![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jun. 24th, 2006 10:35 pmMayor of Havant's Celebration Dinner last night, at a posh hotel in Emsworth. We were given a glass of Pimm's each on arrival, said hello to Richard who greeted us enthusiastically as usual, then stood in the foyer talking to John and Pam from Fareham and Fred and Annette from Portsmouth (it's been confirmed that poor old Margaret, though over the worst of her injury, won't be able to carry out civic duties for the next year, so Annette now actually wears the Lady Mayoress's chain). Fred had a busy day coming up today, with three functions including a two-and-a-half-hour Mozart concert that he reckoned would be a bit of a strain. Annette told us smugly that she'd got out of going to that one with him - "prior engagement," she said, but wouldn't elaborate. My mother recalled how we'd been invited to a classical music show, 'An American Evening', at Southampton last year and found it heavy going.
We were on the top table with Richard himself and the other mayors. Opposite us were Jonathan, Richard's Chaplain, and his partner Carolyn, who proceeded to regale us with stories of how they'd just been on holiday at a Butlins-type camp in Devon, where there'd been a talent contest and Carolyn had entered, doing a dance routine - "not quite what you'd expect of a vicar's wife," she grinned. Over the course of the evening, instigated by my mother, the four of us exchanged (old) jokes (Jonathan's last one was a bit risque for a vicar!) When the subject of football came up, Jonathan revealed that he's the Chaplain to Portsmouth FC and he and I chatted about his duties, the World Cup and footie in general for a while.
Again the grub was great; I had garlic mushrooms followed by lamb shank, and we all got profiteroles and ice cream for dessert. I got three chocolate mints with my coffee, as there was a spare one on our table no-one else wanted, and Richard didn't want one. Between courses we met Richard's younger sister Charlotte, a bubbly blonde, who was dolled up to the nines. Introducing her, Richard said she was a Lady; before long she explained to us that she'd bought one of those square-foot plots of land in the Scottish Highlands that come with a certificate declaring you to be a 'Laird of Glencairn'. Charlotte takes it a stage further and styles herself 'Lady Charlotte [I didn't catch her married surname] of Glencairn'. She said the title cost her £35, and that she made her money back in no time through being offered free tickets and upgrades.
A menu was passed round our table for all of us to sign for Richard. As he's the Mayor of Havant, I thought it appropriate to show my support for Havant & Waterlooville FC by writing 'Up the Hawks!' under my signature. Whoops - while the menu was being passed round, Richard mentioned that he was from Manchester, and when I asked him "Red or Blue?" he said with some venom "Neither. I hate football!" Calming a bit, he added that he probably shouldn't say as much in front of Jonathan. I apologised for writing 'Up the Hawks' on the menu. Richard went on "Football's not the people's game any more. Fifty quid to get in at Chelsea." I agree that over the last decade the Premiership's money-oriented approach and sky-rocketing ticket prices have alienated a lot of people - that's why I love non-league where you see decent football in a friendly atmosphere for sensible prices - but Richard shouldn't use that as justification for hating football, when I'd say it's a safe bet that he's always hated football.
At the end of the evening came the raffle draw. One of the prizes was a big tin of Quality Street; the second winner, an elderly guy from one of the front corner tables, chose it, much to my chagrin, but neither my mother nor I won anything anyway. Just before we left we were approached by an old chap called Vic, who told us how he'd been the manager at the Thorngate in the 60s and staged pop concerts every Sunday - they had quite a lot of the major pop stars of the day including Long John Baldry, Lulu, The Rockin' Berries and, on one occasion, the Barron Knights, who'd been afraid there'd be carnage when they saw the crowd contained lots of Mods and lots of Rockers, but in the end everyone enjoyed their show peacefully. He and my mother reminisced over those days for quite a while, then we said our goodbyes. I stopped for another quick chat with Charlotte on the way out and said "Goodbye, my lady."
Got home to learn Lisa had been evicted from BB7. That came as no surprise at all, as all the polls and betting had shown her way ahead all week, but I'm still absolutely gutted. Ironically, this week she'd shown a really sympathetic side of herself.
Had to drag myself out of bed early this morning, as we were picked up at 7.30 to go to the Hampshire Youth Games in Aldershot. We stopped off at the Holbrook leisure centre, where the team coaches were ready to go, for my mother to go on board and say a few words to the kids and wish them good luck (they appeared to receive her with utter indifference). There was a guy there from the local women's football club who knew me, so said a quick hello, then we went back to the mayoral car and hit the road. As we read our info packs, I was delighted to see that although our town had no boys' football team entered it did have a girls' football team. Kick it, sisters.
