This was an extraordinary installation/show. Not quite in the same class as The Masque Of The Red Death, another punchdrunk masterpiece, but not far off.
We went with Kim and Micky, eating a spread of Big Al goodies at the flat before ambling over to the venue. The “Temple Studios” installation was in the old Paddington sorting office; the place from whence I used to collect my parcels and “must be signed for” mail, back in the day.
This piece is about the making of a Hollywood movie and the studio that is making it. But are the scenes we see playing out scenes from the movie or real violent drama playing out in the studio?
Kim tried to amuse herself by putting the performers off, but they were all too seasoned for that. I enjoyed getting lost around the studio and examining the incredibly detailed artefacts punchdrunk had strewn around the place, before wending my way through the various performance scenes.
It was great fun.
The bar and entertainment therein was good too. At that juncture, Kim’s style of intervention was positively sought after and Kim did not disappoint.
This will have been a Christmas presents visit with Janie cooking dinner for all of us. The details of the menu are not recorded in Janie’s diary, but we do know that Janie & I took a cab after dinner and stayed at my flat, letting Hil and Chris have Sandall Close for the night while we went back to Sandall Close via the tennis court in the morning.
21 December 2008 Charlie
Charlie visited her grandma and then came over to Sandall Close for dinner and to stay the night. The menu is not recorded again, but the words “Champagne in fridge” do appear in Janie’s diary. Priorities.
25 December 2008 Christmas Lunch In Battersea
With Dad and Len now gone, we felt that the gathering at Janie’s place would no longer be appropriate. We ended up booking a restaurant in Battersea – I cannot remember its name or how we came across it, but it seemed keenly priced for Christmas Day and suitably located twixt North-West and South-West London.
I recall our Addison Lee driver really struggling to find Battersea High Street and getting very stressy with us. I recall the place being pretty darned good for the price, in terms of food, drink and ambience. I’m pretty sure it was just me, Janie, Hils, Jacquie and Mum that year. Janie thinks Michael and Dorothy joined us, but I think their first appearance for a Christmas Day do was the following year.
I think mum picked up the tab for all five of us – hence me not having a record of the name of the place.
31 December 2008 – New Years Eve Gathering At The Ramada
Phillie really hadn’t been at all well that autumn and there was real doubt as to whether she should or would attend this event. But we had arranged it with her in mind – she wanted to dance – so we took a large table at a communal New Years Eve dinner and dance at the Ramada Ealing (the DoubleTree by Hilton at the time of writing, January 2019).
Wouldn’t have been our choice independently but, hey, it was what Phillie wanted and everyone at that time thought this might be her last hoorah. In the end, Phillie needed to have herself put together with sellotape and promise the doctor that she wouldn’t not to dance too much to get permission to attend.
We think the attendees were Max, Micky, Kim, Anthea, Mitchell, Hil, Chris, Tony, Phillie, Charlie (I think), Janie and me.
Phillie, in her inimitable style, complied with “doctors orders” by dancing all the rest of us off the dance floor – I’m talking non stop dancing for hours. Kim and Janie’s thoughts on the matter are captured photographically below:
That time of year, I suppose. A few evenings worth listing.
11 September 2008: Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner – explained in the third entry of the link piece. Here is John Random’s tombstone e-mail from that night:
Just like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all those who came to the 32nd Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner – actually I don’t know if it is the 32nd but we’ve been doing an average of four a year since the year 2000, so it sounds plausible. Those of you who weren’t there, whether in Africa, America, Ireland or some oil-producing nation such as Harpenden you were all sadly missed, You missed a great quiz from Gerry, and the surprise (and welcome) re-appearance of John Cowen. Special guest Neil Watson brought a touch of class to the proceedings.
26 September 2008: Kim, Micky and Charlie dinner, 7:00ish. Sounds like it must have been at Sandall Close; a trawl through Janie’s diary archive will confirm or deny at some stage.
30 September 2008: Stuart Rose lecture at the Royal Opera House. Can’t find an on-line reference but I do recall being there. Something about probity and stuff.
On the Friday we had dinner with Jamil & Souad. Both of our diaries are silent on the details of where we went, but I’m pretty sure they wanted to treat Janie for her birthday so my guess is that we went to one of the well posh Lebanese restaurants they favoured at that time – i.e. probably Noura in either Curzon Street or Hobart Place.
Those two are always jolly company and would have been extremely hospitable.
Saturday 28 June – Kim, Micky, Anthea and Mitchell
Again both diaries are well light on detail. There were thoughts of another Sandall Close party for that evening, but I think the combination of Charlie’s graduation the day before and Phillie’s poor health meant that idea was shelved. There is a half plan for Hil & Chris to come down in Janie’s book, but I think that was when we thought we might have a party. Janie notes in different coloured ink, which looks over-riding:
Annies…+ Kim, + Anthea…
…followed by cab bookings.
