Tag Archives: memoir

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AFL Round 13- Adelaide v North Melbourne: Western Democracy and the Wally Grout Snack Bar

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nick

Is there a better-named wine than Jim Barry’s Cover Drive?

A classy cabernet sauvignon, it’s been a highlight since we arrived in Adelaide from Singapore. Earlier in the week, some old school friends said, “Let’s go to the Prince Albert.” I’m happy they didn’t say, “Let’s get a Prince Albert” as that would’ve been excruciating and brash.

So there I was in the dining room of the Prince Albert Hotel, considering my glass of earthy red. Years ago a mate met Nick Cave following a gig at the Thebby. Instead of the usual, fawning fan stuff, he asked, “Who do you think was the better cover driver? David Gower or GS Chappell?” Cave replied promptly. Australia’s thirty-fifth Test captain.

While contemplating cricket, the Clare Valley and music NME once described as that of the “gothic psycho-sexual apocalypse” a text invited me to the Crows and Kangaroos fixture!

In our flat and featureless city, Adelaide Oval is a soaring basilica. Moving through the Saturday evening of our screen-doored suburbs, I’m struck by the darkness. In Singapore there are few shadowy spaces; it’s a casino, it’s drowning in loud light. As Nick Cave might note, there’s comfort in the gloom. He’s not a man of the tropics.

Its website brags, “Adelaide Oval will exceed Australian design standards for stadium toilet facilities by 30 percent.” My now equatorial bladder applaudes, but does this mean those instructive pissoir queue tête-à-têtes are cut by a third?

This is my first time at the new ground.

The redevelopment is striking, however the timeless features endure: Edwardian scoreboard, Hill, Moreton Bay Figs. Despite the half-billion dollar investment, the flora triumphs. Which other major stadium has trees?

We head to the new David Hookes Terrace Bar. Above the fridge, a glass case contains a poignant tableau: stumps, cap and Hookesy’s Gray-Nicolls double scoop bat. On tap there’s West End Draught, but there’s no mortal situation I can conceive in which I’d actually drink it. My James Squire Pale Ale is tasty, and I recall my 1989 visit to the Gabba’s now demolished Wally Grout Snack Bar.

The opening period is dour until Eddie Betts slots a boundary line snap from in front of the Gavin Wanganeen Stand. It’s a wonderful kick, and my friend, R. Bowden, notes that unlike those at Football Park, the pockets are shallow, so we could see more of these. It’ll be fascinating as the idiosyncrasies of this new/old venue emerge.

Podsiadly performs with energetic imagination. In the third quarter a huge moon hangs like a Monet above the Max Basheer Stand, while on the wing far below Pods takes an equally luminescent mark. I understand why Geelong released him, but unlike mature Crows recruits Ronnie Burns and Wayne Carey, he is a success. Vitally, he also kicks two rippers.

Beyond an early patch when they suddenly score three majors, the Kangaroos don’t threaten. Their forward line’s dysfunctional, and across the field North claim only nine contested marks. Petrie’s imperceptible, and extraterrestrial umpiring and absurdly generous teammates provide Thomas with four goals.

Dangerfield is thrillingly robust, but doesn’t dominate. This, I suggest, is heartening as the Crows can be a single-engine Cessna. Half-back Brodie Smith rebounds resourcefully with missile-like disposal. His third term conversion from fifty is telling.

The Roos’ premium player is Brent Harvey. Despite his autumnal age, he’s still quick and frequently finds space. Like King Lear, the time to relax has not yet arrived. Someone yells out, “Good work Harvey, but Joe Hockey needs you to play until you’re seventy!”

Taylor Walker demonstrates confidence. His vision and command is soldierly, and he takes five pack marks. But his kicking fluctuates bizarrely. R. Bowden says that he appears to have a wooden leg. However, with swaggering muscularity he asserts himself like a thirsty publican.

It’s the most fun I’ve had at Adelaide Oval since the 2006 Ashes Test. I was there on Day Five when with 4/49 in England’s second innings, SK Warne bowled us to a far-fetched, illustrious victory.

As my train rushes through the wintry velvet, I ponder Nick Cave, and the joy of different Cover Drives.

mbf

 

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Playing Trouble with Max

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Trouble is among my favourite board games. It’s simple, and loud, mostly because of the “Pop-O-Matic” die bubble. Recently I was home sick with mycoplasma, and Max and I played Trouble. I learnt some lovely things about him.

