Days of wine and oysters

What with the frenzied finales of Six Nations rugby, Cheltenham’s four days’ hooley, and my own ruddy all-day asthma, I had to miss John Jackson’s 70th birthday banquet in the Gay Hussar. I suppose in the old days the Manchester Guardian and the old Daily Mirror were some sort of soulmates, and certainly JJ and I can dance back together into the mists. In fact, he goes back further. My first Olympic Games were Tokyo’s in 1964, John’s first five-ringed circus was Rome’s in 1960; my first World Cup was 1966, his in Chile in 1962. We both turned up for our inaugural Wimbledon on Monday 22 June 1964 and doubtless in his birthday speech Jacko mixed his irrepressibly abandoned true tales about Cap’n Bob Maxwell with some serious swipes at modern standards: ‘How can today’s so-called reporters gather real stories by continually staring at laptop or TV screens all day, rather than leaning at a bar, pint in hand but on the blocks poised to follow a good yarn, knowing that all gossip, tip-offs and top tales will pass that way?’