I cannot remember the context of this spoof letter of complaint, other than the fact that John was working for BACTA – perhaps that was a new thing at that time. I can only assume that the Anchor House thing was some sort of a charity lottery.
Nearly 25 years later, John is once again working for BACTA and might find this letter “helpful”.
Any recollections from your end will be much appreciated, John.
One small additional point for any geeks who might still be reading – this was, I believe, the very last letter I ever wrote using WordPerfect.
Ian Harris 12 Clanricarde Gardens London W2 4NA Tel: (071) 243-0725 Fax: (071) 229-2967 Internet: zyenilh@zyenharri.win-uk.net Compuserve: 100434,1552
Mr John S White 27 September 1994 BACTA Bacta House Regents Wharf 6 All Saints Street London N1 9RQ
Dear Mr White
GAME FOR A CURSE
I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms. Last week I had the misfortune to enter a certain Anchor House, at which address I was induced by a resplendent banner to enter the aforementioned Game For A Curse competition. I was promised “thousands of cash prizes” for my not insignificant investment of 50p. Imagine my surprise and horror when I ascertained that my investment had been entirely lost. None of the promised cash prizes came my way (the offending card is enclosed for your perusal and comment).
I am not one of life’s losers, Mr White, and I assure you that the matter will not stop here. The gaming board shall hear of this, as shall the responsible Minister and/or the President of the Board of Trade.
Innocent citizens like myself should not be subjected to this humiliation and defeat. I very nearly won £1,000 (look at the card carefully) and therefore believe that the said prize should be mine by virtue of the error that you have clearly made with regard to the supply of a non-winning card.
Don’t try to get me under Schedule 1a of the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976 or I shall see to it that you are done under the Pedants and Irascible Old Gits Act of 1962. Two can play at this game, Mr White, so watch it.
The diaries are consistent on this – Saturday evening dinner at John & Mandy’s place (Dangan Road, Wanstead).
I think we went for a walk around the area before dinner on that occasion, as it was our first visit to that house and the days are long at that time of year. I remmeber doing that walk in the light.
We had a very good meal, although in truth I cannot describe exactly what we ate. I’m guessing that John cooked something with a southern asian theme, but not too hot and spicy because he knew that Janie doesn’t go for very spicy food.
I think it is fair to say that we probably drank some good wine too and I know that we did all enjoy the evening, as was our wont on those occasions when we four got together for meaks back then…and still, 26+ years later.
My diary is a bit of a confusion for that evening – indeed all that it reads is “Madness”…
…which I’m sure means “The Madness of George III”. But my theatre log is very clear that 17 October was this particular evening with John and Mandy and my diary also shows that “George III” reigned on 30 September for me:
What I think happened was that Bobbie, once again, could not make the planned theatre visit to see Madness of George III on 17 October, but was very keen to see that play. I vaguely recall Bobbie arranging a ticket swap with friends so that she/we could see “Madness” midweek a couple of weeks earlier and her friends got the prized Saturday night tickets that I had procured.
That freed up the evening of 17 October for Janie to meet John and Mandy and for all of us to see Death And The Maiden, which was still one of the hottest tickets in town that year, even though Juliet Stevenson (who had wowed audiences as the lead) had moved on.
Penny Downie played the lead in the cast we saw, which, as super subs go, is pretty darned super. Danny Webb and Hugh Ross played the male parts.
Janie and I are struggling to remember what other arrangements we made with John and Mandy around this evening. I think we might have had Chinese food in Soho with them before or after the theatre. Perhaps Mayflower? Or Joy King Lau in those days?
I also realise that my diaries at that time are littered with clues that John and Mandy must have recently moved house around that time:
Guessing that John and Mandy moved to Dangan Road that August, hence the address and phone number scrawled on 12 August……did I really escape the carnival 30 August to join John and Mandy in the George at Wanstead 30 August? Guessing that “birthday thing” 28 August would have been with my parents, but I’m not entirely sure about events of that weekend other than the 29 August hot date with Janie.
Anyway, on the day I am writing this up (29 August 2017), we shall be seeing John and Mandy later in the day, so I’ll pick their brains on these matters this evening and update this piece accordingly.