 

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Playing Trouble with Max

 

every roll

of the dice

is a buzzing surprise,

is a celebration like a party,

is a triumph of your good character.

 

for Max the most thrilling moment

is not six,

but when you throw the same number,

matching perfectly, like DNA.

 

like rain, the game fades and

Max wants us to only pop the dice

he’s devouring what’s coming

grabbing this instant

his gift of sharing the precious.

 

Playing Trouble with Max

 

 

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AFL Round 10- Adelaide v Carlton: The Pogues or Paul Kelly?

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Our eldest son lost his front tooth yesterday. Already dangling, the other is now lurching across his gum. He is six.

Smiling, he is a little like Shane MacGowan, the lead singer of The Pogues. You know, the one who somehow maintains a pulse. Despite his sustained dedication to not, over these last four decades.

With the annual, happy promise of snow, a big Norwegian spruce in Trafalgar Square, and BBC Radio 2 being obliged to play “Fairytale of New York” every fourteen minutes across December, England does Christmas better than Australia.

It just works better in the dark and the cold.

“Fairytale of New York” is a superbly bleak song. Marrying misery with a rousing melody, the doomed couple bicker and snarl, and of course, it ends badly for them.

Which connects to both Carlton and Adelaide, except that it is only May. For much of the first half, the football goes back and forth, perversely suggesting the call and response form of the duet between Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl

I could have been someone

Well so could anyone

You took my dreams from me

When I first found you

I kept them with me babe

I put them with my own

Can’t make it all alone

I’ve built my dreams around you

While this festive ode is euphoric, Sunday’s MCG fixture was dour, and for much of it, lacking music. There would be grander joy within an afternoon spent shopping in Luton. At least there’d be the chance that your umbrella might be picked up in the sleety gale and speared into a Bedfordshire oak tree.

In their peculiar tribute to “Fairytale of New York”, The Crows continue to set their watches to Christmas Island time, well behind that in Melbourne, chronologically and in humanitarian/football supporter terms. And so they only have two goals at the major break. Adelaide’s pre-season strategy of starting in an excruciating way persists into a tenth week. John Farnham has enjoyed shorter retirements.

Norwood boy and Crows fan Paul Kelly’s “How To Make Gravy” is our finest seasonal song. Like The Pogues’ tune, it is jubilant in its despair. Both are anchored in familial misfortune. Each begins with a gentle, welcoming melody, and then erupts into a torrent of regret.

Living in St Albans, just north of London, Paul Kelly’s tour de force was my umbilical cord to Australia. Its evocative power, and fraught, jailed brother were overwhelming. On many a Friday evening I played this song in our tiny townhouse, after beers at The Bunch of Cherries, The Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, or The Goat.

When Peter Luscombe’s drums kick in at

I guess the brothers are driving down

From Queensland and Stella’s flying in from the coast

They say it’s gonna be a hundred degrees

Even more maybe, but that won’t stop the roast

I’d be a goner. The heat, the ritual, the anguish. There I’d be, on our couch, blubbing away, wondering what the feck we were doing half a world from home, having, in a sense, voluntarily imprisoned ourselves. Both songs signify Christmas and the end of the year. Although winter has not begun, 2014 is already finished for The Blues and The Crows.

Yarran and Betts have some electric moments, while Thomas for Carlton and Laird for the vanquished, contribute meaningfully. Kade Simpson appears to roam about unchecked and collects a mammon of disposals. There are more clangers than a Chinese gong workshop, and Adelaide’s sixteen behinds is telling.

I’d like to say that the second half was artistic and masterful like Paul Kelly and The Pogues, but I can’t. The error and turnover rates fell. Each team kicked eight goals. It was close.

Within a few weeks, our son will have a new front tooth, and his smile will again be complete.

Adelaide needs to stop its decay, and stop it urgently.

pk

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AFL Round 9- Adelaide v Collingwood: Chernobyl FC still likely to host Crows’ entire 2015 pre-season

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Forking out a week’s salary to see Milli Vanilli at the Vienna Konzerthaus. In 2014, this is Adelaide Oval for the Crows fan.

Magnificent arena, miming charlatans.

Can anyone tell me if Adelaide has recently beaten Collingwood in a significant match?

