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Sep. 17th, 2006 09:47 amYesterday was Mayor's Day at the town bowls club. In the morning, and on the drive there, my mother was insistent that they'd ask us to play a whole game. I argued that they wouldn't subject us non-bowls players to the humiliation of having to take on people who play every week; I was fairly confident that would be the case, but was overwhelmingly relieved when I was right and all we had to do was join in a 'spider', where everyone bowls one wood at a jack at the same time and the nearest wins a bottle of wine.
The President, Den, and the Ladies' President, Hazel, who were husband and wife, kept us company for the day and kept us supplied with drinks (they served Marston's Pedigree behind the bar. Free Pedigree - civic functions don't get better than this), coffee and biscuits. They told us all about their bowls, how it was a friendly club with the accent on playing for recreation, how they play year round - this weekend's the end of the outdoor season, but from next week they'll be playing at an indoor club all winter - and told us a bit about their lives, including Den's time as a cook in the Navy.
We had a raffle - ingeniously, the club have laminated one set of strips of tickets and use them over and over again, with an electronic random number generator to do the draw. My mother and I bought six strips each, but didn't win a bean. Den won two prizes, a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Liebfraumilch, then at the end of the draw he insisted on giving my mother the champers, much to her embarrassment. Then Hazel presented her with a cheque for the Mayor's Charities. After that a lady brought us round cups of tea/coffee and a plate of four Echo biscuits and four huge chocolate marshmallows. I took one of each; Hazel had had one chocolate marshmallow, while no-one else had had anything, when she offered to 'get some different biscuits if we didn't like these'. I told her I hadn't wanted them to go without, but she said she and Den didn't want any and to help ourselves. My mother didn't want one either, so as we all talked over the next half-hour I finished the lot.
Then we went outside to watch some bowls. Den and Hazel roamed up and down watching all the games but took the odd bit of time out to talk to us; during the afternoon they asked each of us whether we'd consider taking up the game!
In the evening we went up to Basingstoke for Tony's Mayor's Charity Concert. Peter, the driver, had the Sat Nav on; he and I agreed again on how pleasant we find its female voice, and we promptly christened her Sally, which became a running gag all through the drives there and back. Before the concert we civic dignitaries were received by Tony and Margaret in a little room with a table full of smart nibbles like mini jacket spuds (tuna mayo; chicken, garlic and mayo; sour cream and caviar), bits of melon wrapped in Parma ham, and fresh fruit skewers. We met a few of the usual chain gang plus a couple we hadn't met before. Richard saw me reaching for my third sour cream and caviar mini jacket and labelled me, together with Margaret who was trying one, 'decadent'.
Richard hadn't been able to find a guest for the night so there was a space between him and my mother, who promptly asked if we should all move up one to close the gap. She said that so many times it got irritating, till in the end Tony explained that he had to sit at the very end of the row, so there'd have to be a space somewhere.
The show was titled 'Happy Birthday, Ma'am' and was billed as a celebration of the Queen's 80th birthday, with the backdrop showing pics of her over the 80 years, interspersed with British events of that time. During the first half, the compere made a running joke during his links of how Lizzie was due to attend, but had been held up in traffic, then eventually he pretended to take a phone call saying she wouldn't be coming as Philip had forgotten to set the video for The X Factor so they'd headed for Windsor to watch it. The acts were all Basingstoke's local talent, from their Men's and Ladies' Choirs and the town's dance academy to their gang show troupe. They gave us musical numbers and dance routines, and all in all it was a damn fine evening.
Switched my phone on coming out of the auditorium to find a text from Daniel. He said he needed some inspiration for this long poem he wants to write in the sand on Cowes beach, and asked me why the tide didn't turn back when King Canute ordered it to. While I know the true story - he did it to prove some arse-licking courtiers wrong - I went for something that would appeal to Daniel's sense of humour. I remembered, when I was a kid, reading in a joke book printed by KP Nuts, a cartoon of Canute failing to turn the tide back saying "Look! I can't even keep the salt water out of my peanuts!" But thus was born the salted peanut, so Canute was hailed as a genius... Dan loved that, as I knew he would.
