John & Kathleen

Early evening was my last game of real tennis at The Queen’s Club in my capacity as an MCC refugee:

Photo of me at Queens (from a different day) with opponents cut/airbrushed out

A fierce battle, it was, with a gentleman way above my pay grade, but through the wonders of the handicapping system we had a close fought match, which ended as a draw.

I thought 20 minutes would be more than enough time to get a couple of miles down the road to Deni & Tony’s house, but I hadn’t counted on the Friday night traffic combining with an accident nearby.

Yet, I arrived at the same time as Daisy, coming from the opposite direction and we really weren’t that late.

Plenty of time for drinks and nibbles before dinner.

Deni had gone to town in the kitchen, with a gazpacho soup and a salmon dish as the main. Desert was their favourite; profiteroles – it happens to be one of Daisy’s favourites too.

Tucking in good and proper

Lots of lively discussion too, trying to put the world to rights. John’s moderate views were somewhat tempered by his opinion that the only feasible route back to sensible, moderate politics might be barricades and politicians up against the wall and shot.

Everyone was on good form despite it being Friday evening and we were all surprised when the Cinderella hour struck and we said our goodbyes.

2 October 2018 Jamming Session & Dinner With DJ

Coincidentally I played real tennis (now back at Lord’s) before my next evening out; a jamming session with DJ at DJ’s place.

As I had all my tennis gear in tow as well, I decided to forego the electric instrument (which had sort-of been the plan), taking my baroq-ulele instead.

Electric-ulele – not selected for this match in the end

We tried amplifying the baroq-ulele for a while, which sounded rather interesting actually. We also mucked around with the strange assortment of songs I’ve been working on; then mucked around with a few of our favourites.

We still cannot decide which of us is ground control and which of us is Major Tom. It shouldn’t be that complicated, but it certainly is.

As always, we had a good chat and ate some good food too. An interesting bottle of Croatian red wine too – that worked wonders on my vocal chords.

4 October 2018 – Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner

It’s been a while since we had an Ivan Shakespeare dinner – this one had been rescheduled more often than a routine visit by a British Gas engineer. But at least an Ivan Shakespeare dinner is pleasant and worth the effort.

Actually not much effort for me. Jasmine had suggested we try Bill’s in Kensington, which, frankly, is a hugely convenient option for at least two of us; me and Jasmine. In truth, many of us are starting to find Cafe Rogues tedious, in terms of the food (ordinary), the service (poor) and the tedious, Byzantine rules for Christmas gatherings.

A great turnout this time, a dozen of us, including some new-old faces, such as Emma, Nelson, Neil and Sam. Plus many of the usual suspects. I mostly got to chat with Jonny Hurst, Barry Grossman, Mark Keagan and Nelson at my end of the table.

What, no quiz?

For sure the food and service was better at Bill’s. The traditional “food half an hour later than everyone else’s” game for baiting Jonny Hurst is clearly just a Cafe Rouge Holborn thing; not a standard entertainment in all restaurants. Who knew?

John Random made an executive decision that the traditional quiz would not quite work with the ambiance – we were in a very central table position.

We are all keenly awaiting Graham Robertson’s “would I lie to you?” game, but we’re starting to think that he has sold our stories for megabucks to television syndicates in the Stans and has now fled the country with his ill-gotten gains. We don’t care, we’re having a great time at these dinners without Graham and his game anyway.

Seriously, I always enjoy these gatherings and others must also do so because so many of us have been coming back for more, several times a year, since not long after the turn of the century.

Roll on the next one.

Les Kapsber’girls, St John’s Smith Square, Then On To The New Extension Of The Royal Academy, 18 May 2018

The idea of seeing this concert was partly hatched from John Random’s desire to see some lunchtime early music with me. A couple of suitable Thursday dates were either no good for him or no good for me. But this Friday one, during the London Baroque Festival, looked bang on.

The timing was good too, as Janie had arranged to tour the new extension of the Royal Academy at 15:00 that afternoon. Janie very much liked the look of Les Kapsber’girls lunchtime programme.

