What pictures? It's market forces that matter

If there was a market at the South Pole the missus would find it. She’s been attracted to markets wherever we have roamed like an all encompassing magnet. Like the tragic Captain Oates she’d stick her head out of the canvas, sniff the air and say ‘I’m just going outside. I may be some time.’ Unlike the explorer she knew exactly where she was going but I realised that I would need to accompany her as where she was headed was just as much a jungle as the tundra that did for him. The missus always had a fixture list with her. It didn’t list matches it listed markets. It was fuller than our Shrimpers one. There was a market for every day of the week, including Mondays. You could spend your whole holiday in the market place. I suppose that is market forces for you. It wasn’t just French markets, though they were the pinnacle. The missus sniffs them out in this country as well. I’d never been to a single market in my life until I arrived to teach in Gravesend over thirty years ago. There’s still one there today, and we buy prawns and dog chews from the covered market which more than holds its own. We as I have said are traditionalists so we buy them on a Saturday even though the covered market is open everyday. The outside Saturday one is not the same as it was, even though a roofed structure was built a couple of years ago, with the intention of adding an inside out market to the outside and inside one already in existence. There are those who say that Gravesend Market has gone a bit downmarket There has definitely been a slump in the market as far as Gravesend is concerned which is a shame as the stalls that are still there bustle and buzz and sell good quality fruit and veg, plants etc. at a fraction of the price that they charge in the real force in the market place – the Supermarket.
In those days you didn’t need to go to the clubs on a Saturday night to listen to the stand up comics. You just needed to go to Gravesend market to listen to Strongy. Some of you may have seen him on a Saturday evening on TV years ago. He appeared on The Generation Game with Bruce Forsyth. His son did it a couple of times for him as unlike Brucie age was catching up on him. If I remember right which ever one was doing it would take a stack of dinner plates and hold them in a giant fan shape then slide them unerringly into a wicker basket that would take a window dresser in Harrods all morning to do and could have you rolling about in your armchair or your stall or your stall depending whether you were watching at home, in the theatre or in the next stall in the market respectively. When the punters tried, they managed to break the lot of course. I can’t remember who or what was on the conveyer belt. Was it Anthea Redfern or a cuddly toy? When the missus before she became the missus, arrived on the scene, she would go round the rest of the market buying meat bags and cheesecloth tops while I watched Strongy sell fifty ‘last ones’, not for £7.50, not even for £4. He told us what he would do. ‘Ere! Last three. £3.50.’ (We’d just gone decimal). All fifty would go, and another 50 would appear an hour later. Christmas was special. If we’d had children at the time when Strongy was in his prime I would have taken them to Gravesend Market rather than to Selfridges and Santa’s Grotto. I would have probably saved a fortune, been entertained and our kids would have seen the one Santa’s little helper to shift more Christmas presents than Rudolph, Donner and Blitzen, Michael, Schumacher and the rest of those reindeer.
I bought a dinner service off him for my mum. Strongy not Michael Schumacher! I wouldn’t buy a second hand Ferrari off him! I posted it down and still saved a lot of money. It was a Sunflower design, and only one plate broke en route. Mum used the service for our Christmas dinner. She was in tears. She said she’d never had a dinner service before. I feel ashamed now. Not because I had inadvertently put my dad on the spot for not getting one before, but for feeling guilty at the time for buying it from a market trader rather than buying Wedgwood from Lawleys. I don’t feel that way now. My only regret is that we didn’t keep any. I’d have put a piece up on our wall as a plaque in memory. Gravesham Council should do the same for Strongy, though I expect he would have preferred them to put their energies into helping his descendents return to the outside market to ply their trade alongside people selling their local produce, organic meat, affordable shoes and whatever the modern equivalent of cheesecloth is. We love watching Del Boy, Trigger, Boycey and Al in ‘Only Fools and Horses’, even if they are now more often on UK Gold. What we don’t want is to see them only on the history channels along with Cornish Tin Mining, Tutankhamen and Ramessese III. If all towns go the same way the only real market that people will have access to will be the one on EastEnders. It isn’t just me who is saying it. I was in a charity shop just looking around and they were saying the same thing more or less. I did my bit. I bought the board game ‘Market Day’ for 75p. I’ll take it into school, so the next generation will at least get an inkling of what it could be like.
By the time we got to the Market in L’Escala there was not much left. I got the feeling that if we had been there at the beginning there would not have been much to start with. The missus bought some fruit and veg and that was about it, except for a stall manned by latter day hippie types in Mohican hair cuts selling jewellery. Even they were packing up and seemed to resent the missus wanting to look through their Deli wares and Humungous organic dried fruit and nut necklaces to find something to match her tan. Previous Spanish markets had proved to be more fruitful. Our last time in the Costa Brava coincided with a very pleasant and characteristic market at Llafranc which is only that short coastal walk away from Callela de Palafrugell where we stayed. It could have turned out to have been a very long walk indeed as it is an annual market. Palafrugell itself had a massive one, which seemed to meander endlessly through the streets like a church procession. It was a Sunday market. You need a car for this one to carry the stuff home. Despite so many roads having been swallowed up by the market, with mathematical precision we still managed to get lost on the remainder. We went around the one way system twice and the French people we eventually asked responded to our requests of ‘Marche?’ by directing us to a supermarket. Bearing in mind what I’ve been saying about supermarkets you won’t be surprised to hear that we drove straight out of their car park, turned down the road that the missus had pointed out to go down in the first place and turned into a building site adjacent to the street market to park the car.
’ I was expecting you to go hyper.’ The missus said.’ I have my principles.’ I reminded her. ‘But if we get clamped the level of hyperbole will be as high as that fucking yellow crane that we have parked next to.’ ‘All the locals park here!’ she snapped. ‘It’s their land. ‘Bullshit!’ I retorted, making a stand, like I used to do in Science.’ We’re foreigners over here, if you haven’t noticed. We’ll be sitting ducks for the Wheel Clampers and Shunters Club looking for new members. I’ll Sioux the bastards if they do.’ ‘Are you finished dear? She enquired politely. I cussed her as she stuck the knife in. ‘For a start it’s a hire car with Spanish number plates, and there’s nothing new or big about your member.’ Like Yellow Hair I knew my time was up, but I still gave the horn one long final blast.
Shoes and clothes seemed to feature a great deal in this market. I ambled up and down with the boys, though ‘was jostled’ might have described it better. The boys had not been brought up on rugby and were not able to sidestep effectively. Despite being Crystal Palace fans, they had been brought up well enough not to barge their way through the crowds shouting racial abuse at all the Eric Cantonas who were strutting around as if they owned the place. Though more backs than forward, they didn’t need a rugby background to appreciate the need for a cold beer so we took a time-out to pass the time away, as we didn’t know the rules and left the ladies to the scrum. A newspaper helped the time go by, as I guarded the ever increasing number of bags that the women returned with every 40 minutes or so. I showed interest in the first few, but decided to stick to the San Miguel rather than the aftershave lotion and the perfume in the first cohort of bags. It was colder for a start.
There was a knock on effect as in one of the bags were a pair of high heeled shoes and some lacy underwear. Although it was the missus who had left the bags, I couldn’t get too excited as it may have been one of the youngsters who had bought them. There was no way I would delve further. Geronimo may have been able to ride off in war paint, bodice and knickers after one of his lightning raids and get away with it Randolph Scott free, but like the last of those Mohicans I wouldn’t have been seen dead in public in salmon pink. Shrimp yes, salmon no. The missus returned and picked up the bag of lingerie and shoes. ‘I wanted to make up for that cheap jibe about your totem pole.’ She said, full of Western promise. ‘So I bought some tarty bits for later.’ She put down a bag containing a tarta maca and a tarta de manzana and passed the racy lacy bag to my mate’s missus who then disappeared off with my mate on her Silver heels, back to the wagons more pronto than Tonto, for all he was Fort Worth. I didn’t need the third umpire or Hawkeye to tell me who was High, Wide and Handsome. There’s an old Indian saying. ‘Lucky bastard!’ We read the smoke signals and the steamed up windows when we got back to camp to keep away from their caravan. My Favorite Wife and I smoked the pipe of peace with some salmon and pez espada ahumado. The former because it’s our favourite and the latter because we couldn’t draw lots.

