Saturday, September 5, 2020

Spirit of Place: the Lord Mayor of Birmingham opens Joe Lycett's Kitchen


In the words of Joe himself:
Today is one of the greatest days in the history of the City of Birmingham. It is officially one year since the opening of my kitchen extension, The Mosquito Wing, by The Lord Mayor of Birmingham.
In March 2019 I emailed the office of The Lord Mayor Yvonne Mosquito asking if she would open my kitchen extension. Her people said no because it is a private event and she doesn’t do private events. And also presumably because it’s a kitchen extension. 
Furious, I suggested that perhaps I could make it a public event, raffle off tickets for members of the public to join, and give the proceeds to the Lord Mayor’s charity. She agreed and the event was set. Thousands of people applied to win just four tickets. 
Then a year to the day the Lord Mayor came and opened my kitchen. She cut a ribbon, made a speech, unveiled the plaque and stayed for drinks and canapés. 
Many local and international celebrities attended, BBC Radio 1 were the official broadcast partner and local BBC News did the weather live from the kitchen. We raised £3000 and later that year I presented a massive cheque to the Mayor outside the town hall.
Thank you for reading and may I wish you a very Happy Mosquito Wing Day.

4 comments:

  1. How amusing - and all for a good cause!

    Funnily enough, I have a very similar - and true - story: I used to be good friends with a Norfolk radio personality, and attended the opening of his kitchen extension by Adam Rickitt! I'm not sure that poor Adam realised what he'd let himself in for, and he refused to eat anything except a shop-bought (Tesco, I think? Possibly Boots...) sandwich that he'd brought with him. It was a bizarre evening...

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  2. That really is spooky, especially as I confused Lickitt and Rycett on first reading it. No, wait...

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  3. Replies
    1. Thanks! I like it a lot and what a whacking synchronicity there were 78 episodes of the original series.

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