Annies will have been the Strand On The Green branch (I don’t think Ive been to the Barnes branch) and I must admit that neither Janie nor I remember much about this particular evening. It will have been enjoyable and I do recall liking the food and ambience in Annies.
I think that evening replaced one planned for a couple of week’s earlier (14 June), when we were hoping to see DJ too.
We had a relatively quiet start to 2008, with everything that went on towards the end of 2007, we’d booked little at the start of 2008.
5 January
A gathering at Kitt & Julia’s place in Sandall Close. A good chance to socialise a little with neighbours etc.
9 January
I went to Aidrienne Da Donka’s funeral that day. The Da Donka’s lived next door in Woodfield Avenue. If I recall correctly mum couldn’t face it, being so close to dad’s passing and at the same location, so I moved my (copious) work around and represented the family at that funeral. This was the first of what seemed (to me) an unlikely number of such funerals within 12-18 months or so of dad’s passing.
12 January
Dinner at Amaya with Kim & Micky. Top notch Indian grub. Looks as though we stayed at my flat afterwards. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t much remember this evening…
…but strangely Daisy remembers lots about it. She even remembers eating “zip-up lamb”. Crumbs – that’s some memory in January 2019 from someone who claims to have almost no memory.
We do both remember the evening being a success though as everyone enjoyed their grub as well as the company.
Saturday 1 December we had the Jams over for dinner at Sandall Close. Kim, Micky & DJ came. No doubt it was a good one.
Friday 7 December we went to Michael and Pam’s for dinner. Mum joined us there. I suppose they were sensitive to the season and the fact that dad had passed away a few months earlier. It was kind of them to do that; I don’t suppose it was much of a fun evening for any of us in the circumstances.
Saturday 8 December we went to Claudia & Richard’s house in Totteridge for dinner. Anthea and Mitchell were there. The hospitality was lavish and the company very enjoyable that evening. It looks as though we got a cab because Janie’s diary is replete with cab booking notes.
Traditional gathering for the breaking of the fast, not that many of us fast. Even fewer this year, as this was the first such gathering without dad. I’m not sure anyone was quite on best form that year with the shock of it all, apart from Jacquie who will have laid on a magnificent feast as always.
Briegal table from a later year but the look would have been similar.
26 September: Middlesex AGM?
This cannot have been the AGM, which has to be in April, so perhaps it was just an end of season forum. Sportnetwork has lost the vital 2007 MTWD reports, but fortunately this one was written by Barmy Kev who sent his report to me for editing and uploading. So here it is:
Janie and I went to see Micky’s new offices in Hatton Garden and then went on for a meal with Kim & Micky. I cannot remember where we ate that time but it might well have been The Bleeding Heart.
29 to 30 September
We went out to Chipping Norton to help Charlie celebrate her 21st birthday. We stayed in the Crown and Cushion, where the event was held. Janie and I took The Duchess with us.
I remember we hated staying in the Crown and Cushion. Several times we hinted to Tony that we’d prefer to stay somewhere else, but he would insist that the management had changed or a refurb had been done since the last time…
…but in truth our sense of the place was that it simply got worse every time we stayed there.
You’re not exactly spoiled for choice in Chipping Norton.
Anyway, it made sense to stay there on this occasion because it was the venue for the big event. The family gathered as did friends and in-laws. Charlie seemed very happy with the event and I recall some informal gatherings before and after the main event to make a bit of a weekend of it.
Quite a few crossings-out in that early part of 2007. For example, we were due to see Kim and Micky in early January, but I think that got cancelled/postponed and became instead the gathering on 10 February.
20 January 2007
A Saturday evening out with Jamil and Souad. We started the evening at their place for drinks. Janie and I are straining to remember where we ate.
We know they like to eat at Noura in Belgravia (and have eaten there with them more than once) but Janie and I both have a feeling we ate in Mayfair that night. Perhaps they just fancied the change or perhaps Belgravia was unavailable when they chose to book.
In any case, we had a very pleasant evening as always with those two.
10 February 2007
We had Kim, Micky, DJ and his then girlfriend Julie over for dinner at Sandall Close that night.
We can’t honestly remember the menu, but with two vegetarians in the group (Kim and Julie) almost certainly one of Janie’s takes on Lebanese food (perhaps inspired by the Noura experience a few week’s before) so that four of us got a good meaty main course while the others had loads of dips, tabbouleh and the like to make up a substantial meal.
If it was anything more complex, there’d usually be some tell-tale notes in Janie’s diary, but there are none…
Quintessential Harris shot, late 1990s: the uppish leg-side hoick
Between 1984 and 1998 I pretty much didn’t play cricket at all. Perhaps the odd knock around when I was in my mid twenties, then there were the dog years of the early 1990s following my catastrophic back injury in the summer of 1990. After that, my cricket “career” was limited to a bit of watching and the odd umpiring stint…
…until the summer of 1998.