As John’s availability is subject to the whims of showbiz administrators, the unreserved seating at SJSS makes it a suitable concert venue for an aproximeeting. I bought tickets for me and Janie, knowing that John would be able to get one on the day if he proved to be available.

The e-mails buzzed over the coming days. There was to be a costume fitting for John, so our gathering was off. The costume fitting had been cancelled – John was on again. The fitting was reinstated – off again.

At that juncture I tried to guilt-trip John…with my tongue rather firmly in my cheek, I might add:

John, John, John…

…I can’t handle all four of those Kapsber’girls on my own.  And I’m not so keen on your two.  No, no, no, two ladies is plenty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOiaAU_vJg

Moreover, Janie has explicitly stated that she only wants to watch and listen.

Still, we’ll be there come what may and still hope you can join us…

In the end, John was allowed to choose his costume fitting time, so eagerly informed us that he would definitely join us for the concert.

I mansplained the instruments to John with a pathetically low hit rate

John had only seen many of these instruments before in artworks – click here or below for our recent National Gallery experience…

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

…so I identified the instruments to John while we were waiting for the concert to start…

…but I got more instruments wrong than right. The big thing I thought was a theorbo turned out to be an archlute; the smaller thing I thought was the archlute was actually a tiorbino (a miniature theorbo), the existence of which only became known to me on the day; the small viol I took to be a treble viol was the even smaller pardessus de viole – a soprano viol which, again, was a new instrument to me on the day. Top mansplaining on my part – waxing lyrical while getting most of the facts wrong – I must have sounded like Alan Partridge to an expert observer.

Then the concert, which was truly lovely.

Here is a link to the SJSS resource on the concert.

The concert was absolutely charming – as were all four of the Kapsber’girls. They are very young and relatively new to performance at this level; not all of them displayed professionally-grooved stage presence throughout the hour, especially when sitting out the odd piece. But they all four play or sing beautifully and are surely all on the road to success.

The music was early 18th century French popular songs, known as “airs de cour” or “brunettes”. Two voices and two instruments. These songs were published in the early years of the 18th century by Christophe Ballard and were phenomenally popular in France during that latter part of Louis XIV’s reign.

Here is a little vid of “our girls” performing one or two of the songs we heard:

They are known as the Kapsber’girls because they admire the music of Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger (aka Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger) who was a pioneer of this kind of baroque chitarrone music. Confused yet about the difference between the theorbo, the archlute and the chitarrone? Me too. Click here for a good essay from the 1970s which might explain why even enthusiasts like me can easily get confused…

…and if all that leaves you in the mood to hear some actual Kapsberger (and believe me it’s worth it) here are Les ‘Girls playing and singing some actual Kapsberger:

Of course we didn’t hear any actual Kapsberger in our concert; the focus was entirely on the French airs de cour.

Janie snapped this during the final, lengthy applause

John, true to his word, made an approach to one of the girls after the concert – probably to try to understand the difference between the theorbo, the archlute, the chitarrone…that might have been a long, complicated conversation. Anyway, Albane Imps kindly chatted with and then posed with John:

Is that a tiorbino in your pocket, John, or are you just pleased to see me?

As it happens, Les Kapsber’girls had explained themselves earlier in the day on Woman’s Hour – click here and hopefully listen – as long as you get here quickly enough – BBC programmes of this kind tend to be withdrawn after a week or a month or something.

We took a snack lunch in the crypt after the concert (Janie’s favourite place at SJSS) where we met a couple of Kapsber’girls again – Axelle Verner chatted with us charmingly for a while – before the girls headed off, returning to France that very day.

The girls were very self-conscious about the quality of their spoken English, although John’s assessment (and he does teach English as a foreign language) is that their spoken English is actually very good. John remarked that the French accent is a very forgiving accent for spoken English – especially when the words are delivered by charming young people! So snap out of it girls – your English is just fine.

John seemed a little star-struck, so we conducted a filmic thought-experiment in which John might make a brief-encounter-like dash to St Pancras for a touching farewell scene with Les ‘Girls, but sadly John decided against.

