Brian Sharp presents the Mason Sharp Trophy To The A/B Category Winners at the end of the MCC weekend.
I played plenty of real tennis (and lawn come to that) in January, building up to the MCC Club Weekend, the last weekend of January, an event that I had either steered away from or had cruelly steered away from me until this year. I’m hooked on the idea of playing in it now, though – it was great fun.
MCC Tennis Chair, Guy Pemberton, applauds, as Graeme Marks presents
The Queen’s Club v The Dedanist’s Society At Queen’s, 3 February 2023
I have previously described the oddities of Dedanist’s Society matches, with many players being eligible for both teams and often not knowing who they are going to play for until the last minute.
But I broke yet more new ground in February 2023 in my role in the Queen’s Club match, “batting for the other side”, because I have, in theory, no right whatsoever to represent Queen’s.
…but I am not a member of Queen’s and not in truth eligible to represent. Further, there were several people listed who were members of both Queen’s and The Dedanist’s. But the timings and handicaps meant that it made sense for me (and one or two other people) to swap sides for this friendliest of friendly fixtures.
I partnered a really pleasant fellow in the first fixture of the day and we did well. I think we set the ball rolling for a Queen’s Club win, but it was hard to tell as we all kept having to look at the schedule to work out which pair was playing for which team.
I think it is fair to say that it REALLY didn’t matter. Nick Browne organised a really enjoyable afternoon and evening – the event was rounded off with a fine meal in the President’s Room – which, as usual, raised money for the Dedanist’s Society’s good causes as well as providing a really good time for us players/attendees.
Lowenthal Trophy 2022 Finalistas and officials: Simon Marshall, Yuri Kugler, Nick Browne, Carl Snitcher, Josh Farrall, Sebastian Wood, Ian Harris
The words tournament and success do not normally go together in the context of me playing sport. In fairness, until I started playing real tennis I hadn’t actually participated in a sporting tournament for some 40 years.
But now, I am able to report going two better than semi-final defeat.
In the Dedanists’ Society Lowenthal Trophy event at Queen’s, partnering Sebastian Wood, I not only managed to get to a final for the first time…
…we went on to win the trophy.
Josh Farrall (centre) presented the trophy to me and Sebastian after a splendid dinner at Queen’s. With thanks to The Dedanists’ Society for this and the headline photo
Let us not dwell on the details of how handicap doubles tournaments using vicious sliding handicaps work.
In particular, let us not dwell on how close we came to losing the second of our round robin matches, which we won on a single point decider after creeping from behind to four-games-all.
But I’m in danger of letting this fleeting success go to my head, so let us move on.
Dedanists v Jesters At Queen’s, 27 May 2022
Young Bertie Vallat hitting the winning shot in the flagship match of the fixture
The Dedanists’ Society is a private club for real tennis enthusiasts, dedicated to raising funds for the preservation of the game. The Jesters Club is an invitation only club for enthusiasts of court sports such as real tennis, squash, Rugby fives, Eton Fives and padel. Coincidentally, given the origins of my addiction to such games (rugby fives at Alleyn’s), the very first Jesters fixture, in December 1928, was a rugby fives match against The Alleyn Old Boys.
Anyway, this fixture presented me with an opportunity, just a couple of weeks later, to return to the scene of the Lowenthal Trophy crime and enjoy a friendly fixture and another fine dinner at Queen’s.
On this occasion I got a chance to resume my partnership with James McDermott:
Me & James At Royal Hampton Court, October 2019
We prevailed, just about, in our rubber, early in the event, before settling down to enjoying the atmosphere at Queen’s, taking some tea and watching some real tennis.
The flagship match of the event was the father & son combination, Richard & Bertie Vallatt vs Alex Brodie and Andy Keeley. It was a splendid watch for us lesser amateurs and a bit of a leveller for me.
