Tag: Micky

A Quiet Weekend Followed By A Midweek Dinner With Kim & Micky, 1 to 6 October 1993

Following my trip to Switzerland, Janie and I clearly chose to have a quiet weekend. We spent at least some of the time at mine.

The most noteworthy thing in the diaries…indeed the only appointment…was Microbee at 10:30 on the Saturday. We’d had an infestation of cockroaches in Clanricarde Gardens – I think resulting from the major “knock-down-leaving-facades-only” job a few doors down from mine.

I remember in particular a very friendly Aussie pest-control dude whose lifestyle was to spend English summers in England and Australian summers in Oz. He was clearly over-qualified for the role of pest control dude, but the lifestyle of perennial summers mattered morre to him than the nature of his work.

I think this might well have been his last visit.

Janie jotted L’Artista Finchley Road in her diary, which I suspect was planning for the Wednesday evening meal with Kim & Micky.

Janie and I both finished work late on Friday 1st, so I’ll guess we fell back on getting some top notch Chinese food from May’s place, The Park Inn, just around the corner from mine…

…Postscript: What excitement. My Quicken financial records start in mid September 1993 so I can confirm that I spent the princely sum of £16 at Park Inn that night, 1 October. That almost certainly means that I had some home cooked Chinese food; perhaps won ton soup and/or my Cantonese style braised brisket dish, which I would have supplemented with some of May’s food, e.g. pork bellies (a necessity I’d have thought), rice and vegetables.

I’m not 100% sure we ate at L’Artista that Wednesday night with Kim & Micky but I know we did eat there with them way back when, so I’m guessing this was one of those occasions.

My accounts are silent on this matter, but “over there” Kim & Micky would no doubt have insisted on picking up the tab.

Kim & Micky’s Party, 25 July 1993

Janie had been on a bit of a theatre-fest that week. Bish Bash Bosh with me on the Thursday…

Bish Bash Bosh, NewsRevue Spin Off In Willesden, Opening Night, 22 July 1993

…The Questors Theatre with her mum on the Friday night (production not named in the diary), while I played bridge with Daniel and friends that night.

Then we both went to see Oleanna on the Saturday – that was a wow evening…

Oleanna by David Mamet, Royal Court Theatre, 24 July 1993

…so Kim & Micky’s early evening party (starting at 5.00) was probably a bit of an antidote to all that.

Was this the one during which Victor gave me and Janie (especially Janie) the benefit of his wisdom about relationships? I have a feeling it was. It went down about as well as the Professor character in Oleanna touching his student on the shoulder. Oh well.

But the party would have been a swinging one, with plenty of people, good food, fine wines and lots of fun. Just the ticket ahead of early starts for both of us on the Monday morning.

Another Dinner Party, Another Long Weekend, 24 to 27 June 1993

According to Janie’s diary, she came to the Canal Cafe with me on the Thursday evening (24th) to see NewsRevue.

We’d both booked the Friday out, so my guess is that the idea was to sort out the food for Saturday’s dinner party together on the Friday.

Janie’s order is written on the Friday page and is Lebanese food, so this party will have been a smaller scale version of the New Years do a few months earlier:

Twixtmas 1992, Kim & Micky For Lunch Bank Holiday Monday 28 December, Jane’s Party 31 December 1992

We’ll have gone to Mrs Saad’s place in Notting Hill/North Kernsington together to place the order – and what an order for six people. My guess is that this was one of those occasions when Janie and I ended up eating Lebanese left-overs for a week afterwards…

…worse things can happen.

Look at the order/notes:

The veal and pork mixed mince is my prescription for cha chiang. Did we serve the odd Chinese dish as well? Or perhaps the deal was that I would cook a noce meal on the Friday ahead of the party-style feast on Saturday.

It was Janie’s birthday after all – our first of those together.

Janie’s diary also mentions Jill the aromatherapist visiting us at the house on the afternoon of her birthday/birthday bash.

In those days, I was seeing John Chaney at Lampton Place for massage during the week.

