Ossobuco – picture by Stu Spivack via Wikipedia Commons
It was that sort of era, really, the 1990s. Dinner parties and small gatherings.
Listing The Events
24 June – “Tessa’s party” – Tessa played bridge with me, Andrea and Maz. She lived in Acton;
1 July – “Duchess Japanese meal” – that would have been at Momos on Queen’s Parade. Janie and I often ate there in those days, quite often making it a Friday evening treat after work. It was a superb, authentic Japanese place, run by Mr Asari. We still miss it. We decided to treat the Duchess to the place for her birthday that year;
15 July – “Kim & Micky [for] dinner” – at theirs I think. Janie and I went to the Canal Cafe to see NewsRevue the next day.
29 July – “John & Jolli” – that will have been John Thompson and his partner Jolita. I think they came to Sandall Close for a meal.
5 August – “Bernie, Heather & Dave” – these are people we met in China in 1993. We owed Heather & Dave hospitality as we had been to a party up their way (Bedfordshire/Northamptonshire). Bernie was a laugh.
26 August – “Dinner with Anthea”
27 August – “North China restaurant” with Andrea and others?
The menu is absent from Janie’s diary for the above events, but absent for:
An Ossobuco Evening With Daniel, Julie, Michael, Elisabeth, Kim & Micky, 3 September 1995
Daniel had migrated to Australia and paired up with (perhaps already married) Julie. This was their first visit to the UK together. Janie cooked a wonderful Ossobuco meal for all of us that evening.
There’s a “delicacies shopping list” to die for on the Maundy Thursday page of Janie’s diary, with prosciutto ham, guinea fowl breasts and Aberdeen Angus fillet all listed next to “Harvey Nics” opening times. Back then Janie used the butchers there.
On the evening of Good Friday, I went to my parents’ house for Pesach sedar night, which Janie skipped that year. Janie acquired more of a taste for such events than me by the end of my parents’ lives, but at that time, Janie wanted some well-earned rest instead and who could blame her.
We played tennis on the Saturday morning – the first reference to playing that year. Janie booked Court 8 it says.
Court 4 of Lammas Park, as was, more than 25 years later
Janie’s diary says we had dinner at Noughts & Crosses on the Saturday evening, although I am struggling to work out when we were supposed to eat all that yummy grub she brought back from Harvey Knickers. I suppose one of the meals was Thursday night and one intended for the Monday.
Sunday dinner at The Mainellis (or accurately at that time I should say Michael Mainelli & Elisabeth Reuss). This event was at Elisabeth’s place in Chiswick/Gunnersbury. It was possibly revenge…I mean reciprocation…for the Wild Boar evening a couple of months earlier:
Elisabeth proudly served us sauerbraten, a German national dish. We had a very pleasant evening and of course sank more-than-reasonable quantities of alcohol; it would have been churlish of us as guests to do otherwise.
Both Janie and I struggled to digest all of that in the night. What I didn’t realise was that my “almost to be expected” digestive struggle was as nothing compared with the pain Janie was feeling.
We called the doctor, who suggested that she brave out what was probably just over-indulgence or food poisoning. Once Janie was doubled with pain, we called the doctor again and a locum came to Sandall Close to see her. He diagnosed food poisoning, “which can be very painful” and gave her a pain-killing shot.
The pain-killing shot provided Janie with some temporary relief. But once that shot wore off and she was doubled over again in agonising pain, I called for an ambulance.
Which was just as well.
Because it transpired that Janie had pancreatitis resulting from a gall stone getting trapped in her pancreatic duct. Her gall bladder was over-flowing with stones. Just the thought of it is agonisingly painful.
The A&E doctors seemed very young and they gave us reassurance in the way that only well-trained, following all the protocols doctors can.
They told us that they thought they had the matter under control and that most people of Janie’s age and health (normally very good) would recover fully from the ordeal…but that pancreatitis is an extremely dangerous and serious condition so it was possible that Janie wouldn’t survive.
I had driven to the hospital in my own car, behind the ambulance, as advised by the ambulance crew. I drove back to Sandall Close alone in the early hours of the Tuesday morning. I put on the car radio for that short journey. The DJ was playing Miserlou by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones on the radio…
…well it was 1995 when Pulp Fiction was all the rage. I can no longer hear that tune without thinking of that lonely drive home.
SPOILER ALERT! Janie didn’t die. In fact, she recovered well and quickly.
A fortnight later, she had her gall bladder removed on the Monday to ensure that no such episode could happen again. She had the stitches removed on the Saturday and we played tennis the next day and the day after that, which was Bank Holiday Monday.
