Tag: Z/Yen

A Works Outing To The Middlesex v Surrey T20 Match At Lord’s, 21 July 2016

A Pokémon Displaying A Worrying Level Of Indifference To Cricket (with thanks to Xueyi for capturing the little fella)
A Pokémon Displaying A Worrying Level Of Indifference To Cricket At Lord’s (with thanks to Xueyi for capturing the little fella)

For several years now, it has been a Z/Yen tradition for a dozen or so of us to visit the Middlesex v Surrey T20 match at Lord’s. For several years, the tradition was also to witness Surrey thrashing Middlesex and for the assembled throng to try consoling me and Jez with “maybe next year” platitudes.

But last year, for the first time in yonks, Middlesex won the match. Better yet, this year Middlesex were sitting a bit higher in the table than Surrey ahead of the fixture, with both sides desperate for the points to help achieve knockout-stage qualification. A big game.

However, I had some difficulty persuading Xueyi to attempt watching cricket again. Her previous visit (two years ago) had left her cold in several respects; not least the chilly weather but also finding the cricket hard to fathom and finding the “M&S picnic nibbles” not quite to her taste. I suggested that I might take a trip to Chinatown and stock up with Cantonese bakery delicacies as the centrepiece of the picnic if that might persuade Xueyi to join us. She said it would.

I was working from home that day, so I chose to make my Chinatown hike reasonably early to be sure of a good stock of the day’s bakery delights. I googled to see if my old stomping ground was still top notch for this purpose and discovered that, indeed, Kowloon in Gerard Street is still highly regarded, especially for its massive cha siu baos and gai mei baos. I was introduced to that place in the late 1970’s/early 1980s when doing holiday jobs for Newman Harris in Cavendish Square; the Chinese Malaysian trainees and I used to make a lunch of those big tasty buns. It must be a good 25 years since I last went there, though.

Picture by Anthony Baby from (optional) This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
Cha Siu Baos – Picture by Anthony Baby from (optional) – This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

On the way, I recalled that the place used to be cash only and made sure I had drawn enough money just in case. Indeed, the place was utterly unchanged including the hand-scribbled order ticket and the cash only payment desk. I went a bit mad buying lots of baos, plus some cha siu pastry ones and some sweet melon pastries too.

I called Xueyi to let her know that I had bought loads of food and also to ask her to let Linda know that we wouldn’t need much else for the hoards, but Xueyi clearly had other ideas, not least a fiendish plan to get some smaller delicacies from her favourite dim sum joint; Orient London. Like me, Xueyi went a bit mad getting loads of cha siu pastries (smaller than the Kowloon ones, but, frankly, much finer) and also some very juicy and delicious prawn spring rolls, which were surprisingly good cold. Also some Cantonese brisket beef slices.

Cha Sou Pastries - by Terence Ong - licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Cha Siu Pastries – by Terence Ong – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

In her fervour, Xueyi neglected to pass on my message to Linda, who went down to M&S and bought a fair selection of nibbles just in case my Chinese food idea didn’t go down well with everyone.

Anyway, to cut a long story short the Chinese delicacies went down very well with our team and there were plenty left to feed other spectators sitting near us and Linda had lots of M&S food to take home with her for the weekend.

Why were we there? Oh yes, a cricket match.

Barmy Kev came and sat near us but for some reason chose not to join us when invited. Perhaps he thought we might have designs on his bottle of wine (as if we didn’t have plenty of that too). But soon Kev realised that he had no corkscrew, so (not for the first time in my life and surely not for the last) begged the loan of a corkscrew from me and then demonstrated for about 5 minutes how very bad his screwing technique is for one so experienced as he – Kev’s MTWD write up, here, does not do his demonstrable incompetence justice. There was a big crowd cheer when he eventually withdrew the cork.

Meanwhile, Xueyi (from Nanjing, China) and Ashley (born in Jamaica but raised in the USA and therefore strangely aware of but not well versed in cricket) asked quite a lot of sensible questions about the game and then settled down to finding pokémons in the crowd, which they seemed to be able to do with little difficulty and much delight (see photo).

Marc (sitting next to me) tried to argue a social justice case for Surrey to win the match because Middlesex won last year; this was about as convincing to me as his “Brexit leave” arguments.