At the beginning of November, life seemed to be almost getting back to normal. Lots of real tennis in convivial circumstances for a start,
Thursday 4 November 2021 – MCC Real Tennis Skills Night
For my sins, I have inherited, from John (“Johnny”) Whiting, the role of “match manager” for the popular skills nights at Lord’s. A few years ago, on hearing John and the professionals discussing the amount of organising the event needs on the night, I made the schoolboy error of offering to help next time. John saw the offer of help as an opportunity to step down; frankly, Johnny had done it for so many years, who can blame him?
Fortunately for me, Johnny had left comprehensive instructions and spreadsheets rendering the event almost fool-proof, as long as there are a couple of pros who know what they are doing to make the event run smoothly on the court, which, of course, it did.
Alternatively, if anything ever goes awry with the MCC site link, a scrape of the report can be found here.
Naturally, skills night is as much an exercise in conviviality as it is an exercise in tennis court skills.
However, the assembled throng did have to listen to me waffling on about prizes and the like:
Thanks again to Giles Stogdon for this photo
A Week Of Tennis & Dining Out 6 to 12 November 2021
Quite a week. Janie and I went to Simon Jacobs place for dinner on 6th, where he cooked a delicious soup followed by chicken & mushroom pie. Lots of chat about music and that sort of thing. No photos on this occasion but there are photos from our previous visit, before lockdown 2.0:
I played a fair bit of tennis that week, not least a ridiculous 24 hours during which I played an hour of real tennis singles on the Tuesday evening, two hours of modern tennis on the Wednesday morning (part singles, part doubles), then a match, representing MCC against Middlesex University on the Wednesday, which ended up being another two-and-a-half hours of doubles. No wonder I served a couple of double-faults at the end of my second rubber on the Wednesday evening. Again, no photos from the match this time, but here’s a report with pictures and videos from the most recent equivalent home fixture – a couple of years ago:
On Thursday 11th, I went to the office for the first time (other than for a team meeting) in more than 18 months. Then I met up with Johnboy – initially in “Ye [sic] Old Mitre” (it really should read “þe Old Mitre”, you know) and then on to Chettinad Restaurant (my choice), as I thought a high-quality Indian meal would be a good way for us to “get back on the bike” of dining out. The food was very good.
It had been a really long while since John and I had met up for a simple restaurant meal – our last few gatherings had either been at homes, the four of us or the four of us at homes. This Yauatcha meal might have been the previous one:
Then on the Friday I was evicted from this year’s MCC singles tournament for feeble-handicappers in the Round of 16. I don’t think I’ll try tournament singles again. I love playing singles more than doubles on a friendly basis but doubles makes more sense at my level for matches and tournaments.
Tennis At All Sorts Of Levels, Performances Of Various Kinds & A Bit Of A Boost, 15 to 29 November 2021
On 15 November I spent a very jolly afternoon at The Queen’s Club watching real tennis played by real players; The British Open 2021.
I saw Neil Mackenzie take on Matthieu Sarlangue, then Zac Eadle challenge Nick Howell, then finally (and most excitingly, a five setter) Edmund Kay against Darren Long. Here is a link to the draw/results on the T&RA website. If by any chance that link doesn’t work, I have scraped the file to here.
I spent much of the afternoon & evening with my friend/adversary Graham Findlay with whom, by chance, I was due to battle with myself that very Thursday. I was thus able to reciprocate the coffee and cake Graham kindly treated me to at Queen’s with a light bite in The Lord’s Tavern after our battle on the Thursday, before I went home to perform my latest ThreadMash piece – click here or below.
Janie and I had an afternoon of adventure on the Friday, having our Covid vaccinations boosted (we don’t get out much these days – all such matters need noting).
Picture actually from first vax
Most people reported a sore arm and aches. We both got the aches but strangely my arm did not feel at all sore at the vaccination site and I was able to play lawners lefty-righty all weekend.
A quieter week followed. I continued to play some doubles in partnership with Andrew Hinds, in preparation for our R16 match – this we did Tuesday 16th and Monday 22 November.
… star in Little Women at The Park Theatre on the Thursday, but sadly our performance needed to be cancelled due to cast illness (not Lydia) that day, so we’ll miss the run now.