Meanwhile I secretly flirted with the impressario-like idea of bringing together Les Kapsber’girls – who might reasonably be described as the most exciting early music girl group to emerge in recent years, with The Gesualdo Six – which I recently described as “the hottest boy band of the early music vocal consort world”:

Fading: The Hour Is At Hand, The Gesualdo Six, St John’s Smith Square, 28 March 2018

Not all that many people composed baroque music for eight voices and two instruments, but let’s try naming my thought experiment combination of The Gesualdo Six and The Kapsber’girls “The Zieleński Ten“.

Always good to have a name that is hard to spell and pronounce, I feel.

John was clearly inspired by the “baroque girl power” he had seen, so he parted company with us in search of Millicent Fawcett’s statue, at Parliament Square, while Janie and I went on to our appointment with the new extension of the Royal Academy.

In fact it isn’t really a new extension – it is the old Burlington Gardens building behind the main building, which has been conjoined with the main building to bring the whole of the Royal Academy together. This project has been donkey’s yonks in the making and Janie was very excited, as a member, to be allowed a sneak-preview before the doors opened to the public that weekend. Here is a link to a page and vid that explains it all.

Before wandering around and poking our noses into all the new bits of the Academy, we took a quick look at the first exhibition in the new space – Tacita Dean, Landscape – click here for the RA resource on that exhibition. Not especially to our taste, in truth – we were there for the opening more than for this exhibition – but I did like several of the works that fused photographs with spray-on chalk and gouache. One or two of the larger ones were truly stunning and also, strangely, the technique worked well in miniature on postcards.

Then we wandered around the Burlington Gardens extension.

Tim Marlow himself was there, available to chat with the members. We didn’t chat directly with him, but we did chat with several members of staff who were visibly excited about the whole thing. Extra exhibition space, workshop space, studio space and a soon-to-be completed lecture hall with all the modern gadgetry:

Ged is desperate to deliver the first lecture in this place…

…”this beautiful Burlington Gardens building dates from 1831…”

We also had a quick look at the PACE section of Burlington Gardens, where they are exhibiting some large works by Julian Schnabel. We took some celebratory refreshments in the old Senate Room, which is now a swanky new bar which is bound to be a favourite spot for visitors given its beauty as a room and its appointment to take advantage of the natural light during the day. Janie is kicking herself that we didn’t photograph it but in truth you would have needed a special lens to capture the stunning look of the room – click here to see a stunning professional photograph of it.

We then retired back to the City quarters for siesta before grabbing some Persian food and retreating to Noddyland for the weekend. We’d had a super cultural day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The First Four Of The Five Random Tour Items

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or was it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Attempts to get John Random (aka John Burns) to see some real tennis at Lord’s had not gone particularly well, previously, with John being called up to appear in a meerkat advert last time he was due to come see.

So when John called on the afternoon before our arrangement for 6 April, because he had a last minute call to be a 1940’s MP, we both thought the worst.

But in the end, as the call turned out to be 15:00, we still had time 6 April for John to see me play. As it happens, the contest turned out to form part of an unusual type of hat-trick. This was the second of three singles matches in a row in which my opponent had a double-barrelled name. Such names are not exactly rare amongst players of real tennis at Lord’s – but three in a row must be quite a rarity. In any case, I played well (by my own modest standards)…

Hopefully I have come on a bit in the 18 months since this photo was taken

…then John and I took some lunch at Mazi in Notting Hill Gate before he went off to be an historic MP.

I’d forgotten how good a place Mazi is – and so convenient for a local lunch. So when Stephen “Stentor Baritone” Barry got in touch on the following Monday with the good news that the Lord’s tickets we thought had got lost in the post had in fact been returned to him, I suggested we meet at Mazi for a quick bite on the Tuesday to avoid further possible postal misery. A very enjoyable lunch and a good chance to catch up, as we hadn’t seen each other for some months.

The Lord’s tickets in question are for Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nigel “Father Barry White” Hinks, who shall be joining me and Daisy (Janie) on the Saturday of the test match.