All through the journey we were right behind one of the team coaches. A group of young lasses sitting on the back seat kept holding bits of paper against the window with messages on, but we couldn't read them. John the chauffeur put Capital Gold on; the DJ read out the results of a poll for 'most popular thing to go out and do in Britain'. John reckoned seeing Buckingham Palace had to be top, and wasn't impressed when number one turned out to be 'A night out in Newcastle'!
Arriving at the Army Sports Stadium, we went out onto the infield where the teams were stood ready for the opening ceremony and went to talk to some of the kids from our town. The netball girls admitted it had been them holding up the messages, and that two of them were 'Are we friends?' and 'Do you like our skirts?' I made a point of saying good luck to the girls' footie team.
Heading for the VIP section of the stand, the first person we met was Pat from the County Council. After the usual big kiss from her, I turned up the steps and was met by Maria from Test Valley who had me give her the double-cheek peck and patted the seats next to her, indicating that my mother and I should sit. Bizarrely, the teams paraded in reverse alphabetical order, with Winchester leading the parade and Basingstoke bringing up the rear. Maria suggested a deal - if I joined her cheering loudly for the Test Valley team, she'd do the same for ours. We did.
After the march past we were taken to the pavilion for breakfast, with extremely tasty large bacon baguettes, complete with a choice of brown or tomato sauce. As Maria observed, these must have been genuine Army bacon baguettes. One of the Games volunteers greeted us all, gave us a short speech and told us to each take one of the little boxes set out on every table, which contained a pedometer. She told us how to set them, then asked us to put them on and see how many steps we took by the end of the day - she added that 10,000 steps is healthy. Many people soon discovered you could cheat and inflate the total by shaking the device (a tactic I never resorted to once). Over tea and coffee Maria told my mother and me the dates of some civic days we hadn't yet been told about and I made a note of them all, ready to ask Rachel for swaps (and, if she can't oblige, book the days as hols) when I return to work on Tuesday.
We were given a guided tour of the Games, starting with tennis and hockey on the main complex (a Test Valley v Rushmoor girls' match was in progress; Maria and the Mayoress of Rushmoor started to root for their respective teams and got quite carried away!). My mother and I met our town's hockey girls, who were made up that they'd won their opening game and the boys had lost theirs. From there we were taken over the road to open playing fields, where the football was. I headed straight for the girls' games and watched some of Portsmouth v Southampton. It was blazing hot; my mother and I decided to get a 99 each from the ice cream van. I spotted that the ice cream man's sauce bottles had code written on them - 'BLOOD' for strawberry, 'SNOT' for lime, 'MUD' for chocolate, 'GOO' for bubblegum! When we walked back up to the top to rejoin the party, the other mayors spotted our ice creams and all went marching down to the van to get cones themselves.
We saw a bit more girls' footie and talked to our Under-13 team, then we were taken to a nearby school where the netball, badminton and table tennis were taking place. A young lady volunteer talked to us a bit about netball and how her role was to promote it in Hampshire; she said how England had won the bronze in Melbourne, so I couldn't resist mentioning that I'd been at those Games. Sue, the Mayor of Winchester, told the girl that she was a great advert for the sport as she looked so good and fit, which got a sheepish smile. We talked to our team then were taken to table tennis and on to badminton, where Sam, the 9-year-old son of my mother's PA Michelle, was playing - we sought out our team and said to Sam 'Mum says good luck'.
The official tour ended there, so my mother and I watched our team play badminton till the game ended then walked back over to the field with Sue and David (who was openly wiggling his pedometer) and Sheila from New Forest. We got an organic lamb burger and a cold drink each, found a spot in the shade to eat then rang for John to pick us up.
Home in time for Germany v Sweden, then in the evening we had another function, the 65th Anniversary Concert of the Hampshire Police Choir. They were superb, opening with a couple of war time songs and going through a wide range of numbers representing the whole time span of the choir's history, from numbers from the musicals, Sondheim and Rodgers and Hammerstein to hymns and spirituals. Their singing really was magnificent, every bit as good as the Caerphilly choir we saw in March. They were ably supported by a female choir called Viva Voce, who included a few humorous numbers as well as Sondheim, Porter and a sizzling rendition of Fever. At the interval, as VIPs we were served wine and miniature fairy cakes and met the Secretary and Treasurer of the choir as well as their musical director, a lady called Terri who stood on the platform for each song "conducting" them. She told us how 10 years ago, when the previous musical director had quit, she'd been asked to take over 'just as a stop-gap, for six months or so'. She's been doing it ever since.