On Monday 29th, Andrew Hinds (depicted wooden-spoon-wielding, left, in the photo below) and I won a place in the quarter finals of the feeble-handicappers’ doubles tournament.
With thanks to Tony Friend for this photo From skills night
Due to competitor/court availability (or lack thereof) before the seasonal break, that means that we shall still be in the 2021/22 tournament into the New Year – the equivalent of getting to week two of a grand slam lawn tennis tournament – but in a very slightly less-elevated way.
More by luck than judgment, I chose a really good day, the Tuesday, for a pair of seats at The Queen’s Club to see some lawn tennis. It was fine weather and mostly excellent tennis too.
We had also, back in the day, popped in to see a couple of late afternoon matches after work. But that’s not the same thing as a proper day at the tennis.
Socially-distanced (or, as Janie calls it, spatially-distanced) at Queens
Only a 25% crowd was allowed and centre court was the only court with seating. If you chose to wander around you might be forgiven for thinking that you were at Queen’s the day before the tournament – the walkways around the practice courts etc were so quiet.
But we were mostly there for the tennis proper . First up was Matteo Berrettini against Stefano Travaglia. Queen’s was a very Italian affair this year for some reason. That match – depicted in the headline picture, was a close run thing given that Berrettini is the top seed and Travaglia…isn’t.
Next up was Britain’s Dan Evans v Alexei Popyrin, the latter being an Australian with a Russian name.
We chose to stretch our legs at the start of that match, as the Berrettini match had been quite long. While walking around the practice courts, we spotted Herbert and Mahut practicing against each other rather than with each other:
Herbert waiting, Mahut serving
Then back to Centre Court. The small crowd ever so politely took Dan Evans’s side, but with barely a yelp, to be honest, just louder polite applause. It was good to see him play so well.
Good Evans
I had taken responsibility for the picnic, which we went through at a gentle pace throughout the day. Beef and horseradish submarine rolls, Lincolnshire Poacher ciabatta rolls, mixed nuts, grapes, strawberries, two types of smoothie…
…we took some of the food home with us and had a mini-picnic in the evening with the leftovers.
Meanwhile, after the Evans match, the big event was the return of Andy Murray to main tour play after a long interval. At this point there were elements of the crowd that got really quite excited.
Murray was up against Benoît Paire, a French player whose beard has become unfeasibly large over the years.
There goes Benoît Paire with his beard, He said, “It is just as I feared!— Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard.Andy Murray in full flow
After Murray dispensed with Paire, I took a solo leg stretch, snapping one or two more stars along the way on the practice courts:
Nikola Mektić (above) and Lorenzo Sonego (below)
The last match of the day was less interesting to us; Denis Shapovalov v Aleksandar Vukic.
Denis “The Menace” Shapovalov in full flight
Both big servers, it became fairly obvious during set two that the match was likely to go to two tie-breaks which would likely go the way of Shapovalov, so we left a little early and indeed missed precisely that.
It really was a super day. The standard of stewarding, mostly young women, was very high – the atmosphere much calmer than usual but all the more charming for that.
Janie was super happy, to use a phrase that every tennis player seems bound to use these days.
Dominic Flint and I qualified for the semi-final of the doubles in the Lord’s internal tournament for people of our grade.
Tony (left), Dominic (centre) & Yours Truly (right), at MURTC in spring
We’ve been practicing together a fair bit over the summer and autumn, and/but knew that we’d need to be at the top of our game for our fancied opponents; Gareth Zundel and Sebastian Wood.
In short, I’ll have to wait a while longer before I win a semi. Dominic and I started poorly, losing the first four games. After that, we were in the hunt for the rest of the match, but it is a best of three set shootout, so when our opponents overcame our second set lead amd pipped us in the second set as well, that was that.
What do you mean, “you’d like to see the whole sorry affair pan out”? Surely not? What? Oh, Ok, then. It is just shy of an hour, so two parts:
I feel I learnt a lot from the process of getting to know each other’s games and working out a method as a pair. Dominic says he feels the same way, so I hope we get another opportunity to play a tournament together.