Tough cookie, is Janie. But I haven’t noticed her choosing to eat sauerbraten again since that Easter weekend.
Actually that was the second of the weekends, when Michael Mainelli & Elisabeth (then still Reuss) came over to Janie’s place in Sandall Close for a feast of wild boar. Almost certainly not the handsme fellow depicted.
The week before, we went to Paul James’s place in Enfield for a party, possibly a housewarming as he was living in Wallington the previous time we went to his place.
We were pretty sure the funding was secured and wanted to keep the funders, not least Eli, sweet.
Word was, Eli’s favourite dish was Lobster Thermidor. Janie, bless her, decided to invite Eli and his family and Michael and Elisabeth over for a Lobster Thermidor fest.
After all, how difficult can it possibly be to prepare Lobster Thermidor from first principles?
Reader, I am here to tell you that it is a heck of a lot of work to prepare Lobster Thermidor from first principles and it is really, really difficult to prepare Lobster Thermidor for seven people in a small domestic kitchen.
To add to the difficulties, I also prepared, for the same meal, my famous wonton soup from first principles in that small kitchen.
Before the soup
And to had to the hard work of it all, it transpired that Eli was one of those people who constantly needs to be entertained…like…constantly. Games, stories, food, drink…no quiet periods just savouring the moment.
Exhausted, post guests, some left over soupExhausted, post guests, some left over Lobster Thermidor
Twas the season of goodwill, a week before Christmas 1994, so we shall not report here Janie’s retrospective views on the subsequent debacle over Z/Yen’s start-up financing arrangements. Suffice it to say that Z/Yen survived it and thrived despite it. So we should, in a way, remain grateful to Z/Yen’s initial finance guarantors.
Traditions have to start somewhere; this was the first Z/Yen Seasonal party lyric.
I’d forgotten about this one until I found it in my electronic lyric archive, dated 9 December 1994. Reading the lyric brought it all back to me. I previously thought the lyric for the second seasonal party was the first lyric, probably because that is the earliest one that found its way to the Z/Yen web site. We’ll put that right soon enough.
We sang the following at the first ever seasonal gathering of Z/Yen, on 16 December 1994. We were at the Paris House, Woburn, same venue as the following year. A plaintiff little song; I rather like it. Very different in style and tone to later Z/Yen seasonal songs.
Elisabeth, Michael and Katie
We had a meeting and a Shareholders’ Agreement signing ceremony before dinner, although Michael couldn’t subscribe to Z/Yen until a couple of months later. I think he might be going through the Christmas card list in the photo above.
Steve at Paris House in 1994
Stuart subscribing, Janie in the background.
Z/YEN
(To the Tune of “Ben”)
VERSE 1
Z/Yen, the group of us need look no more,
We have founded what we’re looking for;
Tense, and some might say up tight,
We’re working half the night,
Because, my friends, you see,
We’ve got our Main-ell-i
(You’ve got your Mainelli).
From February……… allegedly…..
VERSE 2
Z/Yen, we’re always running here and there,
(Here and there),
That’s why we’ve all lost half of our hair,
(Half of your hair);
Then a project falls behind,
And we’re all hard to find,
But somehow, as you know,
We always make a go.
(The weekend tends to go).
MIDDLE EIGHT
We used to say, “we are bored”,
Now it’s “risk and reward”;
You used to seek dark and rest
Now it’s light, now it’s zest.
VERSE 3
Z/Yen, although we are still very small,
(Very small),
We can puff it up if we talk big,
(if you talk balls);
When, you learn the things we do,
You’ll all want to join too,
So, if we’d start again,
We’d still form a firm like Z/Yen.
Here is Michael Jackson singing Ben, with the lyrics on the screen:
… there were times when I thought the business wouldn’t be ready to start trading on 1 October 1994. But of course we were able to open our sole door, to our sole room in Garrard House, 31-45 Gresham Street, on that prescribed day. No death in a ditch for me.
Click and look at the images for that address and you will see a grand City building, opposite Wax Chandler’s Hall, which at the time of writing has been home to Schroders plc for decades.
In the autumn of 1994, though, it was an old 1930’s building, in a state of some distress, which was about to be emptied for the purposes of a massive makeover for Schroders.
There were just five of us on the payroll that first autumn; Kate Carty, me, Stuart Otter, Steve Taylor and John Thompson. Michael Mainelli was with us, in spirit and informally, but technically Michael was unable to join the firm until February 1995.