No, I didn’t think so.

Connecting inside the centre square during the 2002 Crows and Magpies preliminary final at the MCG, Anthony Rocca’s third-quarter drop punt went straight through. The Sherrin had covered seventy ghastly metres.

It was an astonishing goal. It was a horrible goal. 88,960 people remember it. Although Rocca was down the City End, everyone around us at the Punt Road End knew as he kicked it.

How could Collingwood lose after that?

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We decided to go after the Crows defeated Melbourne in the semi-final. Now, this was a game of graphic mood swings. Like K. Rudd in a midnight cabinet meeting. Apparently.

Some Kapunda schoolmates and I drove over from Adelaide. In microscopic Singapore a decade on and squeezed into a condominium with two boisterous boys there’s an otherworldly quality to this idea. Time passes.

Sweeping road, conversation, music.

You Am I escorted us into Victoria with their superb album, Hourly, Daily. Evoking boyhood and backyards, Kangaroos supporter Tim Rogers moves us through the skimming bliss and little deaths of suburbia.

The loose narrative arc recalls Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, and the laconically pretty, “Please Don’t Ask Me To Smile” especially stirs memories of this weekend.

When I was in grade six

I used to hold open a door for a girl

And she called me a wimp

Said there’s just no need

To be so fcking polite

I politely agreed with her

I think she was right

Tradition urges a break at Horsham’s White Hart, before pushing on to our Carlton digs, and an animated slurp at the University Hotel.

Saturday. Preliminary final. Sluggish breakfast. Wander about the Docklands. Young & Jackson. Stroll to Jolimont. The footy. Disappointment.

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Dane Swan is an ugly duckling. Despite years of resistance, he’s now among my favourite footballers. He presents as a dilettante. His expression is of joyless slogging on an assembly line. At any point, he could simply walk away. It is his unlikeliness, that is, well, likable.

It was Taylor Walker’s return following a serious knee injury. Last we saw, he sported a Broken Hill mullet, but now he models a Berlin coif and post-ironic hipster moustache. He could have launched into Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. Tex was rusty, kicking four behinds, but got the pill seventeen times.

Adelaide and Collingwood often play close, scrambling matches. On this balmy May night, both miss opportunities. Neither grasps the ascendency. It’s pulsating.

Travis Cloke checks himself into the cloakroom. An early fumbled chest mark sets a dismal tone for the black and white power forward, and he remains ineffectual. His opponent, wunderkind Daniel Talia, demonstrates how he’s overtaken former tricolour Phil Davis.

Showing us his protean composure in traffic yet again, Scott Pendlebury is the evening’s best Magpie. When next juggling crates of live chooks by a feverish intersection, in, say, Ho Chi Minh City, I want him to chaperone me across the road, between the cars, honking trucks, and zipping motorcycles. Surely, a Pendlebury Brownlow’s coming.

Although there’s only a solitary goal in the final term, it’s oddly magnetic football. At the Boomarang Bar we know the Crows are never certainties until they’re up by fifty points with fifty seconds left. Eddie Betts is the scorer, and we hold on.

Our season flickers.

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Gambling is illegal at Bushwood sir, and I never slice: five yarns

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Noonan! D’Annunzio! Mitchell! You’re on the tee!

It was a sparkling, jaunty morning. The kind only had during university holidays. Thirty chaps in whispering knots, around the first tee of North Adelaide’s south course.

As casual golfers we’d no experience with a gallery. Rocket, Puggy and I watched Crackshot have a few swings. He’d get us underway.

Exhibiting an opening batsman’s concentration, his backswing was neat. A purposeful downswing. Sixty eyes followed it as it flew up and through the autumnal sky. Remaining patiently on the tee, however, was his Hot Dot.

Now like a crashing Black Hawk’s rotor, minus the Jesus nut, Crackshot’s driver was in whirling flight. Sounding like Rolf’s wobble board it propelled up the fairway, then skimmed across the Kikuyu before finally, as in a Samuel Beckett tableau, it lay motionless and forsaken.

“My palms were sweaty,” claimed Crackshot.

I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber.

Sadly demolished, Kapunda’s Railway Hotel experienced a fleeting infamy, among the ridiculous, by opening at 8am on Sundays, when, in situ, we’d get raspberry cordial splashed in our West End Draught butchers.