A first-class evening's entertainment, although my mother was disappointed that they didn't do A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One.
Back in the mayoral car, on the drive home we listened to the closing minutes of Argentina v Mexico. John told me how Mexico had opened the scoring after 4 minutes, Argentina had equalised after 10 and now Argentina were leading in extra time. That was how it stayed, so my interest in the office sweepstake is over.
We were on the top table with Richard himself and the other mayors. Opposite us were Jonathan, Richard's Chaplain, and his partner Carolyn, who proceeded to regale us with stories of how they'd just been on holiday at a Butlins-type camp in Devon, where there'd been a talent contest and Carolyn had entered, doing a dance routine - "not quite what you'd expect of a vicar's wife," she grinned. Over the course of the evening, instigated by my mother, the four of us exchanged (old) jokes (Jonathan's last one was a bit risque for a vicar!) When the subject of football came up, Jonathan revealed that he's the Chaplain to Portsmouth FC and he and I chatted about his duties, the World Cup and footie in general for a while.
Again the grub was great; I had garlic mushrooms followed by lamb shank, and we all got profiteroles and ice cream for dessert. I got three chocolate mints with my coffee, as there was a spare one on our table no-one else wanted, and Richard didn't want one. Between courses we met Richard's younger sister Charlotte, a bubbly blonde, who was dolled up to the nines. Introducing her, Richard said she was a Lady; before long she explained to us that she'd bought one of those square-foot plots of land in the Scottish Highlands that come with a certificate declaring you to be a 'Laird of Glencairn'. Charlotte takes it a stage further and styles herself 'Lady Charlotte [I didn't catch her married surname] of Glencairn'. She said the title cost her £35, and that she made her money back in no time through being offered free tickets and upgrades.
A menu was passed round our table for all of us to sign for Richard. As he's the Mayor of Havant, I thought it appropriate to show my support for Havant & Waterlooville FC by writing 'Up the Hawks!' under my signature. Whoops - while the menu was being passed round, Richard mentioned that he was from Manchester, and when I asked him "Red or Blue?" he said with some venom "Neither. I hate football!" Calming a bit, he added that he probably shouldn't say as much in front of Jonathan. I apologised for writing 'Up the Hawks' on the menu. Richard went on "Football's not the people's game any more. Fifty quid to get in at Chelsea." I agree that over the last decade the Premiership's money-oriented approach and sky-rocketing ticket prices have alienated a lot of people - that's why I love non-league where you see decent football in a friendly atmosphere for sensible prices - but Richard shouldn't use that as justification for hating football, when I'd say it's a safe bet that he's always hated football.
At the end of the evening came the raffle draw. One of the prizes was a big tin of Quality Street; the second winner, an elderly guy from one of the front corner tables, chose it, much to my chagrin, but neither my mother nor I won anything anyway. Just before we left we were approached by an old chap called Vic, who told us how he'd been the manager at the Thorngate in the 60s and staged pop concerts every Sunday - they had quite a lot of the major pop stars of the day including Long John Baldry, Lulu, The Rockin' Berries and, on one occasion, the Barron Knights, who'd been afraid there'd be carnage when they saw the crowd contained lots of Mods and lots of Rockers, but in the end everyone enjoyed their show peacefully. He and my mother reminisced over those days for quite a while, then we said our goodbyes. I stopped for another quick chat with Charlotte on the way out and said "Goodbye, my lady."
Got home to learn Lisa had been evicted from BB7. That came as no surprise at all, as all the polls and betting had shown her way ahead all week, but I'm still absolutely gutted. Ironically, this week she'd shown a really sympathetic side of herself.
Had to drag myself out of bed early this morning, as we were picked up at 7.30 to go to the Hampshire Youth Games in Aldershot. We stopped off at the Holbrook leisure centre, where the team coaches were ready to go, for my mother to go on board and say a few words to the kids and wish them good luck (they appeared to receive her with utter indifference). There was a guy there from the local women's football club who knew me, so said a quick hello, then we went back to the mayoral car and hit the road. As we read our info packs, I was delighted to see that although our town had no boys' football team entered it did have a girls' football team. Kick it, sisters.
All through the journey we were right behind one of the team coaches. A group of young lasses sitting on the back seat kept holding bits of paper against the window with messages on, but we couldn't read them. John the chauffeur put Capital Gold on; the DJ read out the results of a poll for 'most popular thing to go out and do in Britain'. John reckoned seeing Buckingham Palace had to be top, and wasn't impressed when number one turned out to be 'A night out in Newcastle'!
