Leo Fishman – nothing like her grandpa in matters tennis
Professor Peter Lawrence (who had been my P2 economics tutor) got in touch with me about this conference and I was delighted to make space for it.
Firstly, I had very fond memories of Les Fishman, Peter Lawrence and indeed other tutors from the economics department at Keele.
Secondly, with the 2008 recession having just kicked off big time and no-one knowing what was going on, it seemed a good opportunity to find out what my alma mater’s economists thought about it all.
Thirdly, with only a month or less to go until my Gresham lecture on Commercial Ethics, I thought some clear head time in the rarefied atmosphere of the Keele Hill might do me some good for that project too.
Peter Lawrence offered to put me up, but I explained what a terrible house guest I am, so checked in to the Crewe Arms in Madeley Heath. I don’t think we ate there that night – I think Peter picked me up from there and took me to a gathering elsewhere. Several of the other academics and visitors were there that night, including Keith Tribe and I think also Shirley Dex.
Here is the programme from the Wednesday conference:
I also was sent a copy of Les Fishman’s seminal paper about the effect of the Vietnam War on the US economy: vietnampaper-1 and also a paper by Norman Flynn about the economic impact of the Iraq War econwar.
The conference was very interesting. I especially remember David Leece (who was my P1 tutor) explaining how relevant the work of Hyman Minsky was becoming in the light of this particular recession – spot on.
2016 picture – thanks to Mark Ellicott
I visited the Students’ Union briefly, its appearance had changed somewhat since my previous visit but the print room was still populated by Pat Borsky and (I think temporarily) also Barbera, so it really was like stepping back in time 25 years seeing those two.
Pat Borsky: could not be described as retiring…apart from the day she retired in 2016 – thanks again to Mark Ellicott for the 2016 pictures
Fun networking with several of my former tutors/lecturers, a few other former students (Paul Smith I recall), several delightful members of the Fishman family and others too.
One strange unintended consequence was meeting Leonore Fishman who (with a bit of encouragement from her dad, David) subsequently asked me for a job and ended up working for Z/Yen for a few years. Stuff happens.
Leo Fishman at Jez Horne’s “Z/Yen Stag Do”, 2010. Thanks to Monique Gore for this picture.
Michael Mainelli and I, (through Milet, our publisher and Tanya Aslan whom we assigned to the promotion task), organised an intensive promotion campaign around the book, starting with an opportunistic book signing in Yorkshire 5 July.
Mike had started writing plays by 2000. As coincidence would have it, the first of these; The Elland Affair, was due to launch around the same time as Clean Business Cuisine.
So, Mike and I hatched the plan that my first book signing would be on the night of the gala premier of The Elland Affair; 5 July 2000.
This would have been a grand plan, had advance copies the book arrived when expected; a couple of weeks before the big night. But of course…
…anyway, the publishers pulled out all the stops, had a box or two of the first batch of books diverted to me for Halifax purposes and I went off on a mini road trip, most of the details of which are lost in the physical diary scrawl and only limited use of e-mail back then.
I know I went via my alma mater, because this e-mail from Professor Lawrence survives:
Dear Tanya,
Thanks for diverting Ian to Keele – it was good to see him and hear about the book. He left me with copies for colleagues and this email is partly to let you know how to chase me up- this is better than the phone!
Take care,
Peter
Janie must have joined me by train to Halifax, as my diary scribble shows that I booked bed and breakfast for two at the Imperial Crown, Halifax, £95. (The price has barely changed in 18 years, I note, while writing in September 2018). We went on to The White Swan, Pickering afterwards – our first visit there – the following year we made our second visit there ahead of visiting Mike’s next production of his own work.
Anyway, I am pretty sure I met Janie at the hotel where I changed into my evening suit (Gala Evenings at The Actors’ Workshop were black tie affairs) and Janie changed into her glad rags.
Then off we set to get to the theatre early, for my first ever book signing and the show.
Mike Ward had kindly arranged a small stack of my books on a prominent table for me. I sat at the chair and a small queue of eager locals (is there no word for people from Halifax? Hartlepool folk are known as Monkey Hangers, for example), formed to procure and have their en primeur book signed.