The play is set in an unspecified nation emerging into democracy from brutal dictatorship. Ariel Dorfman was a Chilean exile during the Pinochet years and the brutal regime is clearly based on that one. It is one of those hugely affecting plays about torture and the abuse of power. It brings to mind also One For The Road by Harold Pinter and Fermin Cabal’s Tejas Verdes.
I’m sure we did something after the play – perhaps we did eat afterwards. For sure we’d have needed a drink. For sure we found a way to discuss and decompress together for a while.
I remember being very pleased that John, Mandy and Janie all seemed to get along so well; in that regard alone the evening was a tremendous success (to use John’s favourite adjective). But it was also an excellent evening of theatre and I’m sure we must have eaten and drunk well…if only Janie and I could remember those details too.
Postscript: A strange coda to this story. Both Janie’s and my diairy say “The Madras House” for this evening, not “Death And The Maiden”. But my log says Death And The Maiden and I have no recollection of going to the Lyric with John and Mandy to see The Madras House – Janie and I saw that play at The Orange Tree many years later. Did we make a late switch of play choice or have the memories and documentary records got into a terrible muddle? I think probably the former.
But in truth, I wanted to write more about this lyric and in any case that original version from February 1992 was pre-NewsRevue (from my point of view) and never professionally performed.
By the summer of 1992 I was writing quite regularly for NewsRevue and, fortuitously (for me and for NewsRevue, not for the people of South Africa), Terre’blanche was back in the news.
Stalwarts of the show that summer were Jonathan Linsley and his then girlfriend Paula Tappenden. Both had a go at both acting and directing the show; at that juncture, Paula was directing and Jonathan was acting. That was good fortune for this song, as Jonathan was able to personify the ghastly Eugène Terre’Blanche very well.
I recall some excellent business in the intro where they would take the line “I like to watch springboks rutting” and get a member of the cast to do some suggestive puppetry with a pair of sneakers, only for Linsley/Terre’Blanche to yell, “I said springboks, not Reeboks”.
The female members of the cast would don deer masks and then dance around as a chorus of springboks. I recall that Dorothy (“Dot”) Atkinson was one of the springboks in that song but more importantly one of the supremely talented members of that cast.
Perhaps you had to be there – it was great. Paula and Jon (and indeed Dot); you were and are stars. It was one of the golden eras for NewsRevue.
In my delight and excitement at this triumph, I found, in Record and Tape Exchange, which is/was around the corner from my flat, an utterly ghastly album of Afrikaaner Oom-pah-pah music by Johnny Saffer and his Afrikaaner Pennywhistle Brass Band. OK, perhaps the band wasn’t called that, but the jolly looking chap on the cover “boer” a passing resemblance to Linsley/Terre’Blanche.
I gave the album to Paula and Jonathan. I think Jonathan and Paula enjoyed the wheeze. I wonder what became of that memento when they split? Perhaps this Ogblog piece will uncover one or both of those lovely people and my question might even be answered.
Meanwhile, the lyrics that were actually used in NewsRevue follow:
EUGENE TERRE’BLANCHE – JULY 1992 VERSION
(To the tune of “Sweet Gene Vincent”)
INTRO BIT
{CHORUS:Eugene baby}
I like to get out of Cape Town sometimes and drive round the Karoo,
I like to eat Boerwors with right wing reporters who claim we don’t screw;
I like to watch the springboks rutting, I like to eat them barbecued.
I think I only went on one occasion to join John White and his mates watching The O’s (Leyton Orient Football Club) on a Saturday afternoon.
I have uncovered a diary entry on 21 March 1992 which reads:
1.30 Northcote
Johnboy Soccer
This must be the one.
So our afternoon started in The Northcote…
…no, not THAT pub in Northcote Road near my dad’s old Clapham Junction shop – don’t be stupid…what use would that be ahead of an O’s home match?
The Northcote Arms, Leyton. I’m hoping that John and his mates will forgive me if I remember little about the pub at that time. It was a pub. It served beer. The beer was palatable, at least to the extent that I imagine that we all drank more than one pint before heading off to Brisbane Road.
