News, comment and gossip for Horsington, the Cheritons and surrounding villages in Somerset
The traditional Half Moon Inn Easter Holiday Quiz will be held on Easter Sunday, 5th April, at 8pm. Usual format. Teams of 4 -ish. Leave your mobiles at home.
This Easter the quiz will be set by Andrew Tarling, who has recently returned from a weekend in the Baltic. Better mug up on Latvian mythology, pop charts and football results!.
youtu.be/bTKMwVGU-TQ
Milborne Port Opera are staging their latest show, “Spring Fate” after Easter.
It is spring 1914. The war clouds are gathering over Europe and Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, is rehearsing his famous soundbite “The lights are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time”.
Are they bothered in Lancashire? –NO! The Earl of Westhoughton and his wife Lady Blackrod are preparing to host a lavish garden party and evening ‘do’ at their palatial mansion Anderton Hall. And what a party it will be, with hundreds of guests, and circus performers and international cabaret acts to entertain them in style.
But there are some tensions. No playwright worth his salt would write a play without tensions.
The fact is that neither the Earl nor his Uncle William (a famous explorer, newly returned from somewhere or other), are enjoying the best of marriages. And cousin Eugene has just been shot.
The unfortunate Eugene has placed some highly sensitive documents in the safe and the future of the British Empire depends on their contents remaining secret.
But the party is buzzing with spies, assassins and intriguers, all hell bent on getting hold of the papers. Some are disguised as aristocratic German tourists, others as circus performers.
And all of them can sing!
Combine these magical elements and you have Neil Edwards’ new comedy musical “Spring Fate”, his third work for Milborne Port Opera. The music has been inspired, re written or arranged from the work of Ivan Caryll a largely forgotten theatre composer from the 1900’s. A prolific writer, performed on both sides of the Atlantic, he had the record of 5 shows running simultanaously in London’s West End in 1905.
Caryll was the natural successor to Gilbert & Sullivan and was the agent who transformed light operetta into musical theatre at the dawning of the jazz age.
Neil Edwards is an accomplished writer and musician, as well as no mean performer.
His previous works at Milborne Port are “The Lost Continent of Love”, “The Murder at Shakerley House” and now, “Spring Fate”. All three share outlandish plots, outrageous characters, and wonderful humour, which you might compare with “Allo Allo” or the “Goon show”. The music is great too.
Milborne Port Opera is a small amateur company which regularly punches above its weight and wins awards. In its 26 years of existence it has performed every single work by Gilbert & Sullivan, as well as other musicals. It is rare among similar organisations in that it is prepared to take the risk to encourage and perform original works.
Spring Fate is accompanied by an 11 piece band under the direction of Caroline d’Cruz, recently nominated for the award of Best Musical Director in the Somerset Drama awards. Milborne Port won the “Show Stopper” award, and will no doubt be hoping for another next year.
The show runs at the Milborne Port Village Hall from April 8-10, the week after Easter. Tickets from boxoffice@milborneportopera.co.uk Telephone 07926 983585.
See if you can spot any Horsington residents on the stage or in the orchestra. There are three -Ed.
Further research reveals that David Beckham actually began his professional career at Manchester United, not Preston North End. So in fact the Ted Banks appreciation Society won the White Horse charity quiz on Sunday.
Being sportsmen and gentlemen, they will not be asking for the return of the prizes and a re-run. But watch out next time!
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Beckham
Tuesday
JollyAllan – Lost
Mendip Express -Lost
Bit of a Puzzle – 3rd at 16-1
Annie Power – Fell at the last, convincingly in front, dashing the hopes of thousands of Irishmen with Willie Mullins accumulators, and saving the bookmaking industry from ruin.
Wednesday
Activial – 3rd at 17-2
At least Winterbourne got one thing right! In the Cross country event Toutancarmont , the French horse, made an unscheduled and unseemly left turn and careered into the rails when nicely poised for victory.