But Charley and I had/have some cricket to see in advance of that test match – not least and first up, the opening day of the season at Lord’s – now a traditional meet. I produced a picnic in my traditional stylee. Smoked salmon bagels, Iberico ham muffins and a fine Riesling (Alsatian on this occasion) forming the core.

Gawd it was cold at times that day. But we suffered for our love of cricket and sat it out at the front of the pavilion.

The MCC have been granted permission to use floodlights for the County Championship matches this year, which is a real coup and/but frankly overdue. I understand why local folk didn’t want untrammelled use of floodlights at Lord’s in the evenings, but they cause no disturbance during the day.

We’d probably have had no play at all without the lights and indeed, because it was so gloomy, only got a limited amount of play – about half the day’s play – even with the lights.

Middlesex had of course been inserted by Northants and I thought did well to battle it to 136/4 by the time stumps were drawn.

Click here for a Cricinfo link which shows everything you want to know about the match and more.

Charley and I discussed diverse matters, as we do – ranging from cricket to family matters to work to politics to other hobbies/activities.

The highlight for the general Ogblog reader is probably Charley’s failure to have recognised my “Easter Canticle” for what it really is:

Canticle For Lauds On The Third Day Of Easter: Deus Intellegit, Litorean Order, c1300

No shame there, though. John Random had been similarly “stitched up like a kipper” by it. Indeed it seems to have fooled most people.

I dare Ogblog readers who missed the posting over Easter to click through, watch the little vid and work out what was going on.

But enough of Lauds and back to Lord’s…

…play ended a little early and the day ended all too quickly, as always. I shall be joining Charley at Chelmsford next Friday, with the weather forecast suggesting a more pleasant climate for cricket than that gloomy opening day. But it had been worth it for the splendid company and the cricket, of course.

If It Ain’t Baroque…Don’t Fix It, A Day Out With John Random, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich,18 January 2018

John Random sits on the “Sounding Board” for the Old Royal Naval College. I’m not entirely sure what that means…

…I’m not sure John is entirely sure…

…but one thing it does mean at the moment is that John has the right occasionally to take a guest to tour the Painted Hall Ceiling.

This really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the ceiling of the extraordinary painted hall up close and personal, while scaffolding is up as the ceiling is being conserved.

How could I possibly say no when John offered me such a tour?

John dons a hi-viz vest and a hard hat

John went the whole hog, safety-dress-wise, whereas I, on learning that the hard hat was voluntary, declined the offer to wear one of those.

We were part of a small group, led my the intrepid Martina; a young, pint-sized Italian woman who seemed to know an awful lot about the ceiling.

Meet William and Mary

We are very much in the baroque period for the painted hall and ceiling. We are also steeped in the politics of the Glorious Revolution. So William and Mary take centre stage and sectarian symbolism abounds.

Symbolic characters…not the sectarian ones I am glad to say…I should have listened & memorised…River Thames & London I think…

To be honest, the detail was a bit much for me, but the awe-inspiring opportunity to see this extraordinary work up close and learn about the conservation project was extremely interesting and memorable.

I would thoroughly recommend a visit while there is still time – still several months at the time of writing this – I suggest you do it sooner rather than later.

It was a sunny winter’s day, so after the tour we strolled a bit and I especially wanted to see the chapel, where I had attended at least one concert in the past.

Scrubs up nicely, that chapel

The chapel looked especially splendid in the sunlight – I hadn’t seen it on such a day before – plus it had clearly been through a clean up and refurb of its own since my last visit, perhaps 25 years ago.

As an aside, John Random seems to specialise in memorable days in Greenwich – my previous visit to the place, 20+ years ago, was with Janie to meet John and Jenny on an unforgettable day – click here or below:

Lunch With John Random And Jenny Mill In Greenwich, “The Day That Princess Diana Died”, 31 August 1997

John and I pondered whether any royals had (or would) die on the day of this Painted Hall visit. We decided that, if the worst did happen, we really should abandon any future plans to meet in Greenwich.