The other thing we did while in the pub was to plot my admission to the ground. You see, unlike Lord’s, where I welcome guests into any part of the ground as long as they are suitably attired…
…at that time, at Brisbane Road, in theory, the members terrace was for members only. An exclusive place…
…ah, with a fine cricketing heritage. That might explain something.
There were a few of us – forgive me again I cannot remember all of the attendees that day. Me and John (obvs), Nick (central to my memory of this part of the story), Arnold I am pretty sure, plus a couple of other people.
The cunning plan was for one member of the party, once through the turnstile, to pass his membership card back out to one of the other members in our group, who would relay the pass to me and I would thus gain entry to the members area. No bar codes in those days. No electronic barrier. Just a ticket-lady and an old-fashioned turnstile.
This device was going according to plan until Nick, who was just ahead of me in the relay, dropped the pass and ended up scrambling on the ground for it in full sight of the turnstile lady.
Nick looked up, with a look of fear on his face, at which the ticket-lady said:
I’m sure I’ve told you lads before – we don’t mind you bringing the occasional friend in with you, if you want.
Nick’s look of fear turned to a look of shame as she smiled and stewarded us all through to the members terrace.
The members terrace looked little different from the other terraces and the stands, which were rather sparsely populated. There was a pocket of a few hundred Torquay fans on the other side.
I remember us all procuring a paper cup with piping hot brown liquid which, I was assured, was tea. This helped to keep us warm on a cold day for a few minutes at least. I think we might have repeated the tea-hand-and-gut-warming process a couple of times during the match.
In those days Leyton Orient was in a division known as League 3, which I believe might have been known as The Fourth Division “back in the day” and is now known as League Two. You see how a popular sport like Association Football keeps these matters simple, whereas cricket insists on complicating things.
I conducted a quick head count of the crowd and arrived at a total of 3,636. Not bad. I also very clearly remember that The Os won the match 2-0, much to the delight of John and his mates…
I don’t remember what we did after the match, but I suspect that a return visit to The Northcote Arms or a different pub of similar quality might have formed part of the aftermath.
So much did I enjoy the afternoon, I surely said that I would like to join them again some time at another match. I surely meant it when I said it and writing now, some 28 years later, I still think I might like to go to a football match again at some point in the future.
John Sitton, doyen of Leyton Orient in that era although, as it happens, exiled to Slough during the season of my visit.
My log says “little recollection” for this one, so I guess it didn’t make a big impression. Bobbie was with me.
Pirandello is one of those playwrights whose work I want to like more than actually do like. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that I tend to enjoy reading his plays, because the ideas are fascinating, but many of them are difficult to produce in an entertaining way – at least to the eyes of the modern audience.
Man, Beast And Virtue is an early Pirandello, written in 1919 (100 years ago as I write in 2019), about two years before his breakthrough play, Six Characters In Search Of An Author.
John White loves a bit of existential angst, so what could be a better choice for a Saturday night out than Huis Clos? Mandy was up for it. Annalisa was up for it. Off we went to the Lyric Hammersmith – the small Studio theatre there.
The play is set in hell, which is said to be a hot place.
It really was o-t ‘ot that evening. Clammy August and naturally the air conditioning system in the Studio wasn’t working.
Here’s my database/diary note for this evening:
The air conditioning had broken down on one of the hottest days of the year. The Lyric gave us all free squash in the interval because it was so bad. It did make the play about hell truly multi-sensory. The line “it’s so hot in here” had the whole audience in stitches.
John’s a good fellow. John will be able to read my hieroglyphics.
If John is unable to read my hieroglyphics, he will nevertheless remember the occasion vividly and remind me where we went that evening and what we did/ate.
Or if by some fluke John cannot remember exactly what we did a mere 29 years ago, I’m sure his diary will reveal more secrets about the evening than mine.
We met at 6:30 in the evening. I can say that with authority.
I didn’t stumble across this page while looking for something else and think “wtf does that say”…I really did, very specifically want to write up that particular evening…honest guv.
The preceding week, the only item of note was my visit to mum and dad’s place for dinner on the Saturday. My surge of social activity between completing my accountancy finals and settling down at Binders replaced by a more austere “work hard” lifestyle. Not least because I didn’t have that much spare dosh at first, with most of my pay going on rent and driving lessons to pay for. Must have done something for new years eve I’d have thought, but it’s not recorded, so lost in the mists of time.