Angelin was the publicans’ son. In the hotel ballroom he played me Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Once. I recuperated. Everything about the Railway Hotel was ridiculous.

But Angelin could play footy. He was a thumping kick, and when he connected, he sometimes achieved the mythological quality known in country sport as “good purchase.”

In the Junior Colts one Saturday at Dutton Park our ruckman, Rocket, got the tap from the centre bounce. Angelin seized the footy in that clean, untouchable way he had. Suddenly frozen as if in a sci-fi telemovie, the Tanunda boys were incapable of tackling him.

He surged towards the half forward line. Fifty-metre arcs were un-invented, but he was beyond that when he bombed it. Perhaps prog-rock had already pinched his conceptual clarity. It was a behind. To the Tanunda Magpies.

He’d kicked it the wrong way.

But, gee, it was impressive.

Hey Moose! Rocko! Help my buddy here find his wallet! 

The history of Spoof suggests English public schoolboys, darkened cupboards and loosened trousers. But for me it’s afternoons in Kapunda’s Prince of Wales, or Puffa’s, as it’s widely known.

Called ‘the ancient art of mathematical calculation as played by gentlemen,’ Spoof is a drinking game fabricated upon failure. It is a drinking game of cheerful cruelty, for it identifies no winners, only the loser.

Whitey loved Spoofy, and grabbing three coins, he’d jangle them at you with the same cacoëthes as the cat that was bitten by The Gambling Bug in the cartoon, Early to Bet. Whitey always found takers. Laughing, drinking, spoofing. In concert.

One afternoon Whitey lost. Many, many times. It remains a pub highlight even among the punters who weren’t there.

How can it have been so long since I played Spoofy?

Now I know why tigers eat their young.

It was a noble idea. Improve standards by running an evening clinic with Test umpire Tony Crafter. So we congregated in the Marlboro Red fug of the Kapunda clubrooms. Our guest officiated across the planet, but tonight, would field some exotic questions.

Angaston Muppet: Tony? May I call you Tony?

Tony Crafter: You may.

AM: Saturday in the A3’s I bowled a bouncer. And the batsman stuck up his hand and caught it. What do you think?

TC: If he had time to let go of the bat, raise a hand above his head and then catch it, it must have been a bloody slow bouncer.

AM: Well, yeah. But what should happen?

TC: You should give up bowling.

AM took charge massively. He changed topic.

AM: Once in the A3’s I appealed for a LBW.

TC: How did you go?

AM: Robbed! The umpire said he couldn’t make a decision. He reckoned I’d run down the pitch and blocked his view.

TC: Fair enough. That’s a reasonable response.

AM: OK, the umpire can’t make a LBW decision! Could I then appeal to the square leg umpire?

The Angaston Muppet, I’m assured, is currently a senior advisor within the federal government.

Be the ball, Danny.

Milan Faletic was a good average footballer. Turning out for West Torrens and Port Adelaide in over two hundred games, his nickname had pubescent, but lasting appeal. They called him Spoof.

At Port with Spoof was Rod Burton who became senior coach of the Kapunda Bombers when I was a boy. He was menacing. He had mad eyes. Replace shark with Burton and Quint’s still right

Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eye. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’

Crackshot, Rocket and I were on the wing by the timekeepers’ box when Burton had a boundary kick in. The box also housed the PA, and during the B Grade club stalwart Bruce Dermody pontificated

Ladies and gentleman. The canteen is selling pies, pasties and sausage rolls. Lollies for the kids. And the liquor bar will open at 2.30 for all your refreshment needs.

We were behind Burton. Deliberately, he pushed off the fence, and launched a mountainous screw punt. Spiralling instantly above the gum trees, the Ross Faulkner footy bisected the posts, and below the mound, down near the weedy trotting track, on the service road, it landed.

Blighty’s goal was but a stab pass.

As the Holden VC Commodores honked in praise, and duffel-coated kids hollered, Burton smiled. Just briefly.