Next stop, lunch. John said he’d never tried an eel pie place before, so we chanced our luck in such a traditional place – Goddards – click here. The fact that John doesn’t much like mash and had never tried eel before did not daunt him:

John looks very happy with his grub

I personally am keen on eel, although usually in the smoked form…

…indeed as soon as I have finished writing this piece I shall sup on smoked eel and salad…

…so let me press on.

John found the eel a bit difficult to navigate, because the stewed eel served alongside the pie has the bone still in. I told John that I seemed to be managing the geography of the eel pieces better than him, which he found a curious turn of phrase.

I was reminded of Charley the Gent’s nerve-wracking encounter with my smoked eel at Lord’s in September 2015 – written up for King Cricket – click here or below...goodness knows what Chas would have made of it if I hadn’t carefully filleted the smoked eel for him:

Middlesex v Yorkshire at Lord’s – day one match report

Anyway, John and I both found the eel pie shop food a little bland – not least the meat in the pie and the parsley sauce – indeed the eel was far and away the tastiest element.

We thought we might enjoy some tea/coffee elsewhere more than we’d enjoy it in the eel pie house, so we went around the corner to Red Door Cafe – a quirky place which was very much to my taste.

The proprietor, William, played a very interesting and eclectic mixture of music, ranging from Leonard Cohen to Arvo Pärt.

Red Door served a very good cup of coffee and also had an intriguing collection of teas…I sampled the white which was very nice. John tried some cake which he said was also very good. I’d certainly go to that cafe again like a shot.

John and I chatted until we realised that hours had gone by in this jovial fashion, but we both really did need to get on and do some other things before the end of the day.

A very memorable and very enjoyable few hours.

An Amazing Week Of Grazing And Moral Mazing, 1 to 7 December 2017

It’s a cracker

It’s December, so of course the eating and drinking goes into overdrive.

Starting on the very first day of December; lunch with Michael Mainelli, Brendan May and John Lloyd at the Guildhall. Great to catch up with those guys, it brought back to my mind a quite interesting 2003 evening in a TV studio with Brendan and John – now Ogblogged – click here.

The next day, cousins Jacquie and Hilary Briegal came to Noddyland for a late lunch that morphed into early evening. Jacquie couldn’t resist bringing some of her famous chopped herring for us, although, as any fule no, chopped herring cannot take part in “herring of the year” contests, which in any case have to be held at Jacquie’s place – click here for the most recent example.

In any case, herring didn’t form part of the Noddyland meal, which comprised smoked salmon nibbles followed by Janie’s (Daisy’s) famous wasabi beef fillet dish and finally danish apple cake. We hadn’t seen Jacquie and Hils for over a year; it was great to see them again and have a chance to reciprocate Jacquie’s warm hospitality.

As usual, Daisy had massively over-catered, so I was able to lunch on some left over beef, sauce and potatoes couple of times during the week, including Thursday…

…which was probably just as well, given the tardiness of the Cafe Rogues meal in Holborn that evening, at the comedy writers Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner.

I reported last year on the ruthless efficiency with which the venue forced us to pre-order and the chaos and long waits that nevertheless ensued. Last year, it was Jonny Hurst who took the brunt of the tardiness, waiting about an hour longer than everyone else for his main course. This year, Jonny was again such a victim, but I too was one of the chosen people for this indignity. Perhaps we weren’t served a full hour later than everyone else, but surely at least half an hour later.

I suppose you can chat, drink and even be ruined while you wait for food

To add insult to indigestion, four of us were served our deserts some 30 minutes after everyone else. Jonny escaped this time, but I was caught twice – along with Jasmine, Barry and John for the lengthy dessert desert.

Still, everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Nine of us gathered this time; me, John Random, Jonny Hurst, Jasmine Birtles, Colin Stutt, Hugh Rycroft, Gerry Goddin, Mark Keagan and Barry Grossman.

Jasmine and John brought crackers. John Random’s were very special; he had doctored some real crackers, emblazoning them with a picture of Michael Buerk and describing them as Moral Maze crackers.