Kate Carty got something akin to cabin fever in those early months, as so few of us went nigh nor by the place. Yet somehow Kate and Steve got it together during that early period of Z/Yen’s life, such that our tiny business of just six people; the other four of whom were attached, managed to yield an office romance and then marriage which, like Z/Yen, has endured to this day (as I write 25 years later).
Kate (standing) with Elisabeth and MichaelSteve
One abiding memory from that room is the day in early December when we needed to splurge on getting our first year’s Christmas cards out. We thought this to be a very important marketing campaign…
…in truth the Christmas cards was our only marketing campaign for the first year or so of our existence.
A rare occasion when several of us were in the room at the same time; me, Kate and John Thompson.
In the early days of a business, everyone needs to muck in for all tasks, including stuffing envelopes and labelling up Christmas cards…
…but John Thompson seemed a little reluctant for such menial tasks.
I said:
I must be the highest paid envelope-stuffer in the City right now.
John, a competitive fellow who was being paid considerably more than me at that time, immediately jumped up and exclaimed,
No, I am the highest paid envelope-stuffer in the City.
I left BDO at the beginning of August with a view to most of
the others joining at the start of October 1994. Michael was not permitted to
join until early 1995. So for seven or eight weeks, I was technically on my own,
setting up Z/Yen.
In Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, there is a story about Golgafrinchans, a race of humanoid beings on another planet, who were the true ancestors of humanity. The Golgafrinchans divided their society into three distinct groups; thinkers, doers and middle-folk, the latter group of which were deemed useless and so were launched off into space, purportedly to be the advance party for a relocation of the entire society, but in reality to enable the thinkers and doers to stay put and thrive on their own planet.
Now I like to think of myself as part thinker, part doer,
but there were times during that late summer when I wondered whether I has been
launched as a Golgafrinchan-style advance party.
Not that I was entirely on my own. My diary shows an evening session with Michael on 9 August, which resulted in a massive “to do” list for establishing Z/Yen, “Z/Yen Notes”, available for inspection here.
In addition to the tasks on that list, I wrote an initial business plan, also available for inspection here. I also finished off several client assignments on an associate basis after leaving the old firm. My diary for those weeks looks ridiculous – it was a ludicrously busy time.
Example of a ludicrously busy week
It was hard to get businesses started in those days. It was
impossible to find premises without 12 months or more trading record, but how
were we supposed to get a trading record without space. Thank you, Nick
Pickering of Rochester Partnership for helping us with space for that early
part of Z/Yen’s life.
It was a similar “Catch 22” with start-up business finance in those days. Michael, Elisabeth, Janie and I took Z/Yen’s initial business plan to the South of France late August – we had to pitch it to our prospective external investors at Eli Wallitt’s villa in Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne, near Grasse.
Grasse rooftops
We all stayed in Nice at the Hotel Windsor. My financial records show that we ate one night at Le Farniente, which is still there 25 years later. We also ate at a place named Au Bistroquet which is harder to track down now.
I especially recall the convoy drive up to Saint-Cézaire; Michael and Janie had very different ideas on driving speeds on unfamiliar mountain roads in little hired cars from Avis; I expect it looked like a latter-day version of the car chase scenes in Monte Carlo or Bust!
OK, in truth these photos are of my parents’ visit to that same Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur part, in 1958.
That initial financing arrangement did not end at all well, but that debacle came later – part of Z/Yen’s Book of Exodus – whereas this promordyall chronique is Z/Yen’s book of Genesis.
I did still find time for writing some silly stuff. There was a leaving do for several people on 30 August at Corney and Barrow. In fact, I think, technically, that was my leaving do as well. I’d had an informal, smaller gathering of friends at the same venue on 12 August at my own expense, but I think the 30 August thing was laid on by the firm. I produced a handout for the evening, which I think went down well.
I do also recall around that time some farcical conversations with the Companies House people, who struggled to register our little group of companies because different departments, that didn’t speak with each other, dealt with holding companies and subsidiary companies. The holding companies got bounced because they didn’t have subsidiaries, while the subsidiaries got registered to (at the time) non-existent holding companies. Technically speaking, this might mean that Z/Yen has never has existed at all; an intriguing thought.
At several
points, I thought the business wouldn’t be ready to start trading on 1 October
1994, but of course we were able to open our doors (or I should say one door, for
one room in Gresham Street) that day.
My earliest diary note of the events that actually led to Z/Yen are in the week of 28 March 1994, which has a 9:30 call with Michael Mainelli that day and the evening of 30 March booked out “MRM” (that’s Michael) for a Park Inn Chinese meal, at my place, organised at short notice.