Pardon? I'm in a stew over the coffee, old bean!

Smoked salmon is in my blood. A cousin on my dad’s side smokes it near Cobh, County Cork, Ireland. I don’t know the post code. We had called in on him when we holidayed over there when the children were small. It was the year that Sonia O’ Sullivan was beating everybody and ‘Good on ye Sonia’ T-shirts were all the rage. Roy Keane was only practising his. We introduced ourselves and he showed us the works. We coughed in all the right places. He gave us some salmon. We called in on his mum who lived in Cobh. She was my dad’s first cousin. Sadly she’s since died. She filled us up with a slap up meal and filled us in with family news. It was manic but lovely. The children said all the right things in the right places, except for the youngest who asked for his own packet of cheese and onion crisps even though there were bowls of them on the table. She had a great view over the Holy Ground and the harbour. As kids my brother and I used to ‘come home’ each August. We stayed with relatives who lived right on the water’s edge. It’s where I got my first taste of long summer holidays, something that I knew then I could take to as well as being taken on.
Cobh has been at the water’s edge before. It was the last port of call for the Titanic, and bodies from the Lusitania were brought ashore there. A rainbow could be seen through the window; its far end could just be made out disappearing into the smokery we’d just come from. He’s become a good mate of Rick Stein the TV chef from Padstein in Cornwall and has appeared in at least two of his TV programmes. Both have waxed lyrical about the English Market. Don’t be misled. They do know what they are talking about. Like the French market that has come to Gravesend a few times, this English Market is in Ireland. In Cork City to be precise. It needs to be seen to be believed. The fish were as fresh as the scad and the two eels that I had caught that morning amongst the seaweeds of Knockadoon Head that the missus cooked for breakfast and painted to submit for The Society of Botanical Artists’ annual exhibition respectively. We bought some olives and a big block of olive green soap. We drove off to Kinsale where the Lusitania had perished, promising to return to the Irish English market.
We had to wait until our Silver Wedding Anniversary before we returned together. My youngest’s school was on their second cricket tour to Ireland. This particular year it was to Cork City then to the fair City of Dublin. I of course intended to accompany him again to ensure that he ate something besides cheese and onion crisps. If only I were a bigot and hated Manchester United which I’m not and I don’t, I could have said ‘Like the Cantona incident at Selhurst Park the shit hit the fan’ when the missus came out with those immortal words ‘You must be the only man who arranges to be in a different country to their wife for their silver wedding anniversary.’ We were going by minibus on the ferry from Pembroke Docks to Rosslare. In my day it used to be train to Fishguard then across to Rosslare and train again. Going into Cork itself was special. We did it with the children from Swansea, but you don’t go all the way up the River Lea to Cork City anymore as the Innisfallen used to do. I secretly arranged for the missus to join us. I squared it with the teacher in charge, and the Youth Hostel romantically promised us a double room. I asked if the toaster was still functioning. Romantically they said that it was.
There was a difficulty. The missus had to fly. She’d never flown before. I had to arrange for someone to fly with her. I asked one of the dads if he wanted his missus to join him. He looked at me incredulously but relented when I explained the circumstances. I paid for the flights. In school the PE teacher saw me about going on a course. He showed me the details. I was impressed. It was during the summer half term. ‘No it isn’t; it’s the week before.’ He said, gazumping the previous word championship record uttered by the missus. I checked the diary. He was right. His course and our Silver Wedding Anniversary were the week before we were due to go on the cricket tour. It was my turn to be incredulous.
You could see where she was coming from. We had got married on the first weekend of the summer half term. We’d just bought a house. We didn’t have any money left. We didn’t go on honeymoon. It has taken twenty five years but she’s finally got her own back as she vowed she would, although unlike the wedding I’d made all the arrangements. The question was how I could turn all this to my advantage. There was some talk about the school going on tour to the Caribbean the following year. That could have been my honeymoon or swansong depending on whether I would need to pawn my wedding ring or my cygnet ring to pay for it. One problem was that it would have been year 12 for the boys. In our day that would have been made sod all difference as you could sod about all year in the lower sixth and then pull out the stops to pass your A levels in the upper sixth. The sods have put a stop to all that now by introducing AS levels so they’ve got sodding exams towards the end of that year which have an influence on what eventual grade they get for A level. It would have been Sod’s law for the team to have made the grade away on tour but not to get the grades at home. I don’t like league cricket and I don’t like league tables. There must have been a number of the team studying Business Studies A level as that’s what the teacher in charge teaches, so he’d know all about market forces. That’s buggered that one. Shame! I bet they have some super markets over there. I did hear that it poured with rain in Port of Spain during the week we would have been there so it would have been another sodden tour like Ireland. Guess what we bring home from each ground that we play on as a memento. Well done. You’ve guessed it. A sod. Not from the wicket! We’re not that innocent.
I decided to set out my stall. I’d use two tables to fit everybody in. I invited the PE teacher and his missus together with the other dad and his missus around for a meal. I included my Shrimpers mate who is a teacher at my son’s school with his missus for the sympathy vote as she had arranged a holiday during the half term preventing him from going on the cricket tour. I thought about asking the teacher in charge but rejected the idea on the grounds that he hadn’t by then worked out the extra I’d have to pay for the use of the double room. Besides, the missus got on a bit too well with his gross domestic product. She’d probably have given the game away too early during the evening and I wanted to lay a smokescreen, leaving the missus to stew. Then I would butter her up a bit and gradually grind her down. I’m not vindictive however; I didn’t want her to choke on the main course. I’d primed the guests well in advance by ratting on the missus. The meal would consist of smoked salmon, Irish stew, bread and butter pudding with Irish coffee made with some Jameson Irish whiskey. My dad would have preferred crubeens but I wanted it to be more tongue in cheek than foot and mouth. The missus smelt a rat but I told her that it was my new aftershave. As I’d just had my beard shaved off for charity after thirty years, she accepted the explanation and being the sort she is she gave me a quid. Being the sort I am I put it towards the cost of the whiskey. I have never used aftershave. I like to smell my natural self.
The smoked salmon went down well with horseradish sauce even though it wasn’t my cousin’s. The horseradish came from the garden. I’d almost blinded the missus once when we were drying out some horseradish root in the oven. I opened the door and she checked how it was doing. The fumes were so strong they almost did for her. I felt awful. We were both in tears. I changed the recipe for our horseradish sauce to have freshly cut horseradish root rather than dried. I just changed the label to ‘Organic’ so people would accept the hard bits. The ex-secret ingredient is swede. Perhaps not ‘secret’ more ‘confidential’. We used to call swede turnip in Cornwall to add to the mystery. We used to call cauliflower broccoli as well but unlike the turnip or swede it didn’t do the horsecarrot any flavours. The Irish stew I made using beef rather than mutton as that’s what my mum used. Before you jump to any conclusions, she never used to use anchovies for her Scotch eggs and didn’t put paprika in her Welsh rarebit. Now you can jump to them. The stout I put out was Murphy rather than Guinness as that was what my dad drank and watched during the evening, and there was a good deal at the corner shop. The bread and butter pudding didn’t have any double cream in it as I wanted some semblance of healthy eating and I needed it for the Irish coffee.
I kept my hands by my sides as my feet tapped to the Riverdance CD that I’d put on. I didn’t have a shillelagh under my arm and I didn’t utter a single ‘Tu-re-lu-re-ly’ but as with Riverdance she picked up the theme. She was upstairs for only five minutes but she came down wearing the shiny black tights that she keeps under her pillow. ‘I know what this is all about’, she said.’ You have finally realised what a rat you are and you have arranged for me to come with you to Ireland.’ ‘Correct!’ I replied, handing her the air ticket in confirmation, relieved that she hadn’t called me a snake as that would have caused Visa difficulties. ‘And what about this one?’ I asked as I put another identical ticket next to it. ‘You thought you’d catch me out there.’ She snapped. ‘That ticket is for Mavis here who is coming to keep me company as I’ve never flown before.’ She asserted.’ That’s two out of two and I haven’t used any life lines yet.’ ‘I have to tell you that you may need all three to progress’ I told her.
‘Why is Peter here tonight? ‘Is it A because he’s going on a course? B because he’s going to Ireland? C because he likes my cooking? Or D because he’s giving up teaching to become a painter and decorator and he’s going to do our front room on Tuesday?’ ‘I’d like to phone a friend.’ she said entering into the spirit of it all. ‘Who would you like to phone?’ ‘Peter.’ she said. ‘It’s A.’ Peter told her. ‘But I will give you a cut price for your front room.’ I put my hand in my pocket and took out some change. There was £2.78p. I offered it to the missus, but snatched it back out of her reach. ‘We don’t want to give you that. For four pounds sorry five pounds forty um!’ I put the small change back in my pocket. ‘For five pounds! Is our silver wedding anniversary A before half term? B during half term? C after half term? Or D completely fucked up like my cricket tour?’ Like with the meal I had made I was making a meal out of this. I’d written out this question with green highlighter pen on the little TV in the breakfast room that we use to watch if there is a test match on as I insist on the family sitting down together at meal times. The TV has had a fair amount of use as with the missus not ever having taken to making cricket teas she hasn’t always been able to co-ordinate the times properly.
I switched on the telly to a preset untuned channel if that’s not a contradiction in half terms. I pumped down the volume with the remote control and all went quiet. You could hear a pin drop but people were more interested in listening for the grenade to explode. You could see the four choices clearly. You could smell the Irish coffee on her breath. You could taste the horseradish sauce on your tongue refusing to dissolve in the coffee. You could touch the missus on her knee, but that wouldn’t have made sense as it would have destroyed her concentration. ‘I’d like to go fifty fifty like your age’, she said exhibiting a noticeable lack of confidence. Attack was always better than sitting on de fence as far as the missus was concerned. ‘Computer take away two of the wrong answers.’ Peter’s missus got up from the table and in true TV tradition wiggled her way to the telly and wiped off answers B and C with a paper napkin. As if following a script the missus sat down and looked at the two options. ‘I’ve only got one option.’ She announced looking decidedly sheepish unlike the Irish stew. ‘I’ll ask the audience.’
‘I looked around the table. ‘Can you press your buttons now.’ There’s no question mark as it’s an Irish question, something that has punctuated British Governments over the centuries. The missus herself had come to a full stop, while she waited for the votes of the Swedish jury. Members of the turnip one didn’t turnup which was parsnip for the course. Three ‘A’s and Three ‘D’s were held up. The missus was rooted to the spot. ‘Two wrong answers don’t make a right so it must be A as your cricket tour will only be enhanced by our presence, don’t you think darling? Remember our promise to each other in the English market. I haven’t forgotten even if you have.’ I went red as a beetroot. I’d set the tables but she’d turned them. I’d run out of the root vegetables that I’d bought that morning from the market to use as visual aids to support my teach her a lesson plans. I went out into the garden for a leek onto the gooseberry and the raspberry bushes. She came out to join me. ‘I feel a gooseberry fool’, I said, fondling her bottom. ‘I’d blow you a raspberry but I might get my words mixed up.’ She said and she did. I knew where she was heading. She’s finally gone downmarket. I kept tight lipped as she paid lip service in full to the one member of the jury who was upstanding in court.
By the time we got back in, the dishwasher was in action and the room was in darkness lit up only by a cake with candles with ‘Happy Silver Wedding Anniversary’ written on it. ‘It’s an ill wind.’ said the missus letting one rip as the root vegetables caught up on her. ‘Happy Anniversary!’ shouted everybody as they rushed in from their hiding places. It was the missus’ turn to go red as a beetroot, but nobody could see as there hadn’t been enough carrots in the Irish stew.