21 November 2019 – Club Night, Lord’s
The club has recently initiated a new idea, called club night, which is basically a turn up and play doubles evening with an element of eating and drinking for those who wish.
I love the idea and intend to be a regular attendee. But I was unable to make the first one, so wanted to make the effort to attend this second one, even though I wasn’t really up for the libations and dining side of it.
I got to play a couple of sets; early in the evening with some guys who were well above my pay grade; then latterly a really well-matched set which enabled me to reunite with James McDermott.
Me and James, at Hampton Court a few week’s earlier
James was playing very well in that successful Hampton Court match and has subsequently gone on to great things – not least qualifying for the final of the WH Ollis (singles).
It was good fun to have another go at doubles with James, although this time we came out second best in the tightest of tight sets.
I’m aiming to try and make club nights from now on; including keeping the early morning afterwards free if possible.
22 November 2019, A Couple Of British Open Doubles Quarter-Finals Matches, The Queen’s Club
I was keen to see some of the British Open at Queen’s this year. I chose the Singles semi-finals day to take Janie (that’s tomorrow) but also thought I’d take in some of the doubles (now that I am making strides in that format).
So I took the afternoon out to watch a couple of the matches and then drive on to Noddyland.
Here’s the first match I watched:
Darren Long, who has looked after me so well when I have visited Manchester, was on the wrong side of this match – a not unexpected result in the circumstances.
Between the two matches I watched, i popped into the restaurant/bar for a snack and ran into Darren there. He introduced me to Ben Taylor-Matthews (Leamington) and we had a pleasant chat before he shot off to get his train back to Manchester.
The second match, which included Ben Taylor-Matthews, was a fair bit closer and went the way of my new found friend. He was partnering Bryn Sayers, who i know from Queen’s, so I suppose I was rooting for the favourites for once. You don’t really do much partisan rooting when watching real tennis – more admiration for good rests and great shots:
23 November 2019, The British Open Singles Semi-Finals Matches, The Queen’s Club
After our traditional game of lawners in the morning, Janie and I headed off to The Queen’s Club in time to have a pleasant brunch before watching the singles semi-finals.
I wanted to show Janie how the game really ought to be played – surely she had suffered enough watching me a few times.
As it turned out, although Janie has known many Queensistas in her time and had been with me to see lawn tennis at Queen’s, she’d never actually been in the main building before.
I think that might be the tennis court, there…
Of course we bumped into people we knew, not least Tony Friend, Robin Simpson and Brian Sharp.
Brian is probably asking me if I have got my handicap below 60 yet.
I promised to show Janie around a bit during the break between the two matches, which I did reasonably successfully.
The first semi-final was between Rob Fahey (current world champion, long-time world No 1, now world No 2) and my new friend Ben Taylor-Matthews:
Rob Fahey looking supremely confidentBen Taylor-Matthews gathering himself
I thought Ben put up some strong resistance before eventually succumbing, but when I saw him briefly afterwards he said he’d been disappointed by his performance.
The second match was a little more one-sided. I don’t think anyone was going to beat Camden Riviere this year:
Chris Chapman sporting electric blue shoesWhile Camden wore red and one back shoe; some sort of statement?
Janie really enjoyed her day at Queen’s and even took an interest, the next day, encouraging me to put the streaming on the TV so we could see the semi-finals of the doubles.
The Queen’s Club is a lovely place to visit and my it looked resplendent as we left, even in the rain:
I wondered whether I had been selected to play simply because the team needed a match reporter, rather than anything to do with my real tennis skills, as the request to report the match came hot on the heels of my selection that day.
Despite a rather embarassing spelling mistake in that inaugural piece, long since corrected, I have again been asked to report on the Dedanist’s Day, which included a Handicap Doubles Tournament, AGM and Dinner at Queen’s.
But I thought I should first write up my personal, some might say idiosynchratic, account of the day, here, on Ogblog.
Thanks to Carl Snitcher for the next four photographs (but not the video) following.