 

 

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london & you

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london & you

lost and excited along oxford street drinking in the colour and the promise on our first morning

in boxy bunks chatting in the dark like teenagers in orbit (the toilet flushing next door)

offering vegemite to europeans as the summer sun pushed in the hostel kitchen window

you sending home emails from the smoky lounge and me delighted by your wit and exuberance

blitzkrieg chunks and holes in cleopatra’s needle and putting our astonished hands into the cold wounds

ending an exhilarating first day with you proudly sipping a shandy in soho’s white horse pub and then

dipping hungrily into the rock ‘n’ roll guide to london after you, always knowing best, insisting on this gift for me

piccadilly circus to ourselves at 7am, jet-lagged and euphoric; awake since the 4:30am sunrise

like peering into cupped hands at a secret, mesmerised by the sutton hoo in the british museum quiet

a tiny squirrel in greenwich park and our pure delight as it scampered

you photographing me on the lords dressing room balcony, knowing I’d treasure the image

your hysterical laughter as I kept jumping at the spider web display in the museum

our soft afternoon calm, strolling by the round pond in kensington gardens

the abbey road pedestrian crossing and despite my tantrum and the traffic you persevering so the moment was caught

hot drinks huddled among the pigeons in the trafalgar square grey breeze

your pink thongs slapping and dashing up the theatre stairs as shrill bells ring for mamma mia and

chasing the yeoman warder’s baritone as it animated history and myth at the tower

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Roxy

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Roxy

How do you farewell the family member who’s been with you faithfully, happily, trustingly for over sixteen years? The girl who went from the Barossa to Gawler to Kimba to Port Pirie to Adelaide to England to Glenelg? I don’t know. But I tried.

 

we wanted no wedding attendants

as it was always just us three

within our happy cocoon.

photos on the beach, at the sepia tram and there’s

a special one of you in the rotunda

wearing a ribbon & your elegant gaze

our golden, wonderful bridesmaid

in the field behind our Lakes District cottage

we paused by some horses & there you were

suddenly zipping through the spring grass!

beneath the bemused mares

barking & bounding about

we laughed, how we laughed!

our loyal travel companion

a bright July day, your last afternoon

on the lounge, curled serenely, your hazel eyes

dusty sunlight streaming onto your fur

baby Max on Mummy’s knee, looking at you

& for the first time, he giggles & giggles

as if enjoying what we had loved for sixteen years.

i’m so grateful for this,

your final gift to us

our gentle, precious girl

thank you.

lakes district

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Max Benjamin Randall

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autumn

Now and again, almost certainly when unexpected, we get what we want. Somewhat ambitiously, Tuesday was nominated and Tuesday it became. We had two restful nights’ sleep and were ready. Your mother woke around four and at five thirty, I blinked into life and briefly contemplated running down to the gym. Kerry announced simply, “I’ve been contracting for about an hour,” and so began the day.

Alex also had an excellent night and dropping him at child care I thought, the next time we see him, he’ll have a brother. The well wishes from Sarah and Sharon amplify my excitement but also my anxiety. How would our day unfold?

Back home on this fetching autumnal morning, presenting a calm exterior is, as always, a challenge. We begin timing the intervals between contractions. I soon abandon the stopwatch on my phone and resort to my trusty watch. The mid-morning television bleats and this makes me extra eager to get to the hospital. Now the contractions inexplicably- to me at least- began to extend and, seemingly in preparation for the vast effort presently required, your mother dozes.

After waking, we again ring the hospital and finally begin the drive to Flinders Medical Centre. If Hugh Grant and Meg Ryan were unavailable and, instead, we were starring in a rom-com, our ride to the maternity ward would feature zany near accidents with dim-witted garbage trucks, impossibly witty and loud front seat exchanges and our car, belatedly swerving to miss two fat guys in overalls carrying a large sheet of glass across the road.

We arrive at the hospital and leave behind the bright, rushing world. At the Birthing and Assessment Centre we are ushered into Room 2.

The midwife is Sam and she has a fascinating hybrid accent, resulting from being born in Bristol and residing in London, Cornwell, Manchester and various parts of America. Your mother’s contractions intensify and occur more often, dulled by the gas. An excellent epidural accompanied Alex but his labour was still painful beyond masculine conception. However, that you were coming via natural childbirth, I’m assured, makes any previous discomfort akin to trimming one’s fingernails. I shudder to think.

A second midwife, Nikki, comes to help. As labour progresses I vigorously rub your mother’s back and mop her hot brow with a cold flannel. I also try to interpret the glances, nods and assorted looks exchanged by the midwives. Either I can’t read their secret language or nothing untoward is being communicated. Brittany, a midwifery student, also attends and during the now ferocious contractions, we all bellow encouragement as a tuneless choir. I hope I do not sound like Lleyton Hewitt.