My memory records a couple of “two bottles of wine” evenings with Michael, but actually I don’t think 30 March was one of those. I think the first “two bottles” evening was a couple of weeks later, after a consultancy team meeting at which it became clear that the so-called “merger” was going ahead and that the consultancy was going with it.
I’m pretty sure that we ate and drank in a place along Craven Road, near to Michael’s place. Spanish, I think, but possibly Italian – I think now Il Gusto.
The date of the “two bottles of Rioja” evening during which the name Z/Yen emerged is lost in the mists of time, but I am guessing late spring and I specifically recall the name emerging towards the end of another Park Inn Chinese meal at my flat. By that time we had colleagues Stuart Otter, Steve Taylor and Kate Carty lined up to join the new venture, together with the elusive John Thompson, who had been a client of Michael’s. No-one was entirely comfortable with the name Z/Yen, but when we challenged everyone (including ourselves) to suggest something better, answer there came none.
Michael Mainelli and I traveled to Geneva and Gland more than once, while we were doing some advisory work for the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). This was our longest visit – best part of a week in my case – I think Michael might have stayed a bit longer.
Good to see that the above picture of the World Intellectual Property Organisation building in Geneva is licenced to be used under creative commons.
Michael had lived and worked in Geneva for a while, a few year’s earlier. We stayed at Michael’s favourite hotel from that bygone era; Small & friendly it was. L’Hôtel d’Allèves. More than 26 years later, judging by the website, it still looks like a nice relic of a bygone era; somewhat upgraded from its 1993 incarnation.
I recall having a good meal with Michael in the hotel on the evening we arrived. Local dishes and local wine.
Several members of staff at the hotel clearly knew Michael, who was keen to show off his command of the French language. Unfortunately, while Michael is no doubt very good at learning words and grammatical forms, his accent has a very un-French sound to it. I remember a few times, repeating what Michael had said or me choosing some simpler French words from my own, more limited, French vocabulary, to ensure that we were understood. That aspect of the trip reminded me of family visits to France; my father had a similar problem with spoken French.
Despite Michael’s insistence, while briefing me pre-visit and/or in transit, that Swiss trains run on time, the service between Geneva and Gland was almost British in its tardiness while we were there for this trip. We experienced several delayed journeys during that week, including that first Friday ahead of the weekend.
Michael had arranged a weekend jaunt with a charming woman, Ita Schlik, who was a former colleague of Michael’s. Ita took us out to Annecy for the day, I think on the Saturday.
Annecy is a beautiful town; I remember our visit being a very relaxing and enjoyable day out. Ita was very good company and clearly knew the ropes extremely well in terms of scenic routes, avoiding traffic and gaming the differential benefits of being in France and being in Switzerland – e.g. where to fill up with petrol, where to fill up with wine and gifts. There seemed, to me, to be a whole border industry based around those differences, with no physical border to be seen. A possible lesson for us in the UK (or what might soon be left of the UK, he writes in January 2020).
I do recall the clocks going back that weekend (about a month earlier than in the UK). I went for a walk early on the Sunday and every public clock had been changed overnight. Yes, top notch effort with the clocks. So, based on my own experience, I’m not so sure about trains, but the Swiss are great at clocks…
…I’m starting to sound like Harry Lime…
But we were mostly there to work and we did most of our work in Gland.
Mind you, I recall one occasion when Swiss-style time keeping might have helped. We arranged some surgery sessions, which allowed people to approach us informally with issues. Michael and I would pair on those. I got to one surgery five minutes late, to find a woman in tears in front of Michael, who looked unusually lost for words. I imagined an Oleanna-like incident or something, but it transpired that this woman simply got very emotional worrying about her spreadsheet or some such administrative problem that was troubling her.
I also remember one flight back from Switzerland with John Ward and David Taylor (of WWF), but without Michael. (It might have been this particular trip or it might have been one of the shorter visits). The pilot clearly made a mistake on landing – the experience was so bumpy and damage-noise-ridden that we all jumped out of our skins. The co-pilot apologised for his colleague over the public address system.
I’m pretty sure it did eventually find its way into NewsRevue…
…but not on the particular Thursday evening of my return. The lyric was scribbled in my diary while I was away and I can see from my electronic log that I typed it up and saved it c19:15 on the evening of my return.
So I probably took the script with me to the Canal Cafe that very evening, printed out on the rudimentary line printer I had at home at that time. Yes, for sure I did rush to the Canal Cafe that night, grabbing a Thai meal on the way, to catch the opening night of a new run and to drop off my new script.
There’s dedication to both work and play. Not so sure about the rest.