That summer, Z/Yen was still doing work with Barnardo’s and had also by then got heavily involved with The Children’s Society. Thus it transpired that our main client contacts, especially at the latter, were keen cricketers.
But the initial challenge came from Barnardo’s and I think it was Kevin Parker who initially picked up the challenge.
So like buses, no cricket for years and then two matches came along in a row. The first of them was just Z/Yen and Barnardo’s.
Z/Yen – a tiny company with about 10 employees in those days. Barnardo’s employed several thousand people, a great many of whom worked at the Barkingside campus.
Barnardo’s had quite a lot of people who knew what they were doing for a cricket match…
One of the Barnardo’s IT team, if I recall correctly
…whereas Z/Yen didn’t. I press-ganged a few likely folk and we tried our best against adversity, but adversity…by which I mean Barnardo’s…were destined to win.
By the time we got to this first match, I think that the plans for a second match, which ended up including people from The Children’s Society, were already in place, so I think we all saw this first one as a bit of a warm up.
But Micky’s one and only experience of cricket had very little to do with warm up. Micky is from Belgium and fancied having a go. He’s that sort of “have a go” chap. Back in 1998, he wasn’t exactly displacing a queue of Z/Yen people who wanted to play…
…let’s be honest about this, we were struggling to get a team together; hence the cunning plan to bring in The Children’s Society enthusiasts for the next one.
…I thought Micky might be safest patrolling the boundary.
But Micky did no warming up or keeping warm exercise ahead of the ball coming vaguely in his direction about 20-30 minutes into the match. He set off enthusiastically around the outfield only to pull up with a hamstring tear some 10 yards shy of the ball.
So when it was Z/Yen’s turn to bat, we not only had to explain the way batting works to Micky, we also had to provide him with a runner and explain how that arcane aspect of the laws of cricket works too.
Not ideal.
Yet still a good time was being had by all.
My other very clear memory is my own experience batting in partnership with a gentleman named Nigel. He was Karen Moore’s partner or husband, so qualified to play for Z/Yen on those grounds. He might otherwise have seemed like a ringer.
Nigel was no cricketer but he was a fitness instructor and had a Mr Motivator manner and clearly was a talented all-round sportsman.
I was scratching away, barely able to put bat on ball…
…well I hadn’t played for 14 years or so…
…until Nigel came to the crease, only to start whacking the ball using just hand-eye and natural talent.
Come on Ian, you can do it…
…Nigel hollered encouragingly and convincingly from the non-strikers end. And strangely, feeding off Nigel’s ill-founded confidence in me and the freedom that added to my game, I started to score some runs and contribute well to our partnership.
OK, we couldn’t turn the game around, but we had a decent knock – perhaps I put on 10-12 – which I remember making me feel well chuffed.
I think the match took place near Barkingside – I think Fairlop – perhaps Old Parkonians – my diary is silent on detail.
Postscript: my memory has served me well. I wrote this up for Now & Z/Yen at the time thusly:
Z/Yen defied all the spread bets by coming a close second in a cricket competition in late July, against Barnardo’s, at Fairlop. Z/Yen highlights included Jane Beazley taking a wicket, Michael Mainelli scoring 16 runs “baseball style”, Michel Einhorn pulling a hamstring and a stunning undefeated partnership of 36 runs in three overs between Ian Harris and Nigel Moore.
None of these stunts were enough to prevent Barnardo’s from deservedly winning by 23 runs. Unlike our good friends at Barnardo’s, Z/Yen took the obvious precaution of bringing some children along with us, only one of whom succeeded in getting a black eye trying to retrieve the ball. It was an amazing summer evening, which showed the weather characteristics of spring, autumn and winter during the two hours of play. The weather improved once we retired to the sports centre for beer and cake. Watch out for the next similar event; it was a smashing evening.
The full stack of pictures (from both matches) might help savvy locals to work it out:
This date hovered around between the Friday 8th and Saturday 9th, eventually settling, it seems, on the Friday.
Janie finished work a bit early and did the honours for an 8.00 meal. It will have been a good one, but Annalisa’s vegetarianism (was Annie also veggie?) will have irritated Janie a bit.
My guess is that Janie will have done something along the lines of the food she tends to serve Kim. Perhaps ratatouille. Perhaps Lebanese style food.
It will have been good. (I know i have said that twice).
Janie and I went to the hygienist the next day. That incident will have been unconnected with the good meal incident.
I think I possibly flew out to Geneva on the Sunday. For sure I was there on the Monday and I think I stayed a couple of nights.
The following weekend, I played bridge at Tessa’s on the Friday then went on to Janie’s place.
On the Saturday Janie cooked for Kim & Micky. That too will have been a good one.