My doubles partner for the day, Tony Friend, arrivingMe, seated in match reporter repose, pen and paper in hand
The tournament included 32 players and played through four mini-leagues of four teams, so each team plays three short matches in the round robin phase. 25 minutes of play with a deciding point if the match was tied. Matches were played on a sliding handicap, which tends to make most matches very tight. The winner of each league qualified for the semi-finals.
The tournament therefore comprised 27 matches. Just as well Queen’s has two courts and books out both for more than six hours for the tournament.
Robin Faux & Michael Shellim, our first pair of opponents
Naturally, my match report will include the pun “Friend or Faux” when describing my first match. One wag also suggested that most of us play real tennis but Robin plays Faux tennis.
But I feel that, for the sake of the Ogblog readership, not all of whom are real tennis enthusiasts, I should cut to the chase and report simply on the single highlight of the day.
And what a chase that highlight was too.
Specifically, a chase of half a yard, which was set by Michael Shellim and can only beaten by landing better than half a yard or by hitting the ball into the dedans for an outright winner. The distances “half-a-yard” and “better-than-half-a-yard” relate to the proximity of the second bounce of the ball to the rear wall.
Most people would attempt to place the ball in the dedans gallery (quite a large target) rather than attempt to beat a chase of half-a-yard on the floor.
But I am not most people.
Also, to be honest, Robin Faux is an experienced enough server to apply heavy spin to his serve in circumstances such as this, in such a way that the dedans shot was well beyond my capabilities.
I simply did the best I could to bunt the spinning ball into the main wall corner, where Michael Shellim was waiting, most probably to allow the ball to bounce in some losing place (i.e. worse or significantly worse than half-a-yard).
My shot somehow contrived to lob with ideal weight and land its second bounce almost exactly in the nick:
Better-than-half-a-yard, wins the chase!
…came the cry from the marker, along with a small cheer from the handful of people in the dedans gallery and even from ultra-good sport Michael Shellim, who was undone by the shot.
Sadly there is no photographic or video record of this particular winning chase, but Janie has a short clip of video from a bout some moons ago, which is a similar bunty shot from a spinning serve. In that case the victim was Iain Harvey (also a Dedanist and one of this day’s semi-finalists) who, much like Michael Shellim, expressed good sporting appreciation of a successful shot – in this case setting half-a-yard.
Suffice it to say that the point won with my “shot of the day” chase was not sufficient for me and Tony to overcome Michael and Robin. We lost that bout, won our next bout and then, cruelly, in our third match, we lost on the very final point having levelled the score on the penultimate point.
Great experience for me, though, getting to play with and against several people most of whom are way above my pay grade. Fun too.
Me and Tony, barely able to contain our disappointment at the end
The remainder of the day is, again, reported at more length in the official report. A mostly pictorial summary follows. The photographs below are used with the kind permission of Frederika Adam www.frederikaadam.com
There was an AGM:
Then a dinner:
The waiter is named Attila and is actually Hungarian
Then an awards ceremony, during which I picked up the “shot of the day” Champaigne moment award:
Receiving my “shot of the day” award from Josh Farrell. Janie suggests I look a little tired and emotional in this picture.
It was a great fun day; a super way for me to meet and play with many friends of real tennis from around the country.
If you want to see all of the photos from the day, click the picture link below:
Sort of three hours of doubles for me, as Neil at Queen’s asked me at the last minute to help make up a doubles the evening before, so I was still a little sore from trying to keep up with Bomber, The Saint and The Biscuit (all well above my handicap/pay grade).
For our two hour session, Dominic and Bill (as last time), but this time we were joined by Snitch for the first hour. After Snitch left, we played a real tennis form of Canadian Doubles, with the server/receiver from the doubles pair grabbing the “honour” of doing the hard work as the single player until defeated.
I worked up quite a sweat, especially as the single towards the end. Then picked up the message from Fletch at Middlesex CCC that Kevin Hand wanted to interview me this evening about the London Cricket Trust and AB de Villiers, for BBC Radio London and BBC Essex, so we arranged that between the sweats and the showers.