Thursday
Hernryville – 4th at 50-1, a nice each way coup
Edeymi -lost
Black Friday
Thomas Brown -lost
Fletchers Flyer -lost
Jollys Cracked it- lost
Karinga Dancer – non runner
Winterboune Longjohns adds this comment:
“Will you make it clear to my readers, if any still exist , that I have absolutely no connection with Winterboune View, the eponymous private care home for those with special needs in Bristol, that was recently closed after revelations of physical abuse!
I am am sure it would not have occurred to anyone – until you mentioned it! -Ed
Your editor was £250 up on the week, mainly by ignoring the Blog’s recommendations and subscribing to a professional tipping service.
A talk by senior Home office official Mark Sedwill at 3 pm on Sunday 22 March at Fifehead Magdalen Church will provide a useful companion to the talk on recent developments in the Middle East by Brigadier John Deverell a few days later in Horsington. Mark Sedwill is the current Permanent Secretary to the Home Office and was previously Ambassador to Afghanistan and Senior UN Civilian Representative. The talk will be in aid of Church funds, and will be followed by refreshments. For catering please confirm if you are able to attend either to 01258 821111 or by e-mail lakemanra@aol.com.
Donations in aid of St Mary Magdalene Fifehead Church Funds
Biography
Mark took up the post of Permanent Secretary at the Home Office on 1 February 2013. He was previously Director General (political) at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Prime Minister’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mark studied at St Andrews and Oxford universities before joining the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1989. His first overseas posting in 1991 was as a Second Secretary in Cairo, followed by First Secretary in Iraq, then in Nicosia. Subsequent positions are as follows:
If events in the Middle East are beyond your grasp, then come to Horsington Church on Friday 27 March.
Brigadier (retired) John Deverell CBE MPhil(Cantab) is giving a talk on “People and Events in the Middle East today”.
With 10 years’ experience in the Middle East as an army Officer, a diplomat, and as a businessman, Brigadier Deverell will talk about his experience of this most topical and complex region
He has enjoyed postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem and Yemen.
In Iraq he was instrumental in disproving the pre-war intelligence on the weapons of mass destruction WMD) as the senior British officer in the Iraq Survey Group. He presented his findings on the TV programme Panorama.
In Libya he advised the Gaddafi regime on how they would benefit from giving up their WMD programmes.
In Yemen his work with local officials helped avoid war in the wake of 9/11.
In the Palestinian Territories he was the only British government servant to live and work full time. He was at the forefront of US and British efforts to reform the Palestinian security sector as a basis for a Two-State Solution. In this role John worked alongside Quartet Representative Tony Blair and General Jim Jones, thereafter the U.S. National Security Adviser.
John has spent time in almost every Middle Eastern country and, since leaving the Army, continues to work in the region – most recently in Lebanon.
He now runs Deverell Associates, working with commercial companies to advise them on Enterprise Risk Management and crisis management at home and abroad. He summarises his work as being about “the Prepared Mind”.
The talk is at 7.30.
The proceeds from the talk will be divided between
UNWRA for Palestinian refugees – and Horsington Church
A donation of £8.00 is suggested and will include refreshments
contact: Rosemarie Wigley 01963 371478 or Jane Jones 01963 370562
There is a related talk the previous Sunday on National Security issues at Fifehead Magdalene Church by Senior Home Office man Mark Sedwill. See separate post– Ed
Rehearsals are now well under way for the Milborne Port Opera’s next show “Spring Fate”. A show which has never been performed before. So book early for a seat at the World premiere! April 8-10 (Just after Easter) at the Milborne Port Village Hall)
We will be publishing full details soon, but in the meantime BloggoVision presents a very short video of the company ‘s past shows and rehearsals for Spring Fate.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrHasj-y9vQ
Box office telephone number 07926 983 585
www.milborneportopera.com
boxoffice@milborneportopera.co.uk
Winterbourne Longjohns, our resident racing correspondent reports from Cheltenham:
With the curiously early cancellation due to “bad weather” of last week’s ‘free’ meeting at Wincanton four days in advance of its scheduled date, ‘Cannotwin’* would seem to be intent on living up to its not entirely enviable soubriquet. The Jockey Club , which is responsible for the course, remains oddly silent as to the real reasons for this.