The visit from Jill (Wootton) was probably the first time Janie and I had a massage-type therapy treatment together.

Bless.

We both remember Jill moving away and giving up maassage/aromatherapy quite soon after we started working with her. It seems that Jill is now (2019/2023) a hypnotherapist and psychotherapist instead.

As for the dinner party; it is clear that we got Mrs Saad to deliver the food and I am pretty sure it is safe to say that the evening was a great success.

Looks like a lot of food – that can’t have been just for six of us. I’ll guess that the guest numbers went up without additional names being written down.

Dinner At Victor & Kim’s Place, Hampstead Way, 15 May 1993

We went for dinner at Victor & Kim’s place. Kim & Micky were also there. DJ might have been there too that night but I have a feeling it was just the six of us.

Victor’s second wife was named Kim, which caused some confusion with his daughter Kim when, on occasions, someone mentioned “Kim” without a fair bit of context.

Janie’s solution was to add the suffix “the chickidoo” when referring to Victor’s Kim, while omiting said suffix when referring to her old school pal Kim. Clever stuff.

Anyway, I seem to recall a very enjoyable evening on that occasion. Good food, good wine, good chat.

What else might one wish for from such an evening?

Kim & Micky Dine At Mine, 6 March 1993

I’m pretty sure this was the evening that I cooked a chinese meal at my flat for Kim, Micky & Janie, only to discover that Kim’s at that time seemingly liberal vegetarian attitudes…

…she was veggie but didn’t at that time go on about it to others…

…had limits.

One of those limits was the sight of a whole animal; in this case a fish.

One of my specialities in those days was to steam a whole fish with ginger, spring onion, using a fair slurp of saki in the steaming water and a dash of soy sauce and coriander to garnish.

Yum.

CantoneseSteamedfish

So after serving starters; probably my signature won ton soup for most of us and something well-chosen and veggie for Kim…

…I’d have probably put quite a lot of thought into the veggie options for Kim that evening…

…I then served the mains including my piece de resistance, the fish.

All hell broke loose. Kim felt sick. Kim couldn’t believe that we could eat that. Kim was upset.

Janie, who knew Kim really well was surprised at that reaction…

…but then realised that she had never served anything that looked quite so “original form animal” as a whole fish. Somehow big prawns didn’t seem to have the same effect.

Anyway, i/we never did that again when Kim was coming round.

DJ At His House, 19 February 1993

Neither Janie nor I recall a great deal about this particular evening. I think it was the only time I went to DJ’s place in Steeles Mews for dinner and I think there were a fair few of us there.

I can see from the diaries that Janie and I had arranged to stay at my place for the weekend, not least because we had theatre at the National the next day:

The Game Of Love And Chance by Pierre Marivaux, Cottesloe Theatre, 20 February 1993

I’m pretty sure we ate and drank well at DJ’s that evening – that much I do remember.

Meet Rita & Tony For Dinner, Sandall Close, 13 February 1993

This was not one of the more successful evenings. In some ways it was a reprise of the charming Kim & Micky & ossobuco evening which helped cement me and Janie together…but a sort-of dystopian version of it.

Ossobuco At Janie’s Place, 16 August 1992

It was not dustopian because of the food. Oh boy, the food was terrific. Janie’s Friday diary reads…

…collect ossobuco & Langues de chat biscuits & mascarpone [from La Pasena]

Osso Bucco – picture by Stu Spivack via Wikimedia Commons
Vegan Langue de chat (4708495681)

It was the company that made the evening dystopian.

Rita is one of Janie’s colleagues – even 25+ years later Janie still refers work to Rita when appropriate.

Now don’t get me wrong, I liked Rita. Rita is absolutely fine.

The problem at that time was that Rita was with a chap named Tony and Tony liked far right politics of the most venal kind. Rita and Tony as an item didn’t stand the test of time for all that long beyond this dystopian evening…

…nor indeed did Tony make it very deep into middle age. Stonk in the brain or something of that ilk. It isn’t ONLY the good who die young.

