Fat Neck – The Chairman competing at the 154th University Boat Race

Bottom left if you're eyesight is too bad

Just in case you missed the ITV coverage of the 154th University Boat Race on Saturday (which included 1 hour 15 minutes of “build up”, but omitted the Isis-Goldie race), you might have missed the extra member of the “Oxford crew” who helped his Father’s alma mater celebrate their 74th victory in the race in front of a worldwide audience of aprox. 100 million viewers and was drenched in Champagne for his trouble. Watch closely at aprox. 1 minute 40 seconds for a chap in a red jumper and a receding hairline, who was greeted in the post-race reception by an American member of the Oxford crew with the words, “Hey, you’re the guy from the podium”. Karl Power eat your heart out!

Speak and ye shall be heard

Blending in with the locals last October in Giza

Just in case you were not aware, your Chairman is due to address his other club, the New Sheridan Club next Wednesday, in a similar ensemble as to that in which I appear above. As the NSC site puts it so aptly,

Matthew “The Chairman” Howard will bluff his way on The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (revisited). He styles this as the "Lady Malvern Memorial Lecture". (Lady Malvern was introduced in Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest—or Series 3, episode 1 of the television series. She was noted for writing books such as India and the Indians after only the briefest of visits and hoped to write a companion volume on the United States after having spent less that a month therein, on the grounds that one of her friends wrote America From Within after a visit of less than a fortnight. Mr Howard spent two weeks on the Sinai Peninsular last October, and visited Cairo for two days, and hence feels amply qualified to deliver an informed insight into his chosen subject, one first addressed by the anthropologist E.W. Lane in 1836, and long overdue for re-examination. You have been warned.)

Never a truer word said in jest, although I thought the “you have been warned” a tad ripe. Wish me luck – I think I’ll need it.

This could make the news, you know

No expense spared (and very little incurred - the mount

cost more than the frame, you will be surprised to note)

Members and friends might like to see the framed masterpiece from the Chair of the Fine Arts Committee which the Chairman is due to deliver to the Royal Academy for "consideration" next week. Even if I say so myself, “I Predict a Riot” does look rather fine, and I am confident Ruby has a long and illustrious career ahead of her in the world of the arts. I mean, if she’s half as good as her mother is at painting, she will be twice the painter her father ever was. And you can’t get higher praise than that, can you?

Beating the Royal Academy into submission

I Predict a Riot (c) Ruby Alice Carter CFAC WRC

You will be delighted to know that the Chairman has arranged for submission of the Chair of the Fine Arts Committee’s first artistic offering for consideration of the hanging committee of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, with the application for her first work being submitted today. In recognition of the fact that the Kaiser Chiefs named their song “Ruby” after the Chair of the Fine Arts Committee, Ruby suggested to the Chairman by the medium of telepathy that the picture should be titled “I Predict a Riot”, perhaps the Kaiser Chief’s finest hour to date, which is hopefully the reaction of the hanging committee when they consider Ruby’s endeavours. Ruby had originally submitted a picture entitled “Fire and Flames” for consideration, but as the picture was almost the size of the Bayeux Tapestry (but not quite so detailed), the Treasurer thought that the framing budget of “£20 max.” might be “stretched slightly”, as the Captain might have put it in his characteristically understated style……