The end of 1988 was a momentous time for me. I’ll have quite a lot to write about those weeks on Ogblog.
The brace of events I am recalling in this piece, reflecting briefly on that time thirty years later, are the core happenings. I changed job and moved house within the space of a couple of weeks.
Clanricarde Gardens
A few doors down, picture linked from (and clickable to) Philip Wilkinson’s wonderful blog piece about our street
I shall write up my flat hunting experience on a separate piece in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say here that my Clanricarde Gardens flat was the first place I saw and that I liked it straight away.
It was only the fact that I had nothing with which to compare it that kept me flat hunting for several more days. I have some interesting yarns to tell about some of the other places I saw. I asked to take a second look at Clanricarde Gardens on the Thursday and took Bobbie Scully with me to help me decide. “What are you waiting for? Just take it,” is a reasonable paraphrase of her sound judgement.
By way of context, I should explain that I was renting, not buying in late 1988. Some friends at that time thought I was bonkers by not jumping on the home ownership bandwagon “before it is too late”. But then some friends suffered some serious negative equity for several years after jumping on that bandwagon when it peaked back then.
Unusually, when I decided it was time for me to buy, in 1999, it was also an opportune time for the owners to sell, so I was able to buy the flat I had been renting for over 10 years. Try before you buy.
From Newman Harris To Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants (BHMC)
Again, I shall write more in separate pieces about these events over the coming weeks.
With the benefit of hindsight, taking just eight working days off between jobs with a view to:
finding a flat to rent;
moving into that flat;
learning to drive;
seeing friends and family in relatively large quantity;
going to plenty of theatre & stuff;
doing exam marking for Financial Training to help pay for all that…
…was a little ambitious, to say the least.
I rather like my only diary note on the day I started at BHMC:
Started at BHMC today – drink at lunchtime
Frankly, I probably needed a drink after that fortnight. But what a very 1980’s tradition for a new joiner at a City firm – the drink at lunchtime.
At Binder Hamlyn (BDOC) c1992
BHMC soon changed its name to BDO Consulting (BDOC). Five-and-a-half years after I joined the firm, Binder Hamlyn “merged” with Arthur Andersen (AA) and I concluded that the latter firm would not like my hairstyle. Michael Mainelli, who had not recruited me to BHMC but with whom I was mostly working by then, felt similarly about not wanting to persevere in Andersens, although not for hairstyle reasons…
…and thus Z/Yen was born.
I don’t remember meeting Michael on that first day or two at Binders – my memory of meeting him really starts at the Christmas lunch on 14 December. But Michael is pretty sure that he at the very least spent a few minutes saying “hi & bye” to me (probably to check that I didn’t have two heads or something) before packing me off the following week on a tough assignment with Save The Children Fund…from which the rest is history.
Reflecting On Those Weeks And Events
Further, when I look at my diaries and see what else I did during those momentous weeks, I still see many familiar names and activities.
Here are just two examples.
I went to Jacquie and Len’s place for dinner with Caroline on 30 November 1988. Janie and I are going to dinner at Jacquie’s tonight (1 December 2018) and only a couple of days ago, Caroline got in touch to arrange a get together.
27 November 1988, had John, Mandy, Ali, Valerie and Bobbie to lunch
I’m still in touch with most of them and am seeing John on Monday.
Those two momentous things I did in late 1988 have in essence been sustained for thirty years and still going. Also many of the people who were central to my being back then are still there too.
So I shall soon write up the many and various events of those frantic weeks.
Some of the tales will be about characters who entered my life only fleetingly – such as Larry the Drummer, the larger-than-life character I met through the Streatham Hill Driving School people, who became Larry the Man With A Van to help me move.
But some stories will benefit from the reflections of those people with whom I am still very much in touch.
And although, if I recall correctly, Michael Mainelli and I didn’t actually meet until I had been at the firm for a couple of weeks…
…1 December 1988 was, technically speaking, the date we started working together. So happy thirtieth anniversary, Michael.
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