Soon after I set off in Dumbo for home, I felt a touch of cramp starting in my foot and tried to wriggle my foot while braking for the lights…but instead slipped my foot onto the accelerator, requiring me to switch to emergency stop braking which made one hell of a screech.
Better than half-a-yard…or more or less the nick. Phew.
I signalled an apology to the driver in front, who seemed to be apoplectic with rage, leaping about in his seat and waving his arms. Then I realised that he was car-seat-jiving while listening to loud music. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed my near miss.
When the lights changed, the jiver/driver in front zoomed off ahead of me, as fast as I have ever seen someone zoom out of Palliser Road. Whether he was just that sort of driver or desperate to get away from me I’ll never know.
Then some work in the sweatshop that is my little office at home on a sunny afternoon.
So I had another shower before heading to Lord’s – not for the start of the match but in good time for my “over 18 of the first innings” appointment with Fletch.
As I got out of the shower, the phone was ringing. Fletch.
Can we meet a little earlier than I said – like over 15?…
…sure, I’m just getting ready to leave…
I’m sorry, it’s because I have other media to do on the pavilion side in the interval after dropping you off…Eoin Morgan…
…should be no problem, Fletch, but I need to get off the phone so I can put on some clothes and leave. I know its radio, but I figure I’ll still need to put on some clothes to get through the street, the gates and to the media centre?…
…yes, I think that would be for the best.
In fact I was making good time and got to the Maida Vale/St John’s Wood borders, where I knew I could park easily, bang on 18:30. So I was in the ground and able to watch cricket for about half-an-hour before wending my way round to the media centre, where I enjoyed the commentator’s view of the last few overs and could hear the radio commentary of course…in the commentary box.
Below is my interview, which runs for about eight minutes if you want to hear it all.
In the commentary box was the artefact pictured below. It seems that the media centre tea-time spread was adorned by this artefact for each of the world cup matches at Lord’s, with the badges of that day’s competing nations shown on the helmets. Left over from the world cup final on Sunday:
Kevin Hand was apologetic about the shortness of the interview and the fact that he sort-of had to leave me to it while he photographed and tweeted about Eoin Morgan. But Kevin owed me no apology for that; it was great and timely publicity for the London Cricket Trust charity.
In any case, it seems Kevin might want me to do the odd additional slot with him this season. If for no other reason, I think he’s keen to disambiguate Ian Harris and Ged for any listeners who might, understandably, be bemused and/or amused.
Kevin also apologised to me when he discovered that I came in especially for the interview as I hadn’t planned to attend the match. Again no apology needed as I live so close by and in fact I am so glad I was there for the post world cup afterglow. The Middlesex v Essex match was even played on the world cup pitch.
In fact I stayed for just the first few overs of the Middlesex innings before heading home and catching the end of the match on the broadcast.
One final anecdote. When I mentioned during my interview that AB de Villiers had come out to Deptford for us just a few hours after landing from South Africa, Kevin wondered whether we might have tired him out ahead of his first appearance for Middlesex. I think the scorecard and match reports attest that Kevin needn’t have worried.
Photo of me on the East Court at The Queen’s Club with opponents (from a previous occasion) airbrushed out
Exile. The humiliation of it. Condemned to the role of real tennis supplicants for several weeks while the forces of global domination (cricket branch) took over Lord’s for the world cup.
We Lord’s real tennis players know how to suffer, so many of us have taken up the very generous offer of The Queen’s Club to play there for most of our weeks of exile. I say most, because the first of our wandering weeks coincided with The Queen’s Club ATP tournament for the modern variety of tennis.
But on this day, with the help of the kind professionals at Queen’s, three of us came in search of doubles practice. At one point, I think it was the day before, Ben Ronaldson e-mailed me to say he was having trouble finding us a fourth, but by the time I got to my e-mails he had e-mailed again to say that he had found us a suitable player.
So, Dominic (my doubles partner for this year’s Lord’s tournament) and Bill were joined by Chrissie for a two hour doubles slot. Ben said when I arrived:
I think this should be quite well matched. Try playing level and see what happens.