It's like going to the pictures

The kookaburra bird has appeared on the sister blog of French and Aussie Cricket with no spaces. I'll work it out one day. Have a look at it and it will somehow remind you of Billy Bawden, the umpire. On that first day at Brisbane Gilo bowled and he raised his crooked finger. I jumped up in the air and waved my England flag. Would you believe it he only raised it to scratch his bloody nose. I only raised my flag three times that day and they got 340! The only bowler they feared was Freddie. If Panesar had been playing there would have been two! They should have feared Harmison but they couldn't reach him. They reckon that Lara is uncomfortable with Flintoff. I doubt if many of the world’s top batsmen will feel that they are in a comfort zone when they are facing Freddie. An English name that has offered no comfort to class batsmen in years gone by. They are wondering whether it was a plan or whether Lara just happened to be next in while Flintoff was bowling. Whatever! More importantly I would suggest that the policy continues where our best bowler gets nicknamed Freddie. WG can be adopted by one of the top order, so that he will have the presence to stay at the crease even when he is out. If things get too friendly out in the middle, putting Jardine in as a middle name for the captain will take things to the extremes. That’s the theory anyway.
The Barmy Army were selling Douglas Jardine T-Shirts but I didn't have the front to buy one. Besides I didn't want the Gabba Enteritis Authorities to separate me from my mates. By day 3 I can see the Aussie team's sledging coaches putting them through their paces. At one stage we were 549 runs behind. Don't worry about the detail, you will know all the stats by now and the rest is history. What you might not know is that when we were leaving to get on our bus, I saw one of those orange minibuses with a driver shouting at somebody inside 'If you don't like it you can bloody well get out.' What do you reckon? Stuck up Poms thinking themselves to be more important than they really are?
Well as we were travelling in the bus we overtook an orange minibus. Was it the same aforementioned one? we ask. One of the guys pointed at it and said 'There's CMJ' I sstrained to see if the minibus had a TMS sticker on it. I'm not saying it was you who got the tonguing or is it tongueing from the driver CMJ, but please tell us which Pom was whingeing or is it Whinging? I could set up a Channel 4 type Phone in competition to make myself a fortune, as weall know it must have been Bearders!
Billy finally got his just deserts for scratching his nose and giving Pieterson out. Bell pulled one round and hit him. It should have been a four without Billy's intervention. The boy reckoned he could have got out of the way. The Aussies are all sympathetic. We are not. They had some 'Jeux sans Frontieres' type games for the teatime entertainment. It's got to be a lot better than the musical twats who gave us cricketing songs on the first two days. The lyrics were so bad I could have written them. It was sort of 'I gave the ball a thump and I hit the fucking ump' to the tune of 'I am the music man; I come from down your way and I can play..' Give the Brits their due as this was the only time Aussies were booed and jeered during the first two test matches. I think the assholes were trying to outdo the Barmy Army and quieten them down in support of the Gobby Ground Authorities. Mind you England had managed to do that.
The bloke next but one got it right. He said it would be 157 all out. Hayden and Langer belt off. Harmison and Hoggard set up one stump to bowl at. They didn't hit it. If I was an Aussie I'd write that for Harmie he could have had twelve stumps and still wouln't have hit. They led by 626 in the end. I thought I might write 'Dunkirk' on my flag to see if that would help.
I only just got my camera in . I had to show that the lens cap was not a baton to the Gynaecologist on the front gate. I think he was looking for some more Dell Boy type blow up dolls that the Aussie fans were passing up and down the tiers to make a change from Beach Balls. The Gits kept going in and burst them when they got hold of them. There was no need for that and certainly no need to have used their armpits as stirrups as they rode them off into the Gaping depths to which the Ground Authorities had sunk. The answer to the first 'Trivia' question was 'Syphilis' which about set the standard for the day. For my writing if nothing else.
They as the Aussies say are 1-183. I've been searching for Zoe and Dave who are on Honeymoon. I don't know them but I know their flag. They have put it up in adifferent place each day. I hope they are still together and have not been split up by the Garrison in the Ground Authorities. Look out for a picture somewhere in the ether. I took a photo of the school next door to the GABBA. My missus teaches in a school next to our Bat and Ball Cricket Ground. They use it for cricket and other sports. I wonder if the GABBA allows the school to have their Sports Day on the ground. I'll try to find out. I'd guess not. In fact if one of the pupils turns up with a large packed lunch box the Gastronomic Ground Authorities would probably let the police know so that the kid would get sent home. At least they only do that in our country if the kid was found to have a packet of crisps in the lunch box.
There's a rumour going round that it was only because of the Gastronomic Ground Authorities that Pontin didn't declare until they were 202-1, a lead of 647. All this talk of food has made me hungry. The lovely missus will have something on the boil. She always comes up saves my bacon even when it was Dutch rather than Danish.
You see, the missus remembers me having been only a whisker away from catastrophe with Dutch Bikers on a campsite in the Algarve three years ago’, taking up at least three of my nine lives. I pause for thought but no matter how much I try to anaesthetise it, again I don’t exactly emerge smelling of Roses, another part of Spain we are heading for. After just a couple of days on the site, true to form the missus had worked out that it was some Dutch kid’s birthday. He was in the next but ten caravans which is a near neighbour to the missus. While they were out, she put up some flags and bunting, which she always brings ‘Just in case’, around their plot. The family were overjoyed and the missus’ fame must have spread, as two lusciously leathered thirty something Marianne Faithful look-alikes from a Dutch biker group that had arrived the previous evening, asked if they could have some bunting as they were going to organise a birthday party for one of their party. In case there is any confusion, their bike transporters carried Harley-Davidson motor bikes not BMX Chopper bikes.
The missus handed the bunting over and under her watchful eye I follow their every movement as they slink off back towards their row of caravans to tart up their verandas. I came out of my trance before a pall of smoke arises from each bottom and to be as helpful as possible I wander after them with a pair of nail scissors to help them cut the bunting and to keep them in sight for a little longer. One of them pulled out a knife that was a lot longer and said ‘We are OK thank you’. I came to a dead stop and with the return speed of a bungee jump I retreated to the safety of the missus whose face was a picture of ‘Serves you right you tosser’. I know what she means. The Shrimpers cricket team I play for is not in a league as none of us enjoy league cricket. Even so, if we got promoted 10 seasons on the trot I still wouldn’t be in their league.
We were sharing this holiday with a few friends and as the missus and I were off cooking duty that night we were sampling starters and sinking aperitifs and chasers both before and after we should have done. Wines and beers went down as well as the food, and by the end of the meal that little bit of puppy dog aggression that I have to own up to, came over me again. ‘Typical you’ I accused the missus. ‘When it’s a bloody five year old middle class Dutchy, you are straight up there fuss-assing around with your lets share everything approach, and your bonhomie and your Europhantic bunting.’ By this time I was on a different planet. While everyone else stood there stupefied, I staggered in to the caravan, picked up a bottle of sparkling wine, gave it to the missus, grabbed her and my mate’s missus and took off toward the bikers’ encampment. There were about a dozen of them sat shoulder to shoulder outside one of their caravans around a couple of tables that they had put together and that would accommodate 20 normal sized people. The tables were covered in bottles and glasses. They looked up as I arrived, slightly ahead of the very apprehensive missuses. ‘Somebody’s birthday?’ I asked in the sort of accusing tone you would use if you were going to complain about the noise. ‘Mine’, said the biggest biker as he tucked his thumbs into his braces over his barrel chest. He didn’t say ‘So what!’ but the meaning was there. ‘Happy birthday’, I said taking the bottle of sparkling wine from a very non effervescent missus and putting it on the table.
I turned around, linked arms with the missuses, not just for effect but also for support. The boss man said ‘Come and join us’. One of the men got up and all three of us sat down where he had been. The expression on the missus’ mate’s face belied the fact that she hadn’t discovered that waterproof makeup yet. They put some fresh glasses in front of us, pushed the bottle of sparkling wine to the furthest part of the tables and poured out some Scotch whisky. I must have been in the same state as that Gerald Hoffnung in the Bricklayer’s Apprentice when he left go the barrel, it certainly wasn’t Dutch courage. Apparently, according to the missus who related the tale the following day, and according to the ditty that one of the other families inscribed in the book on Harley-Davidsons that they presented to me as a memento (another myth exploded), I stood up almost taking the table with me, saying something like ‘Scotch is for wussies’, and lurched off between the caravans, clattering and clanging jockey wheels and tow bars alike to disappear and arrive back clutching a bottle of Irish Whiskey. ‘This is the stuff for men’, I announced, throwing some down my throat straight from the bottle. I passed it round and swigged some more as it came back to me, grateful for all 12 taking a turn so my throat had time to recover.
As I expect you have realised by her navigating, if there is one thing that the missus is good at, it is reading the signs. She could see that my novelty value like the amount of whiskey in the bottle was diminishing. With a pincer movement that both Rommel and the American synchronised swimming team would have been proud of, her and her mate stood me up, twirled me around and with a ‘Enjoy the rest of your birthday, we’ll leave you to your celebrations’, they frog marched me off knowing that not only was I tanked up, I was pissed as a newt, and a tad likely to be pole axed after having crashed through their Harleys rather than having tiptoad through their tulips. The ditty says it better.