I reached into my jacket pocket and discovered…a vacancy. I had no pen in my pocket.
I had turned up to my first ever book signing, without a pen.
Strangely, just to add to my embarrassment, finding a suitable pen for book signing at a place like the Actors’ Workshop was a non-trivial matter. Plenty of marker pens and thick felt tip pens to be found, but it took a while for someone to find a regular type of pen that would look right for book signing.
Still, once that initial (albeit existential problem in the matter of book signing) had been resolved, the rest of the evening passed very successfully. Not only the signing, but the play was well received and I seem to recall a most excellent meal at Mike and Lottie’s place late in the evening, once all of the theatrical excitement was over.
Thanks to Susan Gorman for this photo of Alan Gorman
A week after my discharge from the Health Centre, my post-glandular-fever student life reads, in my diary, a little like my pre-glandular-fever student life, with just one or two clues hinting at the differences.
Project
Several mentions of “project”, which can only be the statistical/econometric assignment that we were set as part of our economics course that year. Peter Lawrence would have supervised it and I’m sure he remembers all the intricate detail.
Actually, I remember my chosen assignment quite well. I looked at national statistics, examining the correlation between factors such as GDP and per capita GDP and numbers of radios and television sets per capita. The main conceit of the assignment was to consider whether I was finding true correlation or spurious correlation, primarily using the Durbin-Watson statistic which, as it happened, was available on the University Mainframe computer.
The analytical part of this project was fairly straightforward as I recall it. The grunt work involved setting out the data in a highly-specific format to enable the computer to pronounce on its Durbin-Watson statistic. What are, today, “work of a moment” tasks took hours of painstaking (and sometimes trial and error) data preparation and data processing work.
I have asked Dall-E to help me envisage what that 1980s University mainframe computer might have looked like:
Dall-E reminisces about 1980s computing
For those readers dying to know whether there is (or rather, was) true correlation between GDP and numbers of radios and TVs, the answer is, basically, yes; especially when using GDP per capita data and especially in the matter of radios. In the developing world, at that time, televisions were sparse enough that I suspected the numbers were more to do with government policy on whether to have a state broadcaster and the like. Also there did tend to be some interesting outliers in the data – for some reason there were an enormous number of radios sold in Gabon in the late 1970s and early 1980s, relative to the GDP per capita.
I think Peter liked my little study, because, while “answering the exam question” pretty well, it also raised far more questions than it answered.
I have but one memory specific to this occasion, which I recall Annalisa de Mercur referring to many times subsequently, because she thought it so funny and typically Plesch.
One student asked if our hosts would mind if they smoked. (It was certainly not me by then, as I had quit smoking on the back of my glandular fever. I don’t think it was Annalisa either).
Oh yes, of course, please make yourself at home…
…said Traudi, ever the hostess, who then spent at least five minutes bustling around the room opening windows (this was February, at Keele!), moving away precious-looking porcelain ashtrays, replacing them with utilitarian-looking ones. In short, despite her instinctive desire to make the smoker(s) feel at home, Traudi’s actions made it quite apparent that smoking was not exactly what she wanted in her living room.
They were in truth charming and generous hosts, the Plesch couple. The above-linked November 1981 article says plenty more that doesn’t need repeating here.
“Bloody Party In The Union – Left Early” Friday 4 March 1983
Not like me to be snippy about a party, but I guess I was not myself still at that time.
Dr Scott had told me to stay away from alcohol for six months following my glandular fever. He subsequently reduced my sentence to three months, for good behaviour.
The mention of the “bloody party” comes after a note about a rushed day and an election appeals meeting, both of which might have set my teeth on edge ahead of that particular bloody party.
I have no idea whose party it was, nor why I found it bloody. I apologise to the host of the party if someone reading this happens to be such a person. I don’t think it was about you/.the party, it was me.
In truth, at that time, quite possibly I found all parties a bit of a drag. Seemingly everyone else having a good time and getting noisily paralytic, while I nursed some ridiculously expensive yet ghastly-tasting soft-drink, which had no doubt been dispensed through a soda gun like the one below…
…those carbonated soft drinks never tasted like “the real thing”, if you get my meaning, even if they were sold as such. In the SU Main Bar at that time, indeed, they all tasted like a bit of an amalgamation of each other, which is probably what they were.