Arriving at the Army Sports Stadium, we went out onto the infield where the teams were stood ready for the opening ceremony and went to talk to some of the kids from our town. The netball girls admitted it had been them holding up the messages, and that two of them were 'Are we friends?' and 'Do you like our skirts?' I made a point of saying good luck to the girls' footie team.
Heading for the VIP section of the stand, the first person we met was Pat from the County Council. After the usual big kiss from her, I turned up the steps and was met by Maria from Test Valley who had me give her the double-cheek peck and patted the seats next to her, indicating that my mother and I should sit. Bizarrely, the teams paraded in reverse alphabetical order, with Winchester leading the parade and Basingstoke bringing up the rear. Maria suggested a deal - if I joined her cheering loudly for the Test Valley team, she'd do the same for ours. We did.
After the march past we were taken to the pavilion for breakfast, with extremely tasty large bacon baguettes, complete with a choice of brown or tomato sauce. As Maria observed, these must have been genuine Army bacon baguettes. One of the Games volunteers greeted us all, gave us a short speech and told us to each take one of the little boxes set out on every table, which contained a pedometer. She told us how to set them, then asked us to put them on and see how many steps we took by the end of the day - she added that 10,000 steps is healthy. Many people soon discovered you could cheat and inflate the total by shaking the device (a tactic I never resorted to once). Over tea and coffee Maria told my mother and me the dates of some civic days we hadn't yet been told about and I made a note of them all, ready to ask Rachel for swaps (and, if she can't oblige, book the days as hols) when I return to work on Tuesday.
We were given a guided tour of the Games, starting with tennis and hockey on the main complex (a Test Valley v Rushmoor girls' match was in progress; Maria and the Mayoress of Rushmoor started to root for their respective teams and got quite carried away!). My mother and I met our town's hockey girls, who were made up that they'd won their opening game and the boys had lost theirs. From there we were taken over the road to open playing fields, where the football was. I headed straight for the girls' games and watched some of Portsmouth v Southampton. It was blazing hot; my mother and I decided to get a 99 each from the ice cream van. I spotted that the ice cream man's sauce bottles had code written on them - 'BLOOD' for strawberry, 'SNOT' for lime, 'MUD' for chocolate, 'GOO' for bubblegum! When we walked back up to the top to rejoin the party, the other mayors spotted our ice creams and all went marching down to the van to get cones themselves.
We saw a bit more girls' footie and talked to our Under-13 team, then we were taken to a nearby school where the netball, badminton and table tennis were taking place. A young lady volunteer talked to us a bit about netball and how her role was to promote it in Hampshire; she said how England had won the bronze in Melbourne, so I couldn't resist mentioning that I'd been at those Games. Sue, the Mayor of Winchester, told the girl that she was a great advert for the sport as she looked so good and fit, which got a sheepish smile. We talked to our team then were taken to table tennis and on to badminton, where Sam, the 9-year-old son of my mother's PA Michelle, was playing - we sought out our team and said to Sam 'Mum says good luck'.
The official tour ended there, so my mother and I watched our team play badminton till the game ended then walked back over to the field with Sue and David (who was openly wiggling his pedometer) and Sheila from New Forest. We got an organic lamb burger and a cold drink each, found a spot in the shade to eat then rang for John to pick us up.
Home in time for Germany v Sweden, then in the evening we had another function, the 65th Anniversary Concert of the Hampshire Police Choir. They were superb, opening with a couple of war time songs and going through a wide range of numbers representing the whole time span of the choir's history, from numbers from the musicals, Sondheim and Rodgers and Hammerstein to hymns and spirituals. Their singing really was magnificent, every bit as good as the Caerphilly choir we saw in March. They were ably supported by a female choir called Viva Voce, who included a few humorous numbers as well as Sondheim, Porter and a sizzling rendition of Fever. At the interval, as VIPs we were served wine and miniature fairy cakes and met the Secretary and Treasurer of the choir as well as their musical director, a lady called Terri who stood on the platform for each song "conducting" them. She told us how 10 years ago, when the previous musical director had quit, she'd been asked to take over 'just as a stop-gap, for six months or so'. She's been doing it ever since.
A first-class evening's entertainment, although my mother was disappointed that they didn't do A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One.
Back in the mayoral car, on the drive home we listened to the closing minutes of Argentina v Mexico. John told me how Mexico had opened the scoring after 4 minutes, Argentina had equalised after 10 and now Argentina were leading in extra time. That was how it stayed, so my interest in the office sweepstake is over.