“Do you remember that warm sultry night?
You drank with the Dutch and gave them a fright.
‘Grouse is for wimps’ you loudly uttered.
And as you stirred you st..st..stuttered.
The table toppled, the bottles wobbled,
But amongst the kafuffle
A voice slightly muffled
Proclaimed….
‘I drank with the bikers from Mars’”

Oh you lucky people

Once we got the tickets for the Brisbane Test Match, I had to find a safe place to stash them. As the England team found out at the end of the tour Hotels are not the safest of places.I decided to put them inside your book Ritchie. 'My Spin on Cricket'. No it wasn't because Burglars wouldn't be interested in reading it. Perish the thought. According to Ian Healy in the 'Courier Mail' which I bought the day before, Richie is still the skipper, so I reasoned that any Pom caught in possession of the book would be held in high respect and left alone. As the boy and I were walking through Brisbane we happened upon Westlife in concert in the street. Hopefully I've managed to upload a photo to show you. They were over to do an Ashes event. Nothing against the guys, but one of our party came across Richie himself while they were on their walk and I would have swapped photos with him any day.
We actually appeared in the local paper. Not the Courier but the 'Gold Coast Bulletin'under the headline 'Pompardment Starts'. Our group's average age must have been at least sixty, but we were the nearest they were going to get to the Barmy Army in the Brisbane Hinterland. The reporters were waiting for us in a pub in Canungra. We had just been Kaola Bear spotting, Carlton Light drinking,Wallaby and Kangaroo differentiating and Kookaburra listening in Tamborine Mountain. Like with scores and wickets the Aussies reverse things and the signs pointed to Mountain Tamborine.
Again I'm hoping that there will be a picture confirming the spotting of the kookaburra. If you enjoy listening to kookaburras rather than spotting them, but you prefer staying in the city rather than in the Canungras of Australia, just keep crossing the roads as their pelican crossings mimic the kookaburra birdsong. Another reverse, as our birds mimic the pelican crossing. I found that out to my cost when I set off across the road thinking it was the green man when it was just some pesky starling in a nearby tree. Birds have always featured in my tours. In France en route to Spain it was sparrows, magpies and swallows that got a mention rather than kookaburras. We were just settling down in one of those Aires to have a picnic. Here is what I wrote about them at the time.
There are loads of tiny sparrows over here, all enjoying little dust baths. I thought that they shot them or pickled them in France. They are getting scarce at home, and we don’t even eat them. What does that tell us? Check the labels on your jars of pickle if nothing else. The Jim Roquefort cheese is nice, but as the cheddar has survived in the warm box, I’m sticking to that in my baguette sandwiches. There’s quite a crackling sound started up. Either the crickets are complaining about the smell of the smoked salmon, or one of their pylons has come down and the wires are arcing. Warm or not the cold box is a handy pillow as the spot we found may be shady, but it’s hardly comfortable. I begin to doze but I get caught in the bag’s zip, and I’m sticking to that Jim Roquefort cheese and sand which is all over my hair.
There seems to be a number of magpies in the trees. ‘Attention mes petits sparrows!’ They could have been a factor in the demise of our cock sparrows, more than likely in revenge for one of their ancestors doing cock robin, according to the legend. I’d heard they were miffed about it. I don’t know whether it was true or not, it may have been a load of cock. The missus says I’m being harsh on the magpies. She reckons that the sparrows in our towns are in a pickle because of pollution. She explains that if the poison chemicals that we pump out don’t get the sparrows themselves, they kill off the food the sparrows eat, like bugs and caterpillars and so the sparrows cop it. It’s a bit of a Hobson’s. If there’s no food, they don’t eat and they die. If they eat the poisoned insects they’re dead meat. They haven’t adapted like our town foxes who take away the dead meat from the rubbish we put out. (No obvious comments please, leave that to me).
No wonder the French don’t want our sparrows. For a start there aren’t enough to spare, but if they are stuffed full of Sandy Toxic residues the French bird eaters themselves could be at risk. I’m not convinced. We live in an older house and we have always had sparrows nesting in our eaves throughout the day. I’ve both heard them there and seen their droppings. Only this year a few of them were chirping away in a bush in our front garden when out of the sky dived a hawk. It ripped its way right into the bush and flew off with one of the unfortunate sparrows in its talons. All this within a couple of seconds. If that isn’t fast food I don’t know what is. Seeing is believing and I’m a great believer in believing the evidence of your own eyes, even through bifocals.
It’s not just the magpies that are being noisy. There’s far more people around now all tucking in to their packed medium sized dejeuners and yakking away as if there is no tomorrow. The good thing is that just like the magpies you don’t have to listen to the crap they are talking because they are all chattering in languages that I cannot understand. What pleasure! The missus disagrees of course. MI6, or is it the Deuxieme Service over here, would love to know about her direction finding listening beacon decoders. Languages don’t seem to matter to her when it comes to ear wigging. I’m sure she could even tell us what the magpies are on about.
It is very pleasant under here, though I miss the windball from the kids landing on you every now and then. The magpies must have been sledging as they do their best with the fir cones but it’s not the same. The hot cold box is well comfortable now, as our kids would say. Something has moulded to the shape of my head. The missus says that it’s probably the smoked salmon as nothing else in there would be big enough to fillet. Funny arse! I just hope I don’t go down with salmonella. Enough of this fish mongering between me and the missus. It’s 2.30 pm French time; it must be bordering on lunch time at the cricket by now, if it is still going. I’m about to drop off again, but I have to check first where her handbag is. With all these magpies about you can’t be too careful. I know they get a bad press, those magpies, but I’ve seen them on the telly as well and they nicked everything in sight. We’d be lost if all our documents went with her handbag, especially with us about to enter another country. The ‘Which Reports’ on cars often say that it only takes thieves seconds to get into cars, so they’d be into her handbag in four to five minutes easily. ‘Under my head’, she says with a self satisfied smirk. If it wasn’t going to be as much my loss as hers I would have told her not to be so smug. Well which one would you go for if you were a magpie, or a burglar in a stripy top, a beret and a bag of oignons, sorry a bag with ‘swag’ on it? A cold bag stinking of fish and minging cheese or her handbag? Exactly. I’d better zip it up tighter to my hair. Night night!
I’ve just been bitten by a vicious ant. Where’s the spray? Fuck the sparrows! Sod the French bird eaters. I can live without pickle. The ants are doing for me. I ease my head out of the bag and it does hurt just like Gulliver said it did when he was on his travels. I pour myself a cup of tea from the flask but they are still at me. I don’t want to waste any of the elixir of life by pouring it over them to kill them off. There’s a jar of marmalade in there somewhere and I’m prepared to sacrifice it to some of these ants. I find the jar and open it. I taste a couple of finger licks first. Perfect! I let my marmalade covered fingers do the walking from where I reckon they are coming from to the handbag. ‘Peace at last, peace at last, Oh good! All my tea, peace at last’. The trouble is when you are a pig in shit you act like one. A ‘shit’ I mean not a ‘pig’. It’s the same at home. She’s sleeping contentedly in bed and I am propped up next to her drinking the tea that she has made, but unable to get to sleep. My mind turns inexorably to one thing – Cricket on the radio!
The missus nudged me to listen to an argument that was going on from over the hedge that she said was getting interesting. Although it had gone over my head as well as the hedge until then, it was in English. The missus said that it was in German as they were being abrupt. I had to explain to the missus that if it was in German I wouldn’t be listening to what they were saying; only hearing it. The missus wanders off so she can get better reception. I’ve given up on mine, as neither the car nor the portable are receiving, so I wander after her to an area where the trees are bigger. Don’t worry about the valuables as she’s got her handbag with her and I’ve got the portable. All is quiet as we see an enormous French dog do an enorme French merde on what would have been our cricket pitch. Nearby at square leg one French lady owner looks on. Always willing to be positive, the missus says ‘At least it’s not got diarrhoea and she’s kicked some dust on it’ ‘Yes and it’s not on a length’, I continued, along the same vein. I thought the woman was holding her nose, but the missus who knows about these things said that it was a mobile phone. ‘Do you think she’s describing it turd by turd?’ I ask myself. ‘Only if she’s having an affair and talking dirty’ I answer. I walk off to look for a boules court so I can have a pee, my momentary lapse into W G Graciousness now over.
Bloody hell! A Gendarmerie car with flashing lights has just come around the corner and has gone down the lane where I just had my pee. It frightened the life out of me. Luckily for the boule players, I did my number 2’s in the hotel or I would have crapped myself. It could have been the British domestic if you can have a domestic abroad, which they were called to. I said this Aire was like a camp site. Some of our countrymen don’t half let us down. More police arrive though they could be medics. I take it all back about this place. It’s getting ‘airey. We could be tarred and feathered with the same brush. They might look on us as illegal ignorants rather than the innocent holiday makers that we are. Another cop car! We’re off. Let’s get across the border quick; it’s got to be safer in Spain; I don’t think they’ve got an extradition agreement with us.
I break all records. I collect our bits, stuff them in the back of the car, get in and drive off in minutes ‘Shit! Where’s the missus?’ She’s having a dump behind that big tree. I’m surprised I couldn’t see her. I give her some encouragement by asking her to complete the affairs of her toilet and to place her slightly oversized and hopefully now clean posterior into the vehicle. She shouts across that she has lost one of the charms from her silver chain. I don’t understand how she has missed one as there are about 20 of them that make up the necklace. She must have been using them as an abacus to count her stools, and noticed that it had gone when she got to nineteen. We search for at least 20 minutes and find nothing except for piles of crap from a variety of animals. Whatever the pollution is over here they are thriving on it. In the end we give up and get back in the car. ‘Those fucking bastard magpies,’ says the missus. ‘I’d like to exterminate the fucking lot of them.’ seemingly more concerned with her silver chain than with the food chain she was on about earlier. ‘Don’t be so thuggish dear’ I said with sparrow free relish. ‘Piss off’, she said, losing her charm as well as having lost her charm.