Back to the Mayoral car to be guided home by Sally, then watched a documentary about Shane MacGowan on BBC4. It was the one first showed in 1997, but it really annoyed me that they cut out Kirsty MacColl talking about him, presumably to make it look like a new programme. Made it through most of ITV2's repeat of X Factor, but fell asleep 10 minutes from the end.
The President, Den, and the Ladies' President, Hazel, who were husband and wife, kept us company for the day and kept us supplied with drinks (they served Marston's Pedigree behind the bar. Free Pedigree - civic functions don't get better than this), coffee and biscuits. They told us all about their bowls, how it was a friendly club with the accent on playing for recreation, how they play year round - this weekend's the end of the outdoor season, but from next week they'll be playing at an indoor club all winter - and told us a bit about their lives, including Den's time as a cook in the Navy.
We had a raffle - ingeniously, the club have laminated one set of strips of tickets and use them over and over again, with an electronic random number generator to do the draw. My mother and I bought six strips each, but didn't win a bean. Den won two prizes, a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Liebfraumilch, then at the end of the draw he insisted on giving my mother the champers, much to her embarrassment. Then Hazel presented her with a cheque for the Mayor's Charities. After that a lady brought us round cups of tea/coffee and a plate of four Echo biscuits and four huge chocolate marshmallows. I took one of each; Hazel had had one chocolate marshmallow, while no-one else had had anything, when she offered to 'get some different biscuits if we didn't like these'. I told her I hadn't wanted them to go without, but she said she and Den didn't want any and to help ourselves. My mother didn't want one either, so as we all talked over the next half-hour I finished the lot.
Then we went outside to watch some bowls. Den and Hazel roamed up and down watching all the games but took the odd bit of time out to talk to us; during the afternoon they asked each of us whether we'd consider taking up the game!
In the evening we went up to Basingstoke for Tony's Mayor's Charity Concert. Peter, the driver, had the Sat Nav on; he and I agreed again on how pleasant we find its female voice, and we promptly christened her Sally, which became a running gag all through the drives there and back. Before the concert we civic dignitaries were received by Tony and Margaret in a little room with a table full of smart nibbles like mini jacket spuds (tuna mayo; chicken, garlic and mayo; sour cream and caviar), bits of melon wrapped in Parma ham, and fresh fruit skewers. We met a few of the usual chain gang plus a couple we hadn't met before. Richard saw me reaching for my third sour cream and caviar mini jacket and labelled me, together with Margaret who was trying one, 'decadent'.
Richard hadn't been able to find a guest for the night so there was a space between him and my mother, who promptly asked if we should all move up one to close the gap. She said that so many times it got irritating, till in the end Tony explained that he had to sit at the very end of the row, so there'd have to be a space somewhere.
The show was titled 'Happy Birthday, Ma'am' and was billed as a celebration of the Queen's 80th birthday, with the backdrop showing pics of her over the 80 years, interspersed with British events of that time. During the first half, the compere made a running joke during his links of how Lizzie was due to attend, but had been held up in traffic, then eventually he pretended to take a phone call saying she wouldn't be coming as Philip had forgotten to set the video for The X Factor so they'd headed for Windsor to watch it. The acts were all Basingstoke's local talent, from their Men's and Ladies' Choirs and the town's dance academy to their gang show troupe. They gave us musical numbers and dance routines, and all in all it was a damn fine evening.
Switched my phone on coming out of the auditorium to find a text from Daniel. He said he needed some inspiration for this long poem he wants to write in the sand on Cowes beach, and asked me why the tide didn't turn back when King Canute ordered it to. While I know the true story - he did it to prove some arse-licking courtiers wrong - I went for something that would appeal to Daniel's sense of humour. I remembered, when I was a kid, reading in a joke book printed by KP Nuts, a cartoon of Canute failing to turn the tide back saying "Look! I can't even keep the salt water out of my peanuts!" But thus was born the salted peanut, so Canute was hailed as a genius... Dan loved that, as I knew he would.
Back to the Mayoral car to be guided home by Sally, then watched a documentary about Shane MacGowan on BBC4. It was the one first showed in 1997, but it really annoyed me that they cut out Kirsty MacColl talking about him, presumably to make it look like a new programme. Made it through most of ITV2's repeat of X Factor, but fell asleep 10 minutes from the end.