Throughout your mother is amazing. Her maternal determination and physical courage are boundless. This final stage of labour pushes past an hour and a half. It is now three thirty. I wonder briefly about Alex. I imagine him at child care playing, sweetly playing, oblivious to how close his brother is. Between contractions I peer through the blinds and see above the grey car park a sky of attractive blue, reminding me of the world beyond our room, spinning dumbly.

And on your mother labours. The ECG machine to which you both are connected maintains its noiseless vigil and I glance at the screen to check your heart rate. Despite its brisk fluttering, it is within a safe range. This comforts me but spectating is difficult. The clock on the wall is either racing urgently or alternately, freezing, motionless and mocking us.

The midwives speak of you progressing beyond the point of no return, the most significant landmark to be overcome. We are at this difficult place for a long time, too long. The fierce pushing continues and with each set of contractions, the awe in which I hold your mother grows. However, a black storm looms on our horizon and, a midwife gives dreadful voice to my fear. “You’ve been pushing really hard for a while now. I’m worried that you might start to fatigue so I’m going to ask the registrar to come in and have a look.” I am anxious that this might mean another Caesarean and the complications of a six week recovery. It would be cruel to have laboured so well, so successfully, for this to now happen.

The doctor comes in and I happily notice she’s wearing crocs. How can it be two years since I observed this at the birth of Alex? There’s something deeply reassuring about these crocs. The comfort they offer the medical staff on their long shifts must be tremendous. I like that this takes priority over any formality of professional appearance and can’t imagine that it would be tolerated in England. The doctor speaks to us and her manner is as relaxed as her footwear. She doesn’t seem alarmed. This helps significantly.

During the next contraction I’m invited to come and see your head, which I’m told has a mat of dark hair. I’m scared to look but do and suddenly, you become real and almost here. Despite everything, there has been an abstract unreality to my afternoon, an uncrossable divide. This nine month voyage is nearly over. We’re about to meet you.

Contrary to my fear, the ominous arrival of the doctor somehow assists us. With a colossal push it finally happens. After hours of externally invisible progress you arrive in a rush, like a slippery bobsledder, like a fast motion sunrise. Everything blurs together in a barely distinguishable flurry. Hysterical laughter, your first yelps, our tears. I cut your umbilical cord as you and mummy hug. It is a swift five hour labour. It is a slow five hour labour. It is just after 4pm.

Everything about you is tearfully perfect. You seem older than a new born, so wonderfully and patiently has your mother grown you. Your limbs and torso are proportioned exquisitely and you are impossibly handsome. What most impresses me is how alert you are. Your stunning eyes look thoughtfully all about the maternity room and seem alive to the possibilities. Yes. This is the way I’d like for you to live your life. Alive to the possibilities. Your arrival is wholly invigorating, a blessing and now, our world is enhanced.

Kerry-ann is then taken to theatre for stitching and the horribly termed manual removal. This allows us some time together. You’re weighed and I’m surprised by your official size. 9 pound 6. Only on Friday the obstetrician, Dr McKendrick, examined you both. I had been told that I’d like her. I do. Following a two hour wait, we walk down the corridor to her consulting room and her first words to your mother are, “How are you girlie?” Her view is that you’d be about 8 pound 12 and whilst her prediction isn’t wildly inaccurate, it shows how inexact much of this is.

How feeble our humanly attempts at controlling this are. How inadequate at comprehending this dazzling intricacy, this metaphysical mystery. Ultimately, we’re like the toddler with a kite on a windy beach. At any moment the string could be tugged away, from our tiny hand, by a pitiless gust.

Then your mother returns and you sleep. After all, you have had an immense day. We elatedly text and ring family and friends. I take some photos. Again, time dashes. Then it’s late and I have to go home.

Tuesdays are probably the least celebrated day of the week but this one, because of you, is extraordinary. Part jokingly, part optimistically, we’d planned for you to arrive today, just prior to Easter and dared to describe the itinerary for how we’d like your birth to transpire. Like the remarkable boy you are, you listened to us and agreed. Your name, indeed, does mean the greatest.

So, welcome to our world Max Benjamin Randall. On behalf of your astonishing mummy, gorgeous brother Alex and I, welcome to the world.

easter