What happened was a five set epic. Dominic and I started strongly, with him facing Bill and me facing Chrissie. We won the first set 6-2. We tried the alternative server/receiver pairing on the next set, which led to Bill and Chrissie winning that set 2-6.
Dominic and I chose to persevere with the pairing of me facing Bill and Dominic facing Chrissie for the third set. We managed to turn things around and won that close set 6-4. We tried reversing again for the fourth, only to lose that set 1-6. Despite that loss, we chose to stick with that Ian facing Chrissie, Dominic facing Bill for the start of the fifth set; a set we didn’t expect to finish as we were now about 110 minutes into our two-hour slot.
But no-one came along to use the East Court at the end of our slot. Our sole (mostly sleeping) spectator from most of the match had been replaced by a keen scout who was 30 minutes early for his West Court contest. He encouraged us to continue. Or should I simply say that the crowd, as one, was baying for more and urging the metaphorical umpire not to suspend play.
So we saw through the whole of the fifth set, which turned out to be a cracker. Dominic and I got to 5-3 up, only to lose the next two games which (in real tennis, unlike the modern variety) leads to sudden death on the final game which was, as it happened, me and Chrissie doing the serving/receiving.
Somehow, at 2-sets-all, five-games-all, 30-30, with me on serve, I managed to conjure a couple of good-‘uns to seal the match. 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 6-5. Did that matter? Not really. Except that Dominic and I are trying to learn how to play as a pair, so the constant scoreboard pressure and trying to perform as a pair in that circumstance was just what we needed.
Great fun. Nearly two-and-a-half-hours in the end and oh boy did I feel it later in the day.
Coincidentally, much like my Keele experience described above, I developed a slight cold that evening which left me a bit husky for the next couple of days. That was not ideal preparation for a jam with DJ, except that DJ rather liked the variation it gave to my vocal range, despite that variation seeming, to me, rather restrictive.
Ged “Husky” Ladd sings sea shanties?
Still, DJ and I tried a few new ideas, sang a few of our favourites and had a good chat and a good meal. There are far worse ways to spend an evening even when you are a little husky.
Two very enjoyable activities with people who make excellent company.
A slightly strange chain of events and connections led to me being invited to give a video interview at the London School of Economics (LSE) for the LSE100 course, which is an interdisciplinary course for all undergraduates. The theme of the course this year is quite “Price of Fishy”.
Ahead of that 20 September interview, I thought I owed it to myself and to 1,600 new LSE undergraduates, to mug up a bit on The Price Of Fish – not least because it is a good few years since we last promoted it and longer still since we wrote it.
The interviewers also wanted to talk about predictive analytics and data visualisation. I felt on top of the stuff we’ve been doing lately on that topic, but also thought about the pitfalls of analytics and the graphical representation of statistics, which took my mind back to the wonderful little book How To Lie With Statistics, which I also decided to skim by way of revision.
And if you are going to skim-read books on sunny afternoons during the last home Middlesex match of the season, one might as well do that skimming at Lord’s.
Tuesday 18 September 2018
I got my other work bits and pieces out of the way, but at a slightly slower pace than I had intended, while keeping half an eye on the cricket score.
When I left home, Sam Robson was in the eighties. When I arrived at Lord’s he was on 96. I ran into Richard Goatley and Rob Lynch, who were in the Harris (no relation) Garden. They soon came and joined me in the Allen Stand gap to watch Sam clock up his first century for a while.
Feeling a bit sheepish about reading my own book in public, I decided to sit in the sort-of sun trap end of the Grandstand, where that stand meets the Compo, which is always very sparsely populated and does not seem to attract the usual suspects.
I wrote up this surreptitious Price Of Fish experience in a King Cricket stylee, which was eventually published by KC in February 2019 – click here for a link.
By the time I had delved through those bits of The Price Of Fish that I needed to recall, it was getting very cold so I took sanctuary in the Pavilion Writing Room, where I chatted with a gentleman who looked mightily familiar to me although not in a Lord’s context. Turns out he lives around my way.