Linda was especially interested in the progress of our sponsored player, Ryan Higgins, as for once our sponsored player was actually playing in the fixture we attended. He took an early catch, bowled well restricting the scoring/taking a late wicket and eventually scored the winning runs in that tough run chase. Not bad. Here’s the scorecard. Even better, Ryan Higgins took five wickets the next day as Middlesex recorded back to back wins; a real breakthrough period for the promising 21 year-old. Our boy.

Regardless of whether they focus on the eating, drinking, pokémons and/or cricket, the Z/Yen team always seems to enjoy this outing. There was a record crowd for a domestic T20 cricket match in England that night 27,000+, so it seems that we’re far from the only bunch that finds these T20 evenings a fun and enticing proposition.

How I Said ‘F*** You’ To The Company When They Tried to Make Me Redundant by Rohan Candappa, Z/Yen Offices, 28 January 2016

Moncada Barracks or the old Z/Yen offices? One or the other.

Back in December, Rohan Candappa wrote to me asking if he could by any chance use the big Z/Yen meeting room on 28 January to try out his latest piece of performance writing early evening on the motley bunch of Alleyn’s alumni (I include myself in that epithet) who gather occasionally in the City for beer, curry and old times’ sake.

Strangely, Z/Yen’s big meeting room is not much used at 19:00 in the evening, so it would have seemed churlish to say no, especially when Rohan agreed to sponsor some beer and nibbles. Linda Cook, our Z/Yen practice manager, was hurriedly elected an honorary Alleyn’s alum for the evening, so the organisation of the event was practically resolved, even with John Eltham out of the country for much of January.

It felt incongruous (in a pleasant way) to have the Alleyn’s gang at the Z/Yen office for the evening. For one thing, I didn’t realise how well behaved we could be when gathered together in the right environment. There weren’t even any teachers to keep us in check.

But to Rohan’s extraordinary piece. The title basically divulges the plot. Rohan expresses in poignant terms the emotions he experienced when told that he was being made redundant. There is nothing funny about the way being made redundant makes someone feel, but the circumstances of this attempted redundancy are quite ludicrous. In the hands of Rohan Candappa, who is highly skilled at bitter-sweet humour as well as the more standard comedy variety, this sad story generated a remarkable amount of laughter. It is a very funny piece.

The humour builds once Rohan reaches the point in the story where, having had time to reflect on his seemingly hopeless situation, he decides to try and win against the odds. He initiates this twist brilliantly by telling the story of the Cuban rebels attacking the Moncada Barracks in 1953 – click here if you want to see the Wikipedia version of the story – although Rohan’s version is more pertinent to his story and far more fun.

Click here if you want to see the pictures Janie and I took of the Moncada Barracks in 2007.  Indeed feel free to hang around in Flickr looking at our Cuba pictures generally.  It’s one heck of a photogenic place.  As long as you promise to come back here afterwards and finish reading this blog piece.

Once the “fight back” part of Rohan’s story starts to unfold, the piece becomes even funnier and has terrific momentum to it. I almost felt sorry for [Insert name here] (the boss behind the attempted redundancy) and his human resources hench-woman…

…I said ALMOST felt sorry for them. Cut me some slack guys. Or say how you felt about it with your own words in the comments section. Don’t just yell at the screen.

There are precious few pieces of theatre about the workplace and even fewer good ones. With all due respect to Vaclav Havel, who wrote several absurdist pieces about work places, I have seen more than one but never got much out of those Havel plays. Indeed, the only really good play about the workplace that comes to my mind is David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross.  In an intriguing echo of Rohan’s title, btw, the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross (which is a very good movie) has the phrase “F*** You” articulated in an infeasible number of different ways for a two-syllable phrase. But I digress. My point is that the workplace is a big part of our lives but is wicked hard to turn into good drama. Rohan has succeeded in producing some very good drama indeed in this piece, which is a commendable achievement.

In short, the piece is a triumph and I really hope that Rohan progresses with it and gets it a wider audience. It is really thought-provoking as well as entertaining.

We sat in the meeting room chatting for ages after the performance; some of the group are people who have been made redundant, others of us people who have been in a position where we have dismissed staff ourselves. Everyone had experiences, thoughts and points to make. Eventually we realised that we were late for our meal and that our restaurant booking might go south unless we quickly headed south to the Rajasthan. So we migrated and continued our conversations there. A very special evening.

Z/Yen Seasonal Event, The Bottlescrue, 11 December 2015

Feature image borrowed from AllInLondon.co.uk

The Bottlescrue is no longer there, he says, writing eight years later. It is now a health club. Go figure.