Perhaps an absence of entries may have a bearing here. Two weeks ago at Taunton a six race card, also on a Thursday, could only attract a grand total of thirty-three runners. Robin Oakley in this week’s Spectator suggests an interesting explanation.
The real problem, he suggests, is not our National Hunt jockeys refusing to wear sun visors and so making a complete farce of many late afternoons hurdle races, but instead it is the fact that although there are now 650 more race meetings than there were seven years ago in 2008 , there are now 1,600 fewer racehorses in training than there were in 2008. The much increased number of summer jump meetings may also contribute towards this as does the appeal to owners and trainers of much enhanced prize money for races scheduled to be run on a Saturday, while the overall dominance of events such as the Cheltenham Festival may also contribute to this. In any event small mid week fields do nothing to persuade people to attend race meetings.
And so to Cheltenham, where hope continues to annually triumph over experience. But of course we go on. This year Harry Fry is taking his strongest team to date to Prestbury Park. The disappointing news , especially so for this correspondent, having backed ROCK ON RUBY at 20/1 in January to win Thursday’s Ladbroke World Hurdle, with the horse having been withdrawn on Saturday after having been scoped badly following a disappointing mornings work, was especially galling with ROR’s price at the time of the withdrawal having tumbled to 8/1.
JOLLYALLEN, also backed earlier in the year by Winterbourne at 20/1, will be very much the centre of his attention on Tuesday’s opener, the Supreme Novice Hurdle. He represents the first ride of the week for A P McCoy at his final festival before retirement. We are told that A.P. has always liked JOLLYALLEN and believes that he will be well suited by the better ground he is likely to encounter here. MENDIP EXPRESS, who is said to be in great order will be ridden by top amateur Will Biddick in the UBS H,Cap Chase, while BIT OF A PUZZLE will be the Fry stable’s third entry of the day in the OLBG Mares Hurdle in which the Irish trained ANNIE POWER is expected to be a hot favourite.
On Wednesday I am very much hoping to see ACTIVIALfinally achieve an outstanding success in the Coral Hurdle. Profitable places in big races at Ascot and Newbury mean that this gallant little grey owes us nothing, but a success here is most certainly something to be wished for. HENRYVILLE has been pencilled in for the Pertemps on Thursday, where Tony Martin’s EDEYMI might well go close as a real Irish gamble
Friday the Seaborough stable’s hopes mainly rest on THOMAS BROWN in the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle. Harry Fry reports that he is in the form of his life and that the three mile trip looks ideal for him. It is possible that the Wincanton and Punchestown winner FLETCHERS FLYER may join him in the line up for this race. Experienced conditional jockey Michael Nolan has been booked for JOLLYS CRACKED IT later in the day and KARINGA DANCER under the excellent Noel Fehily may run in the Grand Annual Chase which will feature A P McCoy’s last ride at the Festival. Finally Swinley Bottom’s French friends are very keen on the chance of their compatriots Toutancarmont in Wednesdays Cross Country event provided that the French pilot can successfully find his way around this impossibly confusing course.They do after all drive on a different side of the road!
*A cunning, cryptic and cynical anagram for Wincanton –ED
The pub quiz action in the parish has moved up the road to the best pub in South Cheriton, the White Horse. On Sunday night, the 8TH March, 9 teams locked intellects in a charity quiz in aid of Riding for the Disabled. The winners, Dishevilled, pipped the current Half Moon Quiz champions, The Ted Banks Appreciation Society, by one point, in tragic circumstances.
Before the quiz started one of the TBAS members moaned “the only answer I know to any football question is Preston North End. But what is the question?” So a question came up- Where did David Beckham begin his professional football career? The team was flummoxed and put Manchester United as wild guess..
And the answer was. . . PRESTON NORTH END!
The Cheriton Also Rans came 3rd.
Landlord Steve deserves a big thank you for organising the evening, making freshly fried chips available to hungry quizzers and having some excellent beers on tap. Your editor particularly like the Belhaven, which is not seen very much down here.
Further shock horror development– The result reversed!