With Jasmine’s crackers, we played our regular Christmas game of trying to work out the feed line from the punchline of the corny cracker jokes…with limited success this year as the jokes were so corny. Examples:

A. A monkey burp.

Q. What’s silent and smells of banana?

A. Mrs Sippi

Q. Who is the most famous married woman in America?

But John had doctored his crackers with moral maze dilemmas to replace the corny jokes. Example:

Q. What do you get if you cross a sheep with a kangaroo?

A. A series of far-reaching ethical questions that go to the very heart of modern genetics.

Tut tut if you read that question and thought the answer was, “a wooly jumper”.

Jasmine and John pulled…

…which left Jasmine grappling with a tricky moral dilemma.

Traditional quizzing after dessert…or in the case of the four of us sorely neglected souls…during the dessert.

Colin Stutt again did a warm up game, taking the best jokes from the fringe for the last few years and seeing if we could remember the punchlines or construct good/better punchlines ourselves. I reckon I did a reasonable job on 10-12 out of 30 of them, actually knowing the answer to only a couple.

Mark, the holder of the Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Trophy, naturally led the main event quiz. I’m usually in with a chance when Mark writes the quiz but so are one or two other people. In a close run contest this year:

Mark had bubble-wrapped the trophy for safe-keeping…

…let’s hope that Jonny also treats the magnificent artefact with the respect it deserves.

Yes, the place was ridiculously noisy. Yes, the service was poor, except when it was terrible. But at Christmastime, almost everywhere is thus. These Ivan Shakespeare gatherings of good old friends are always lively, witty evenings that make me happy; that is the bit that really matters.

MCC v Middlesex University Real Tennis Club, Lord’s, 16 November 2017

I was delighted to be selected to represent the MCC again against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club. This was to be my third go in that fixture – click here to read about the previous go.

Even more delighted, because I saw that our captain, Josh Farrall, had picked me to partner Chris Stanton. I have known Chris for over 25 years – he was the first professional actor to perform one of my silly songs. In NewsRevue, spring 1992.

So I thought it was to be comedy doubles. Ideally with me writing the script and Chris doing all the work.

John Random, who directed that 1992 show, on learning that Chris and I had been reunited through this strange game, had expressed a desire to see real tennis. So I had the idea to invite John to watch Chris and me play in this match.

Initially John said yes to that idea, but the weekend before the match, he was selected for a Compare The Meerkat advert and had to pull out of the Lord’s tennis spectating role. It transpires that John has previous in the matter of phoney slavic accents and extremely dodgy fur:

Win a one-way ticket to the Gulag if you even think about markets-dot-com

In the end John’s inability to show up at Lord’s was probably just as well. For a start, that Trotsky beard would not have gone down well at The Grace Gate. Further, in any case, Chris Stanton was also a no show on the day – surely not another one summoned to perform with an anthropomorphic gang from the mongoose family?

So, captain my captain Josh Farrall partnered me in the first match. Sadly there are no photos from this match, but there is a stock photo of me playing in a previous match – that isn’t Josh watching me hit the ball all wrong.

A perfect shot of an ever so slightly imperfect shot – photo by Sidney Yankson

Exhausted by our endeavours, I nevertheless volunteered to relieve our captain from multiple duties by taking his slot in the later match he was scheduled to play.

This gave me the chance to partner Nick Evans, who is even more of a novice than me and against whom I was scheduled to play singles the next day, against a delightful Middlesex couple (including the MURTC team captain) who are also more novice than me, although not by much.

The whole fixture was great fun; a lot of people who hadn’t (or had only very occasionally) played matches before, plus a few regulars of old and the odd turncoat, as was the experience in the match against the HAC a few months ago.

It was a superb success as a social evening, with the traditional Lord’s curry going down a treat, washed down with some very jolly wines.

“What was the score?”, I hear the more competitive readers cry. Come on now, I’ve told you before, what happens on the MCC tennis court stays on the MCC tennis court.