The cricket tour diary awaits

It won't be long now. I'm getting in the mood. This weekend is out as we are off to Bird Flu land for the weekend. The forecast is good. No drizzle, turkey or rain. In the 2nd leg of that wonderful final the players had to go off the ground for rain on a number of occasions and we actually tasted victory in the showers. Wasn't it wonderful to see all those Aussie fans filing out. The 'Long hot summer for the Poms' promised by one of those fans as we inched towards the bus in Brisbane after our first day's battering came to a suitable damp squib of a end for them. I've played on many damp squibs in my time without a thought of going off, but there was one time when thoughts of rain and showers were dominating my tiny mind when I was sat outside our apartment on holiday in Spain overlooking the obligatory building site dreaming about turning the site into a home ground for our Srimpers Cricket team
What a shower! Not the builders, it’s the one in the apartment. Freezing cold as the heating unit was parading more smuts than a 1960’s South African porn magazine. I’d certainly change it for the new changing rooms in my pavilion. Perhaps the TV program of that name could be asked to help and pay. Cricket can be a less amusing old game if you’ve played crap and have to splash yourself all over Henry Cooper style from the sink. These days you have to include breathing apparatus in your kit bag as all the youngsters fill the air with underarm aerosol sprays. Did I tell you before that our Shrimpers team was known as the Stinkers team mid season as we played Pluckley, Eridge & The Gerrybuilders on successive Saturdays and although all are lovely country venues there is not a shower between them.
It’s part of the reason that the Shrimpers have retained some of the traditional fixtures against the Banks in South London. They have super showers. It’s like the Shrimpers rising to international level. I think most of the Banks are foreign now so it is a little like a tour abroad. Even the game against the Nat West was played in monsoon conditions. To get a good length you needed local knowledge of the tides. Putting sawdust down helped to assess the speed of the liquid pitch. It was like a Turner’s painting rather than a turner’s pitch. Even Handel would have had difficulty in calling the tune. We lost the toss and the coin. Our skipper reckoned their captain had pocketed it. It wasn’t him who should have been upset; it was me that had lent him the pound coin.
It was a low scoring match. I got wickets so did my mate, though I didn’t feel anything but cold. We only had to get ninety. Neither captain would agree to abandon the match. Our batting dissolved in the wet. My mate was number 10 and I soon joined him. We had 87, he was 10 not out. He walked towards me as I came in.’ It’s easy here.’ He said ‘We only need 4 runs and we’ve got ages.’ The previous pair had crossed so I was down the non strikers end. The first ball my mate tickled around the corner straight to the fine leg who was up to save the one. ‘Yes!’ I bellowed setting off through the swamp. In the absence of high technology I was given out only a foot short despite my despairing aquaplaning dive. They ran off celebrating. I picked myself up and plodded off with my mate making sure that the mud that I picked up stuck, and that my name was Mudd in the changing room.
Sod the result I thought as I joined my mate in the shower. He wasn’t foaming anymore, so I offered him my shampoo 'with peppermint kick'. ‘Cor!’ he shrieked ‘This is a bit tasty as the peppermint kicked in.’ you’re not putting more on surely? He said as he misinterpreted my motives in me turning my arse towards the direct flow from the showerhead to ease the pain I was feeling. The stuff was in a set of toiletries I had been forced to bid for in a ‘Promises Auction’ at school. The woman who had made up the lot ‘With you in mind.’ had a red hot ass herself which she was obviously keen to share. A different sort of tasty. I noticed their captain who led the charge off the paddy field without any handshakes heading towards the shower. He looked the sort who would have no compulsion about nicking somebody else’s shampoo. ‘We’ll leave this here then’, I said to my mate, who nodded as I put the bottle on the shelf. The shout wasn’t blood curdling but it sufficed. I wasn’t the only one to aquaplane that day but it was a different sort of crease he was reaching for. At the time I was reaching for his whites to get my pound coin back. ‘Quid pro quo’ Clarice.
The shower only took about 30 minutes though I did have a slash as well once I was in. I had a slight tummy ache but I didn’t have the runs. It was like a David Gower half hour power shower. I went outside with the intention of drying out and warming up despite the undermining certainty that evaporation causes cooling preying on my mind. The missus warned me about flashing outside. I tucked in to a juicy peach. A pick up van arrived across the way. It was certainly a pick me up for the three amigos as they legged it in unison back down towards the Barney Rubble as if it were a three legged race for the local sports day. The silver haired driver must have been the man in charge as he started pointing in all directions and the three oppos disappeared to all points of the field. They were probably worried he would change it to a sack race. If David Gower had acted this way he wouldn’t have lost the England captaincy. A woman got out of the passenger side of the light aircraft, sorry van and picked her way across the site towards town. The silver haired boss man said ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’. I made a note of her gait through the binoculars as this would be the exit through which the missus would have to go if we needed some Swiss tarts just to make a change for the cricket teas.
The boyos drifted back to the van now that the boss’s missus had gone. Maybe she was a no go arean. The boss climbed onto the back of the van and passed down some steel supports or structures. He drove off and the two slips and a gully returned to the shade of the koolibab tree. I’m surprised that one of them didn’t climb up into the tree so they would get an early warning of the boss’s second coming and be quick off the mark for the next race. I didn’t get any warning either as my boss ordered me to get my clothes on so we could go to town, which was the opposite of what she said to me last night, and turned out to be a different sort of second coming. Ten in all; I was decimated.
She explained that we were in a no go area as far as mobile phones were concerned in terms of expense rather than signal and she needed to phone her mother using her phone card. David you would be the longest lasting English captain ever if you had been blessed with her decisiveness. We got into the car fully clothed. She drove. At the end of the track I said ‘Turn right’. She turned left and headed into town. I lobbed the peach stone out the window. The two slips looked on as the gully caught it. The Guardian came up trumps. While the missus was doing her duty I had all the time in the world to read about how England had done and how another gay bloke wanted to be a bishop. I’m sure the headline was ‘Queen to Bishop 3’. The other common recurring theme to read in the Guardian was that England had lost by an innings and 90 odd runs. It would have been a hell of a journey listening to that one. By the time they had started the day I would have been in a reasonable reception area, namely the passenger seat. According to Mike Selvey, Flintoff made 142 from 146 balls in about three and a half hours with eighteen fours and five sixes. Both Butcher and Hussain got good scores and although we lost by that massive amount to get 417 in a second innings is pretty good, especially at Lord’s. You might say that I’m taking it out of context and like the papers concentrating on one day’s performance to help forget the debacle of the rest of the match. However I can’t help travelling on a Sunday, though when we get home it will be next Tuesday. It’s always Tuesday. I wonder where we would have been when Flintoff broke his bat driving at Ntini and what feature of the Spanish landscape would have been the cause of the phenomenon.