A bittersweet occasion, was the Z/Yen seasonal event in 2015, as it doubled as Mary O’Callaghan’s leaving do and also coincided with my so-called semi-retirement, which was the cause of some consternation in Z/Yen at that time.

Still, we of course ate and drank and made merry. Secret Santa did his thing and some Z/Yen gimcrack no doubt did the rounds too.

I found a way of combining the seasonal lyric with the topic of Mary’s departure, which resulted in this rather charming number, thought I say so myself:

MARY’S BOLD JOB
( A Calypso sung to the tune of “Mary’s Boy Child” )

VERSE ONE
Long time ago in London Town, in a place named St Helen,
Mary joined a little firm; that firm was known as Z/Yen.
Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong;
But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.

VERSE TWO
Now Mary worked long and worked hard, she was no trouble in any way,
Except when Linda had to calc-ulate her statutory maternity pay;
Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong,
But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.

VERSE THREE
Then Z/Yen removed to Basinghall, the Ward of Cheap was full of pleasures,
But Mary found she had to learn, about some mutually distributed ledgers;
Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong,
But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.

VERSE FOUR
When Mary handed in her cards, the festive season was in full swing,
So every venue Mary chose, said “there’s no room at the inn”.
(Shout out: Except for this place!!)
Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the notes, some right, some wrong,
But Z/Yen will try forever more, to sing a Christmas song.

OUTRO
Hark now hear the Z/Yen folk sing, the noise can be quite scary,
But Z/Yen will sing forever more, the praises of our dear Mary.

After Z/Yen Board Meeting Lunchtime Concert, City of London Sinfonia, St Andrew Holborn, 25 March 2015

We probably should have a corporate rule that every board meeting should conclude with a lunchtime concert.

But in reality this sort of thing is a rare treat for us…but treat this was indeed.

Michael had spotted this one, no doubt through some aldermanic connection, so not only did we get to listen to the delicious music but we got to eat some of the delicious food for honoured guests afterwards and network a while.

I like Handel’s concerto grossi and we got two of them in this concert. The sandwich filling was some Arvo Pärt of the listenable variety.

It was all very pleasant indeed.

Z/Yen Team/Old Team Evening At The Jugged Hare, Chiswell Street, 18 February 2015

OK, this is me being complete rubbish.

The only e-mail communication I can find on this evening is the following note from Linda Cook to me and Michael.

Just to let you know I have organised a night out with the team/old team on 18 February if you are about.

Booked a table at Jugged Hare in Chiswell Street (at Steph’s suggestion) http://www.thejuggedhare.com from 18.15.  Expecting about 7/8 people.

Linda

It’s in my diary. I clearly remember going. I remember enjoying the evening a lot. Good size of group, got to talk with more or less everyone who turned up, nice place.

Beyond that, a blank. I need help.

Over to other Z/Yensters (current and alum) to fill in the blanks. Otherwise the blanks will remain.

Update: 

Steph e-mailed in to say:

I’ve got nothing with which to fill the blanks, I’m afraid! I just remember a very pleasant evening and tables made of wine barrels… (I think).

I also spoke with Ben about it and he said more or less the same thing as Steph.

Linda suggests a reason for our poor memories, but then adds some helpful material:

Maybe too much red wine.  Well, I can’t quite remember either…

…Ben, Richard, Ellie, Steph, Mary, you, me…Clive Hyman definitely…

…not sure if Mark, Cristiano and Sonya were there (have acceptances from them but…)

Yes, I recall having a good long chat with Richard and Ellie that evening in particular. But it was one of those evenings when you get to speak with everyone for a while. Like musical chairs but without the music.

Further updates will be gratefully received.

Z/Yen Seasonal Event At 90 Basinghall Street, 11 December 2014

On this occasion, we decided to make the Z/Yen seasonal event “a musical house party” at our offices in Basinghall Street.

We weren’t exactly flush that year and we had a lot of musical people in our midst…

…well, one or two genuinely musical people and quite a lot of people who like to have a go.

It was the year that Mike Smith had induced me to start playing the baritone ukulele.

It was a bit like the definition of jazz – i.e. the musicians were enjoying themselves more than the audience. But that was OK because almost everyone WAS the musicians. And everyone was enjoying the party.

I’m grateful that Janie took pictures to help mark this event.