But the Rita and Tony partnership had, by then, lasted long enough to produce young Mark who was 10-12 years old. By all accounts, Mark has subsequently settled down but at that time he was a fully paid up member of the Tony-Loony-Tunes-Yoof and not averse to doling out a bit of lip.

None of the Mark and Tony shenanigans went down very well with me and Micky. I don’t think it went down too well with Rita either when the extent of the mismatch inevitably spilled over into the evening.

I seem to recall Kim subsequently finding it all rather amusing; she rather thrives on conflict in a funny way. Not to say that she found it acceptable; just that she preferred to laugh it off afterwards while Micky and I sought solace in incredulity.

That particular evening grouping was a one-off.

The food was terrific though.

Twixtmas 1992, Kim & Micky For Lunch Bank Holiday Monday 28 December, Jane’s Party 31 December 1992

I’m pretty sure we spent that first Christmas together apart, as it were, with our respective families, regathering at the bank holiday weekend after Christmas, which fell on a Friday that year.

Janie’s diary for 28 December reads:

1.00 Ian, Kim & Micky lunch – at Kim’s

I believe that.

I’ll guess that we ate some yummy food and drank far too much wine.

My diary suggests that I played bridge on 29th or 30th December. There are no clues as to where we played, nor which day, although I’m guessing the original idea was 30th and the eventual was 29th.

Janie’s 1992 diary for 31 December reads:

11.00 collect food…

…Jane’s party…

…while mine simply indicates a new year’s eve do of some kind, unspecified.

Janie is pretty sure that the term “Jane’s party” in this context means that she threw a small party at Sandall Close, as she was wont to do back then – the “collect food” bit clinching it for Janie that her use of the term “Jane” at that time would have been self-referral.

Her 1993 diary contains more clues, with an additional page stating that the food collection was from Mrs Saad’s place on St Mark’s Road. Lebanese if I remember correctly.

I’ll guess that it was a relatively small gathering – probably Kim & Micky, plus anyone else from Janie’s inner circle of friends who happened to be around. I suspect 10-12 people.

I’ll guess that we all ate some yummy Lebanese food and drank far too much wine.

An Evening At Circus Space With Kim & Micky, 21 November 1992

Photo by Achim Raschka, CC BY-SA 3.0

Not really our sort of thing, but Kim persuaded me and Janie to join her and Micky at Circus Space on the Caledonian Road.

Now (he says, writing in December 2019) known as the National Centre for Circus Arts and based in Hackney, this training organisation for circus skills has long raised funds by putting on shows for the public.

Kim was a fan and we went along to give it a look-see.

I’m not a fan of circuses, my main beef being to do with making caged animals perform. Kim has an even more profound animal rights thing than I do, so her choice of Circus Space reflected the fact that they do not (or at least did not) do any animal related stuff.

I remember coming away from the evening feeling that the performers were very accomplished and that they deserve a decent audience…

…but it only reinforced my view that circus-type performance isn;t really for me.

Janie barely remembers the evening at all – unusually for her when it comes to performance-related memories. I think the circus was a big turn-off for her.

Where are the clowns?…
…There ought to be clowns.

Oh well.

We’ll have had a nice meal and will have enjoyed the evening together despite the circus, I am sure.

Dinner At Sandall Close With Kim, Micky, Victor & Kim, 24 October 1992

Janie’s diary says:

8.00 Kim & Micky & Ian Dinner. Victor & Kim.

Victor was Kim’s dad who, after being widowed, had remarried, confusingly a woman named Kim. Janie used to refer to Victor’s Kim as:

Kim The Chickidoo

…to distinguish her from “our” Kim.

Not much memory remains of that particular evening. I’m sure Janie will have cooked a super meal and I’m sure that, by then, Janie and I took it for granted that I’d stay.

Janie’s diary says that she went to an SAC (chiropody committee) meeting on the Sunday afternoon. I recall that she was quite frustrated with committee stuff when we first met and that her “being on the committee” days didn’t last long into our relationship.

Nor did Janie’s midweek French lessons, not that they were getting in the wway of anything we wanted to do together…I think Janie felt she wasn’t getting much out of them.