I’ll just provide one picture-based clue:

Pears-Pairs-Bagels

Real tennis was the winner, along with conviviality.

Class Of ’92 Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 5 October 2017

NewsRevue’s 2004 Guinness World Record for being the World’s Longest Running Live Comedy Show – Gerry Goddin far left, Barry Grossman back left, a wide-eyed me front right

Partly inspired by my chance encounter 18 months ago (and subsequent re-encounters) with Chris Stanton at the real tennis court at Lord’s…

…partly inspired by the fact that many of us who gather for these Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinners have been hanging around NewsRevue now for 25 years…

…John Random decided to theme this get together around the notion “Class of ’92”.

I didn’t realise that John had actually persuaded Chris Stanton to come along this time, which was a very pleasant surprise. Chris brought a couple of ringbinder files with scripts from his 1992 runs, including the late Spring run, directed by John Random, in which I (or rather, my material) made its NewsRevue debut:

Seeing those files, it made me realise what a challenging job it must be for performers to do NewsRevue. The sheer volume of scripts, the mixture of sketches and songs, the changes to the show every week…

…Chris showed me one running order, for example, in which there was an unbroken sequence of fourteen or fifteen pieces in which he appeared.

John Random brought along a photo album which had lots of photos of NewsRevue types…even one of me and Janie from our very early days together…most people in the room were represented by at least one photo.

Mark Keagan was there, as was Barry Grossman, Nick R Thomas, Colin Stutt and Gerry Goddin, the latter of whom produced a particularly fiendish version of his “quiz” game and tortured us with it at the end of the evening.

Prior to this evening, when chatting at Lord’s, Chris Stanton had been threatening to have a bonfire of his old scripts. Part of my purpose was to help John Random to rescue this treasure trove for posterity. But by the end of this evening, Chris explained that he did not want to part with his scripts and had no intention of destroying them.

On the way home, my song “Coppers are Dressed as Hippies” popped into my head, as did the notion that I too have a ringbinder file at home with correspondence and one or two old running orders and programmes.

In the morning, I copied/wrote up “coppers” (click link here or above) and found a running order, programme and writers’ newsletter from Paula Tappenden’s summer run; the run that followed the John Random/Chris Stanton one.

In some ways, I thought, I had blooped by not bringing those artefacts to the evening. But in other ways, it seems more fitting that I use Ogblog as a medium, following up on the Class of ’92 evening, to circulate copies of my 1992 artefacts, shown below:

  • the programme for that Paula Tappenden run (late June through August 1992);
  • the running order from week four (late July 1992);
  • John Random’s unusually short writers’ newsletter w/e 31 July 1992…who was your visitor from Idaho, John? Do tell.

Postscript. In response to my request for details on the mystery visitor from Idaho, I received the following beautifully-crafted missive from John Random a week or so later:

…the friend from Idaho was my former flatmate Janet.

One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t spend the whole of 1986 simply writing down everything she ever said. Here was comedy gold, narrative gold right under my nose and I didn’t recognize it for what it was.

Without ever trying to be funny, without even KNOWING she was being funny, Janet contrived to be one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. This was chiefly because everyone she’d ever known was either barking mad or the victim of some cruel yet ludicrous twist of Fate.

I recall she had a pioneer ancestor who was run over by the very train that brought his family out West to join him. Apparently, he had started the celebrations a little too early and was a little too merry by the time the train pulled in.

Not that this should be taken as meaning she was catty or scabrous. On the contrary, she was a big motherly woman of the sort you might get if you crossed Jenni Murray with Claire Rayner.

Sadly, Janet’s not much of a writer, so I have very few letters of hers, and she seldom even e-mails. However, she recently broke a seven-year silence indicating that she might be coming over in a week or two. I do hope so.

In my grateful reply to John, I described Janet’s interruption to his newsletter writing that week as John’s “person from Porlock” moment.

My own offerings from that Paula Tappenden Week Four are all now up on Ogblog, btw, all clickable below:

If anyone wants a better quality copy of the artefacts, just message me and they can be whizzing your way in next to no time.