The usual traditions of Secret Santa, a little giftie for everyone and of course the seasonal song were all in play.

A rare offering in the lyrics department by Michael Mainelli that year. I think we agreed that, as Mike and I were putting together a whole load of musical entertainment, a revival of Michael’s contribution to the 2011 medley would do.

The lyric is not bad at all (is it possible I tweaked it a bit?) and well suited to an event in Basinghall Street:

OH LITTLE STREET OF BASINGHALL

(Sung to the tune of “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”)

Oh little street of Basinghall,
On Guildhall’s shady side;
Above old Gresham College Hall,
Z/Yen’s offices reside.

Yet on the fourth floor slaving,
Z/Yen staff work till they sink;
While past the fifth floor sliding door,
Directors eat and drink.

How noisily, how noisily,
They party with the swish;
To show off Z/Yen’s new office and,
Promote “The Price of Fish”.

But now Z/Yen’s Christmas party,
Is here so we can sell;
This gastro dome, that wondrous time,
To the tune of Jingle Bells.

Z/Yen Xmas Event – Beyond El Dorado: Power And Gold In Ancient Colombia, Shunga: Sex And Pleasure In Japanese Art, British Museum, Followed By Dinner At Sardo, 13 December 2013

Because I had been to see the Colombian Gold a few week’s earlier – click here or below…

Beyond El Dorado: Power And Gold In Ancient Colombia, British Museum, 21 November 2013

…and in any case because Janie was more interested in the Shunga exhibition – click here…

…Janie and I saw a different exhibition from the rest of the people on our pre-Christmas Dinner works outing.

Below is the trailer vid for the Shunga:

We really enjoyed this exhibition.

I sense that the Z/Yen team enjoyed El Dorado too.

Z/Yen Xmas Dinner At Sardo In Grafton Way

The whole event was themed as “Gold” in honour of the El Dorado aspect. Almost everyone wore something gold.

Sardo was a Sardinian restaurant, rather a good one, which itself had a somewhat gold look to it.

I crafted a seasonal song to go with the gold theme:

DRESSED UP IN GOLD
( Sung to the tune of “Silver and Gold” )

VERSE ONE – SILVER AND GOLD – ORIGINAL VERSION (by Johnny Marks)
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Ev’ryone wishes for silver and gold
How do you measure its worth?
Just by the pleasure it gives here on earth
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Mean so much more when we see
Silver and gold decorations
On ev’ry Christmas tree

VERSE TWO – BITCOINS AND LAND – LONG FINANCE VERSION
Bitcoins and land, bitcoins and land
Long Finance topics are bitcoins and land
How do you measure their worth?
Just by the value they gain and disburse
Hedge funds and bonds, hedge funds and bonds
Seem such a bore when you show
Bitcoins and land valuations
In each portfolio

VERSE THREE – DRESSED UP IN GOLD – Z/YEN VERSION
Dressed up in gold, dressed up in gold
Z/Yen folk this Christmas are dressed up in gold
How do you measure dress sense?
Not by this sartorial elegance
Shrouding in gold, shrouding in gold
Might cause some people offence
(If) Z/Yen folk wear such decorations
At normal Z/Yen events

Once people got their heads around it…

…the singing went rather well.

We have loads of pictures from this event, which I have uploaded to a Flickr album for ease of navigation – click here or below:

1

The Cinnamon Club, Preceded By Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant Garde, Tate Britain, 14 December 2012

This Z/Yen seasonal event was great fun and especially memorable.

Before dinner, we went to the Tate Britain to look at the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition that was all the rage that autumn.

Arthur Hughes, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Naturally this was a good excuse to encourage people to dress up for dinner…

…as if the Z/Yen crowd in those days needed much excuse to dress up.

The Cinnamon Club, in the old Westminster Library, was an excellent venue. We had the whole of the upstairs mezzanine for our dinner.

I wrote a song that year specifically for the event. Rather a good one, though I say so myself, despite (or perhaps because of) the Christmas cracker joke in the first verse.

GOOD KEEN Z/YEN TRAINEES

( Sung to the tune of “Good King Wenceslas” )

ALL: Good keen Z/Yen trainees abound

Late work, no-one leavin’

Pizza boxes strewn around

Deep pan, crisp and even

ALL: On expenses came that fare

Though the bosses cruel

Through the vents came just cold air

Saving winter fuel.