I need to replace the film in the analogue camera, as the digital’s battery is as flat as a pancake. There is a camera shop in town so I’ll be able to practise my international sign language to see if they have got a car charger that is compatible with the digi. I expect there is more chance of finding a digital didgeridoo being played by Rolf Harris with foxgloves over his fingers but I’ll try anyway. Perhaps I’ll fork out for a docking station like they did in 2001 a Space Odyssey. No I can’t remember if they had one either, but I could hardly go in to the camera shop and start signing to see if they had Barbarella’s pleasure machine. I certainly would have been snookered if they only have analogues, as those of you who can never make up their mind about taking the pink or the brown would appreciate.
We’re back at the apartment. The camera shop was closed. I see the ants have been breakfasting on grapes, butter and non freshly squeezed orange juice. Their lunch consisted of a gastronomic mix of Piretrina, Permentrina and Butoxidode piperonito. In the long run I’ve probably set off some horrible chain reaction in the local environment. In the short run the ants are mortas. The missus is in a good mood. Isn’t sex wonderful? ‘Big cup/small cup?’ she asked. We have the choice now as we bought two giant tea cups in Girona.’ What would you like on your toast?’ She asked. ‘A boiled egg please’, I replied. Despite her comments to the contrary the sound of rapid boiling water could be heard. ‘Careful dear’, I shouted with my glasses misting up with the emotion of it all.’ I don’t want it hard’ ‘At least you’ve got a choice’, she quipped leaving me with egg on my face as my short term memory loss and my glasses cleared by the minute.
Vision was good enough to watch the JCB or its Spanish equivalent go through its paces on the pre building site. The egg and soldiers arrived unlike the JCB driver who was nowhere to be seen. The eggs over here apparently have a blue anchor on them rather than a lion. The soldiers were arranged in the shape of a W. Like that John on Big Brother who worries about the second piece of toast having to wait unattended for vital moments before it can be buttered, you may be concerned about how to get your salt mixed in the egg to the right consistency. As with John’s problem the solutions are already available. The Youth Hostel in the Shandon area of Cork City that we stayed in for the cricket tour had a conveyer belt toaster that let you leave a gap between pieces of bread to allow for even the greatest of butter fingers time to spread the butter before the next one dropped off the edge. If you can’t be bothered to upgrade your toaster simply put one piece of bread at a time in your present one. Your electricity bills may not go down but your girth will. As far as the salt is concerned dip your soldier into the egg first then into the pile of salt on the side of the plate. Put the soldier back into the egg stirring it in for as long as it takes to say the words ‘I’m a twat’.
If the kids are with you when you have finished the egg turn it upside down in the eggcup and batter it to smithereens with the spoon. Only do this if they are less than 18 months old as older children will lose interest with the low level of violence and bad language. The cricket pavilion’s design will accommodate a full size snooker table. Not only will this allow the batting side an opportunity for a break, but it will enable visiting Spaniards to win a game of Blow Egg after a pasting at cricket. The game is great but don’t order the scrambled egg from the breakfast menu or Spanish omelette from the lunchtime one and certainly don’t use the egg shampoo in the shower for at least two days after the tournament. The game is like Blow Football using an egg as a ball. The egg has to be blown in more ways than one. A hole has to be made each end with a needle. If you are asthmatic or you have a cough like the bloke in the flat behind us, shove the needle in the egg to break up the yolk. Close your eyes if you don’t like the sight of somebody being sick after getting pissed on Advocaat. A coat of varnish does eggactly what it says on the tin. Get a tin of Shellac if you can.
Make a couple of goals from a wire clothes hanger and use a pair of fish net stockings for your net and an onion bag for theirs. A goalie sits each end with up to 7 either side sitting with bums on seats and hands on knees. You can vary this if for example you have a couple of touring women’s teams. The goalie blows off so to speak and your team accelerates it towards the opponent’s goal. Stuff beer mats or D cups into the corner pockets. The middle ones can be used to award penalties if the luckless egg falls in. If the goalie down the other end is worth his or her salt they blow like mad to save the goal. A goal kick restarts the proceedings. If the team from Barcelona are winning, substitute your goalie for one with a big cleavage to distract the opposition.
The workman with the big cleavage climbed into the JCB, which coughed into life and hurtled off levelling everything in site. His mate has set off around what will be the block carrying a fir cone either out of respect for the wood that used to be there or as food for a confused Spanish squirrel. Well you aint seen nothing yet squirrelly baby. If my dream were to come true, by the time you go nuts next May I’d have knocked your block off the hagendas and you’d be watching cricket from the one tree that I’d allow inside the playing area like the one in the St Lawrence ground at Canterbury where Kent play the majority of their home games. Would you like acorns or hazelnuts? I am worried about that squirrel. Like the North American greys in our country muscling in on all the best habitats so the local reds can’t afford the drays and move out in droves. Didn’t they do that to the reds while they were making North America into the USA? I’m a bit worried myself. If I attract armies of barmies over here, this civilised part of Spain may bid farewell to the feeling of elegant calmness through which you can promenade at midnight with hundreds of people who are eating drinking, talking, interacting and savouring without the feeling the need to hoot to holler to punch to kick or to maim.
To save the red from the grey is straight forward. The tree will be neither hazel, oak nor beech. The reds love their nuts, but so do the gas guzzling greys. They’ll have to work harder if the tree is a conifer; they won’t be bothered to stay; they’ll bugger off to easier pickings leaving our red to worry only about where the next cricket ball is coming from. Can I attract the right people? Am I being too naïve? You probably feel I’m the sort I don’t want to attract. Am I being prejudiced against the young? Have I forgotten how to party? Will the grey pound deaden things in time as much as the young bucks would shatter them overnight? Shit, I didn’t think I’d have all this philosophical turmoil about a cricket ground. Applying for planning permission, digging through building regulations and getting searches done by the various bodies no doubt will be hard enough, but it has to paleface into insignificance compared to all this soul searching. I think I was on the right lines though by introducing blow egg rather than mud wrestling.
Sorry about all that I'll get back to the diary as soon as I'm back.

