CHARLIE CONDOU - No.44

two articles RE CHARLIE CONDOU’S DAD, PIERRE.

Stephen Fry liveblogs on Twitter while stuck in lift

By Stephen Moyes 5/02/2009

http://www.mirror.co.uk/

When you’re trapped in an elevator 26 floors up you need a little lift... and who better to provide it than Stephen Fry.

The TV comedian, one of the world’s wittiest men, was stranded for more than half an hour but kept his four companions – and the outside world – amused with a succession of quips.

First Fry whipped out his iPhone and posted on his Twitter network site, which has 100,000 followers: “We’re stuck in a lift. Hell’s teeth. We could be here for hours.”

He then trawled his huge vocabulary to whinge: “Arse, poo and widdle.” Fry also posted a photo of the elevator display which read “This lift is not in use” and joked: “No shit, Sherlock...”

The QI presenter, 51, was returning from the Paramount club in London’s Centre Point on Tuesday night when the lift shuddered to a halt. After 30 minutes, Fry gave his fans some good news: “Nice men freed us. Paramount had champagne for us at the bottom.”

A fellow Twitter user posted back to Fry: “Can you give the cute short guy my number?”

Paramount owner Pierre Condou said: “I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather be stuck in a lift with. He’d keep you entertained.”

THE 1968 NORTHAW FOOTBALL REUNION

http://www.oldnorthavianassociation.co.uk/

As those who have read the 2006 Newsletter will know, the idea for this came about during a visit by Jamie Birkmyre to Norman Court in December 2005. He mentioned the unbeaten record of Northaw’s First XI football team during the Christmas term of 1968 and wondered what had happened to the players. “Wouldn’t it be great to get the team back together again?” he suggested.

In my self-appointed role as amateur detective in pursuit of lost or missing Old Northavians, this was a challenge I couldn’t resist. There had been twelve members of the ‘squad’ (not that this provides any explanation for their winning record!) and we only had up to date information on four of them – Jamie (obviously), Pierre Condou, Edward Bolitho and Jamie Lindsay. So I started by asking them, as well as Billy Howard and Tommy Thomson, for any clue as to the whereabouts of the other 8. Pierre put me in touch quite quickly with Stephen Windsor-Clive and Billy was able to provide an address for Simon Moore. Tommy found me Simon Clements’ address and telephone number, so I was already over half way there.

It was hinted that if I put the name “Stan Baring” into Google, I might find Adrian Baring - who had metamorphosed into Stan while at Charterhouse (something to do with Stanley Matthews – further explanation for the team’s success?). I then tried Stanbridge Earls for Stuart Naylor-Vane and Graham Radley but with no luck. However, Google came to my aid again with Stuart’s place of work and I also discovered that Graham’s family was still at the same address and the BT online Directory did the rest. What a wonderful thing is the internet (most of the time)! Meanwhile, Simon Clements had managed to track down Jonathan Haak (I had tried Googling him too but only found the drummer in a Dutch Punk band, which wasn’t quite what I was after!). Eleven out of twelve, I thought, ain’t bad!

Now, the only missing member of the team was Dariush Bakhtiar, believed to be living in Tehran. As a result of some sterling work by a combination of Tommy, Stephen and Pierre, contact was made with Dariush and, better still, he was planning to be in England in October. We had found the full team!

Emboldened by our success, I wondered whether I might be able to track down a sizeable percentage of those who had been at Northaw in the late 60s (but hadn’t actually been on The Team). So the whole process started again. I will spare you the blow by blow account. Suffice to say that by late September there were less than 40 whom I had completely failed to contact out of 120 known contemporaries.

To all the ONs who were on the receiving end of emails or telephone calls from me that started “You may not remember me, but….” I can only say – Sorry! On more than one occasion, my wife warned me that people might think I was stalking them! I hope those who came to Norman Court in October (or would have liked to but for other commitments) now feel that my pursuit of their whereabouts was worth it in the end.

Anthony Whitaker