 ALL: “Please, please Michael up the heat,

This ought to concern ya

We can’t work with such cold feet

Or with hypothermia”

MICHAEL: “I am wearing just shirt-sleeves

Positively shvitzing!”

ALL: Thus was Michael’s firm decree

Not all that convincing.

IAN: “We need flesh and we need wine

We can’t get warm hither”

ALL: Thus did Ian else opine

Spoken with a shiver.

ALL: So the Z/Yen team set its sights

On this cozy venue

Dressed up as Pre-Raphaelites

Gorging through the menu.

There is a big stack of pictures from that year’s revelries, which you can see through this link and/or the picture link below.

SAM_0276

Bistro Bruno Loubert At Zetters, Preceded By “Hello” Drinks At 90 Basinghall Street, 16 December 2011

I don’t remember dancing the hokey-kokey at that year’s Z/Yen seasonal event, but the photographic record suggests that maybe I did.

We have an enormous number of photographs from that year’s event.

Prior to the meal, we had a party at our new offices, 90 Basinghall Street, which many of our partners had not previously seen. The upstairs room was well suited to hospitality.

Our private room at Bistro Bruno Loubert was a super venue for the dinner. We were quite a large group that year and the space was ideal.

The Price Of Fish had been published that year. Hence the seasonal medley focussing on the two big events of the year: the move to Basingall Street and the publication of the book. I wrote both halves of the song, although I need to nod towards Michael who had written a “St Helen’s” version of the “Oh Little Town” song some years earlier.

OH LITTLE STREET OF BASINGHALL

( Sung to the tune of “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” )

Oh little street of Basinghall,

On Guildhall’s shady side;

Above old Gresham College Hall,

Z/Yen’s offices reside.

Yet on the fourth floor slaving,

Z/Yen staff work till they sink;

While past the fifth floor sliding door,

Directors eat and drink.

How noisily, how noisily,

They party with the swish;

To show off Z/Yen’s new office and,

Promote “The Price of Fish”.

But now Z/Yen’s Christmas party,

Is here so we can sell;

This gastro dome, that wondrous tome,

To the tune of Jingle Bells.

PRICE OF FISH

( Sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells” )

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! What fun it is to read some pages every day;

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! what fun it is to read The Price of Fish each day.

Reading Price of Fish, at a page or ten each day,

Book or Kindle form, laughing all the way;

Bells in brains will ring, making ideas bright,

What fun it is to laugh and sing The Price of Fish tonight.

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! What fun it is to read some pages every day;

Price of Fish, Price of Fish, Price of Fish hooray;

Oh! what fun it is to read The Price of Fish each day.

Loads of pictures from that year’s event. Click this link or the picture link below:

ZYen Christmas Party 2011 869

Gresham Society Event At Wilton’s Music Hall & Dinner At Café Spice Namasté After Z/Yen Symposium, 28 February 2011

Wilton’s Music Hall Door in 2010 by James Perry, CC BY-SA 3.0

Just back from our extraordinary trip to India & Sri Lanka –

India and Sri Lanka, 29 January to 26 February 2011, placeholder and links

…my first working day back in fact – we had a Z/Yen team symposium that afternoon followed by an evening of entertainment courtesy of the Gresham Society at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Very convenient for Michael and Elisabeth Mainelli, this, as Wilton’s is next door to them. It is a fabulous venue, steeped in history but, at that time anyway, in a very dilapidated state.

I think this was a proto Gresham Society event, probably connected to the AGM but before the latterly traditional AGM & Dinner. I also think this might have been a prototype of the thing that became the Gresham Society Biennial Soiree, as the first of those recorded in my diary was later that same year.

Anyway, this event, as I recall, was primarily a Gilbert & Sullivan evening, hosted by Professor Robin Wilson (who is an expert on Savoy Operas as well as mathematics) and mostly comprising performers from his associated choirs and musical troupes.

I seem to remember being required to sing along a fair bit and I think this might have been the first time (but certainly not the last time) I heard the Gresham Professor version of “A Policeman’s Lot”, both in English and, naturally, also in Latin.

I don’t remember how many of us retired to Café Spice Namasté after the Gresham Society do – quite a lot of us I think. In those days Café Spice was quite near Wilton’s – in Leman Street I think or at least very near there. I felt very at home in there having just spent a month eating Southern Asian food.

A very good evening – for me a rather jolly way to return to the world of work.