I should have listened to the missus

I should have listened to the missus

I'll make it brief. I was lucky enough to have had my binoculars with me on the Sunday of the 1st Ashes Test at Brisbane back in November. The Gestapoesque Australian Gabba Ground Authorities (Gaggas) had managed to overlook them in their searches. Probably because of the massive queues they were causing. I'd been looking at the huge cracks in the pitch no doubt along with others such as Shane Warne. There wasn't a lot of entertainment going on as the Aussie Children were not playing their equivalent of Kwik Cricket. Even Duncan Fletcher was having to find his own entertainment on his lap top. Perhaps he was airbrushing out the events of the morning. You know by pushing Strauss' hook over the boundary and moving Bell's bat a little so that he got an edge on to his pad.
The ground staff were pointing out the cracks to a couple of the policemen who were hovering. Perhaps they were suggesting that they could stash the trumpets, bugles and trombones and other dangerous weapons that they had removed from the Barmy Army. Michael Atherton was standing by the stumps at our end. His pockets seemed to be bulging. Despite the lack of instruments I heard the Barmies start up the Theme from 'The Great Escape'. Athers put his hands in his pockets, and with trousers slightly raised he strutted off down the pitch following the lines of the cracks. You don't think so surely! I know he has form but I thought that he was filling in for the little Aussie cricketers not filling in the cracks.
The bloke on the gate who missed my binocs didn't miss the ice bricks in my cold bag. I'd read about the Gaggas not allowing in backpacks. In fact on the first day the security bloke complimented me on 'Having listened to us' as he waved me through with my small 'Eskie'as I think they call them Down Under, that the missus had kindly packed for us. This morning's Gagga told me that I was very fortunate as my eskie was 'Only just small enough'. Obviously the Aussie children were not so lucky. I watched our two Cs, Collingwood and Cook enter the arena. They were only just behind the eleven Aussie Cs who were cheered on by the twenty odd Aussie B's who shared the stadium with us Brits or PBs as they lovingly call us.
The security people at the Adelaide Oval were more like human beings. They still searched your bags but they didn't look on us as potential violent thugs. On the Sunday Lunchtime of this Test Match I'd been to the market up the road to buy some pressies. I'd bought a fired tile off a stall run by Glenda Bowen. It depicted Pontin getting out at Brisbane. She does great stuff. If you don't believe me look at her website www.geocities.com/digitita/cricketaction.html. Anyway as I offered my bag for the search, the guy came across the tile. 'What's that, mate?' he asked. 'That's something that I will look at longingly and savour', I replied. 'That's Pontin getting out.''Take a good look', he said, 'You won't see that again'.
The Gabba Gagga bloke I'd willingly add to my list of people to whom I'd enjoy bowling bouncers.There’s only one batsman that I ever wanted to hit. Not that I would have bowled a deliberate beamer, even to him. I was about 19. The Police were looking for an arsonist who was wreaking havoc in my home town. Apparently somebody was seen to leave the scene on a ‘rusty bike’. You guessed it, just like mine. It was a ‘Blue Streak’ with drop handlebars and Disraeli gears. I used to leave the bike propped up outside the house. I never bothered to padlock it; you didn’t need to. This was Cornwall and it was forty years ago. Besides unlike its namesake it wasn’t combustible. My dad was the first to mention it. One of the people he knew at Mass on a Sunday was a policeman, and he’d brought it to my dad’s attention. Despite a good reference from my dad, a detective came around to interview me. They obviously thought they had a red hot suspect. Who was I to throw cold water on it? You don’t think my earlier years as an altar boy lighting all those candles would count against me do you? The lasting impression of this cop was his shoes. Big brown brogues. He probably interpreted me staring at them as eye avoidance. I cooperated but not in the way he wanted. I didn’t admit to the crimes. I felt it best not to as it wasn’t me who had committed them. Eventually he moved on to the possibility of someone nicking the bike, doing the deed and then returning it to the exact same spot. What an honest arsonist. I think he saw the flaw in his argument. He didn’t accept my ‘I would have missed it if it wasn’t there.’ He definitely didn’t like my ‘I can’t see your brown shoes now,’ when we were eyeball to eyeball ‘but I’d know if they weren’t there. He ended up with ‘You don’t know how lucky you are that you don’t fit the description!’
He didn’t know how lucky he was when he got out first over later that year when he came out to open the batting for the Police team that was playing against our Milk Marketing Board side. I didn’t recognise him but I did recognise those big brown shoes. There was a time I would have toed the line as well as bowled line and length only, but I’d done a bit of growing up during that ‘interview’. I’d deliberately looked at a little spot on the wicket and measured out a very long run in preparation for the next over. I wanted to launch a rocket propelled missile that would strike home to add a further brown or red streak to those shoes. The colour would depend on my choice of target. I wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t given his wicket away deliberately. More yellow than blue. I’ve heard of the good cop bad cop techniques, so I was happy to let the same delivery go to the next batsman. After all it was a Saturday. He could put some holy water on it the following day.