When not in bars or at parties, I had standardised at home on Sainsbury’s Tropical Fruit Drink (still available 40 years later)…
I wondered out loud with Dr Scott on one occasion whether it was OK to be drinking all this sweet stuff. He said he thought I was close to dangerously underweight at the end of my glandular fever experience; thus he was keen for me to put on some weight. I persevered with Supercans of Coke throughout the rest of my Keele years, even after I had reverted to drinking alcohol.
How the Great Yorkshire Pudding Got His Name, Early March 1983
The Great Yorkshire Pudding
There is no mention of the events that led to Alan Gorman acquiring the nickname “The Great Yorkshire Pudding”. At the time, I probably found the matter that led to it too painful to write down. Even now, I’m finding it hard to compose my thoughts about it and reflect on the matter fairly and faithfully. It doesn’t help that Alan Gorman sadly died in 2015, so cannot add his own thoughts on this matter forty years after the event.
The bare facts are these. Chantelle announced that she wanted to move out of the flat, Barnes L54, and that we should seek a replacement fourth person. Alan and I had already agreed that we would continue to flat share the following year. Hamzah, who was about to do his finals and had planned to go home as soon as they were done made it clear that it was entirely up to me and Alan to choose Chantelle’s replacement.
Ashley Fletcher was spending a lot of time at the flat in those days. He was Union Treasurer but living off campus, so it was a convenient place to hang out. He was good friends with my girlfriend, Liza (indeed Liza and I had more or less met through Ashley and his gang) and seemed to get on very well with Alan too.
Ashley wanted to move in to the flat. I wanted Ashley to move into the flat. I put the idea one evening to Alan.
Ashley back then
Alan basically said no. He was uncomfortable with the idea of having a gay flatmate. At one point he said that he wouldn’t be able to explain it to his friends back home. When I said that I thought that was not a good reason, he agreed that he had given a very poor reason, but still, without really being able to articulate why he felt uncomfortable, that he was resolute on the matter.
I remember feeling that I didn’t have the strength to argue and also at the same time realising that debating the matter for longer would in any case have been futile. I remember going to bed that night very upset and I also so clearly remember dreading telling Ashley the news.
Strangely, Ashley didn’t take the news as hard as I thought he would…nor as hard as I took it. In my naivety, perhaps, I had assumed that the idea would fly and hadn’t expected that outcome. Ashley had strongly suspected and at least half-expected that response.
When I told Ashley what Alan had said, Ashley just paused for thought momentarily and said:
The Great Yorkshire Pudding!
Those readers who don’t know anything about Alan Gorman might look at the picture I have used in this piece – Alan was even skinnier in 1983 than he was when that picture was taken a few year’s later. He was also from Brinscall, near Chorley, which is, unequivocally, in Lancashire, not Yorkshire.
The nickname, The Great Yorkshire Pudding, stuck, at least for the remainder of that academic year and the next one. Alan accepted with good grace that the expletive nickname had come from Ashley’s heart and that he sort-of deserved it. Alan would respond with a nickname of his own for me, “Bagel Boy”, which could get him into a spot of trouble today, not only with the authorities (had someone chosen to complain) but with Alan’s own wife and children!
Alright already, I like bagels…who doesn’t?
The epilogue to this story is, I suppose, not so bad. I remained friends with Alan and Ashley. Chris Spencer moved into Barnes L54 with us instead and proved to be a very suitable flatmate, staying on in the flat for the rest of my time there and I think until he graduated.
When Ashley dropped out of Keele the following year, I wondered whether that would have happened had he moved into our flat. Ashley of course is still around to debate that point and/but Ashley might argue that leaving Keele at that juncture was the right thing for him to do in any case. He has certainly gone on to do many worthwhile things, not least his laudable and often charitable work as a therapist.
But at the time, the story of How The Great Yorkshire Pudding Got His Name affected me deeply. I wish the older and wiser version of me could discuss it now with the older and wiser Alan. Perhaps over a smoked salmon bagel or two…and a glass or two of fine Californian white wine.