Wednesday 19 September 2018
I played tennis at The Queen’s Club that morning and had been asked to return that evening. The Lord’s tennis court is being refurbished this October so we have very kindly been granted real tennis refugee status at other nearby courts, including Queen’s.
I worked out that, between those real tennis gigs, I could get a few hours of cricket watching and book skimming done.
I felt a similar queasiness about being seen reading How To Lie With Statistics as I did about being seen reading my own book. Of course, I am drawing attention to the pitfalls and the ways that bad people might deliberately lie or mislead…not advocating the use of deceit, but that might take a bit of explaining.
So I returned to the Grandstand/Compo corner and again saw/was seen by hardly anybody – certainly no-one I know.
Horrific traffic the last few hundred yards of the journey back to Queen’s, but I got there just in time…which is a little more than can be said for my opponent.
Thursday 20 September 2018
I did my LSE interview in the morning, which seemed to go well.
In fact I could have gone to Lord’s that afternoon for a while, as my afternoon client meeting had to be postponed. But it was well cold on the Thursday and in any case I could think of a zillion things I ought to get done with the unexpected few hours, so I went home and did those things instead, keeping at least one eye on the cricket score.
I have been playing real tennis at The Queen’s Club this September, as the Lord’s court is closed for refurbishment and a few other clubs, such as Queen’s, have, very kindly, offered us MCC tennis types refugee status for the month.
It’s been a somewhat sobering experience at times.
My first gig as a refugee was a singles friendly match against a 12-year-old…
…who absolutely took me to pieces.
To be fair, he is the champion player at his age group and, if “the book” is to be believed, he is even capable of beating the U15 champion now. Here is some film of him winning the French Open:
I’m pretty sure he’ll be an exceptionally good player. Remember where you first heard the name: Bertie Vallat…
…I know, you couldn’t make up a more Wodehouseian name than that…
…he’s the boy in the foreground at the start of the filum.
Anyway, point is, after that ego-bruising episode, I decided that I needed a lesson in technique, so arranged to play an hour-long friendly match with one of my Lord’s chums, then an hour of coaching, ahead of meeting up with Simon in Hammersmith.
I did well in my friendly match – reclaiming the handicap points I had lost to Bertie. Then I enjoyed my lesson too, which I think will help my lawners as well as my realers…am I starting to spend to much time hanging around the arcane language of this game?
Then, after killing some time in a couple of coffee bars along the way, I met up with Simon Jacobs for a relatively early dinner at Brasserie Blanc.
I explained my difficult hour at the hands of a twelve-year-old the previous week, which led Simon to suggest that I might have “done a Serena” and/or resorted to corporal punishment. Neither of these suggestions seemed, to me, worthy of Simon.
But then Simon might well have had other things on his mind. He was very kindly taking time out to have dinner with me just a couple of days ahead of the launch of his latest single; Top Of The Pops. How cool is that?
Well, you can judge for youreselves by listening to and watching the following YouTube:
We discussed without irony the increasingly ghastly political landscape. The absence of irony is not because we have lost our senses of humour – heaven forbid. No, it appears that we never did have a sense of irony, due to ethnic accidents of birth. No point mocking us (we wouldn’t get it), simply pity us.
The food was very good indeed. The wine was also very good. The service was excellent, until we asked our waiter to leave us alone for a short while to consider what to have for, or indeed if to have, desert. Then we complained when the waiter returned because he had neglected us for so long.
The waiter laughed and told us that we were his favourite table of the evening. Poor chap, he clearly thought we were being ironic…he didn’t realise that we really meant it – he didn’t realise that we don’t do irony.
We talked a fair bit about music; not only Simon’s new single but his plans for the album and also the stuff that I am fiddling around with at the moment. Simon set me some homework around “I Only Have Eyes For You” and also “Nothing Rhymed”, the latter of which has yielded faster results than the somewhat tricky former.
The evening whizzed by and I had no idea how late it was until we got to Hammersmith Station. Still, not so late that the tubes get tricky.
As always, it had been a very enjoyable evening with Simon.