Posted by Mike Kelleher at 14:36

Resurgent like the England Cricket

Where have I been? Just a little technical difficulty. Known in the trade as stupidity - mine. I've kept my notes going as I watched the England splutter then stutter from , you've guessed it- the gutter. I was intrigued to hear that Darryl Harper was not having the best of days. Nasser seemed quite critical. The boy said that a radio commentator had sat next to the said umpire on one of the many criss cross Aussie flights, and had found him to be arrogant. Now where have I heard the term 'arrogance' and the umpiring name of 'Darryl' being linked in the cricketing past? I must look up the name 'Darryl' with one of those baby name books. There's bound to be one around here somewhere. I wonder what it means? Perhaps it is time to turn to technology to help the umpires. After all if they can manage a stump camera and microphone, they must be able to arrange for an electrode to be inserted up the umpire's ass. You know - one twinge for 'yes', two twinges for 'no'. I accept that with this system certain umpires might tend towards the negative for purely personal reasons, but this would be in order as it continues with the very laudable theory of giving the batsman the benefit of any doubt. And I am saying this as a bowler! I do see that the system would not suit the Darryls of this world as they appear to be so far up their own asses there would be no room for the wiring. Like all good micophonic set-ups the system will be reversible to serve as a speaker so that International Cricket Coaches may continue to talk through their asses rather than through their captains.
Now that the blog is up and running, i would like your opinions as to whether you'd like to hear more. I'll get my notes in order and although it's all over now, it may help your wounds heal as I tell a few tales of Down Under. If you are not sure of what you are getting I'll include a few ramblings about another tour. This of Portlligat, Dali's country, in Spain when England were taking on the South Africans in 2003. I'd just been reading an article about one in ten couples not enjoying their holidays because of the nature of the partner they were on holiday with! We were told 'to get on our bikes' when we tried to view his house without pre-booking. I was about to have a go at the missus when I decided to change my nature as I might have been that present article in the recent past. Tell us what you think. Would you like to hear more? Tough you are going to anyway.
At Portlligat Dali would have preferred to have got on his boat than on his bike. With the house closed to casual users we strode along the fishermen’s quay to see if we could book a trip around the Cap de Creus in the very same boat that Dali and Gala used. The bloke in charge sold us a couple of tickets. The missus had told me to check my change properly as it was probably a con. He pointed to a cardboard clock, like the sort you used to see up on the walls of reception classes in schools, before the Foundation Stage Curriculum innovation replaced them with digital ones so the teachers could fill in their tick sheets every fifteen minutes. The big hand was pointing to the 12 and the little hand was pointing to the 6. As both the hands of my watch were pointing to the 4, I worked out that we should come back in an hour and a half and then we would only have 10 minutes to wait in the boat before we were underway. The missus said ‘We Will Arrive Later Around Five.’ I didn’t argue. Being a key stage 2 teacher Time is not such an issue as Money and Change. Meanwhile we could sit and think about the Thermos full of Dutch coffee and holiday home made sandwiches that we left in the car back in Cadaques.
We found a sunny spot in the shade amongst the lobster pots and fell asleep. I awoke with a homard thinking I was still a gonner to see a thirty something classy lady stripping down to a black one piece swimming costume. She stepped from her clothes in classical style, and surrounded herself in a silky sarong. I assumed the missus was still snoozing, as I hadn’t been elbowed as a part of her look now pay later policy. Her slumber was not the reason for her inactivity. She had been quietly eyeing up the lady’s partner who was posing on the other side of the shrimpers’ nets like our first team used to do on Sunday mornings. He was a Luis Figo look-alike thereby explaining where the silky sarong had come from, as David Beckham had just moved to Real Madrid according to the football shirt that we had read that morning. He had a Gerard Depardieu nose to add to his apparent attraction. Unfortunately for him he had a fierce cold to match. He held a large white silk handkerchief to his striking appendage for much of the time. He must have been a committed professional. Most of the good teachers at our school only go down with coughs and colds during the holidays. Despite the sneezes spraying germs faster than the pace of a typical plenary session during the literacy hour, most of the battle hardened teachers use their deflecting strategies to remain healthy. This being the time after the end of the season and before the beginning of the pre-season, it is obviously a cross profession phenomena. Not being much in the way of football players the missus and I should have a resistance to the bug he’s got in the event of him sneezing in our direction and peppering us with spray. We are in trouble though if Beckham’s already taught him how to beat a defensive wall from just outside the area.
I waited until she removed her strapless high heels, before I elbowed the missus gently to return her to reality. ‘Why have you got both hands over your dick?’ she asked.’ If the football shirt has got it wrong’ I replied, ‘Old Gerard-Figo over there who you’ve been marking for the last ten minutes is likely to slam a germ or two straight at us, and by the look of him some of his bugs may be more interested in attaching themselves to pubic hairs rather than nasal ones.’ She refused my invitation to lend a hand with the defensive wall. I made a mental note to begin the disciplinary procedures when we got back to the apartment in L’Escala.
The cardboard clock must have been quite an advanced one as a bell began to ring at ten to six to assemble Dali followers to the Gala which was the name of the boat. It would tell others that there were only ten minutes to go before the Angelus, which wasn’t a name of a boat, peeled out to any remaining villagers in case they were doing anything untoward in the middle of the field, so they could face the church with a clear conscience and cross themselves rather than the Spanish Inquisition who I’ve heard have taken over from the Swiss Guard at the Pearly Gates. The man who sold us the tickets turned out to be the alarm bell, and encouraged us on board no doubt to attract other customers in accordance with the safety in numbers theory. I don’t mind stepping onto boats from a quay. It is the stepping off that can be noisily disquieting. Those same physics text books I spoke about earlier always had a cartoon picture to illustrate reaction and action being equal and opposite, showing some poor matchstick man stepping off the boat with an increasing length of stride pushing back the boat as he attempted to step forward on to the quay, until he did the splits and dipped his balls German officer style into the Turpentine or Serpentine or whichever river it was.
I liked those attempts at humour in the textbooks of the day. They were rarer than finding a neutrino particle together with a quark in a matchbox, but they were enough to make you smile before it was back to the grimace while you carried on with your revision. Some of the recent revision books I’ve seen make you laugh your cap off, while you are supposed to be studying. Learning is deemed to be fun these days, but such hilarity not being the mother in law of invention might have played a contributory part in making some of our latest engineering feats the laughing stock of the world. I reckoned that the average contents of the boat would be about a dozen, but only Gerard-Figo and his lady together with their little girl joined us. The boat wobbled slightly as the saronged senora stepped forward to negotiate her way aft. Diplomatically I held out my hand. She took it, steadied herself, said ‘Gratias Senor’ and sat opposite the missus. She swept her head back and slotted her sunglasses into her hair. The little girl perched herself precariously at the front of the boat, and senor Figo sulkily stretched his tall frame across the rest of the seats, with his head against a seat cover rather than the lap that had been tentatively offered him. He held his white silk handkerchief ready to signal to the coastguard to bring him some Lemsip in case he became more under the weather. The water boatman waited a while longer, but no-one else joined us although there were nine other couples strolling up and down the quayside. Most probably they didn’t want to catch whatever he had. What a shame couple number ten didn’t turn up, unless they were already in the boat of course.
The boatman shrugged his shoulders, untied a rope and pushed against the quay with a long pole. He turned the rudder and the boat about faced. He delved down into an oily hole turned a key and the engine spluttered into life, belching a thick black cloud of smoke that covered Gerard’s head. When it had cleared, his face like the boat had reversed. Instead of black wrap around sunglasses dividing his face into a third and two thirds, he now had a black face with an identical pair of sunglasses to the ones which were now on the top of his jet black hair, except they were white. I didn’t have the will or the vocabulary to tell him. His daughter came to his rescue by pointing at him and saying ‘Papa’ loads of times. He wiped away the soot as he had been wiping away the fluids that had been emerging from his nose into his sodden grey silk handkerchief. No need for the Spanish RNLI as the symptoms seemed to disappear in a time that the manufacturers of Lemsip would die for.
The boat weaved and three put put putted its way through the moored fishing rigs that were just about holding back the motor cruisers, speed boats and yachts that endlessly encroach cubic centimetre by cubic centimetre in their attempts to erode what was still a picturesque natural harbour into just another marina. As they bobbed so innocently up and down they were slowly erasing Dali’s signature on the documents he had signed to prevent the destruction of the natural heritage of Portlligat. We slipped out of the Puerto in our vintage boat and headed towards the Cap de Creus. It was as if we were taking part in an historical re-enactment that was being gawped upon by pay for view customers in more modern day vessels, loudly going where they thought no one had been before. Only two boats did not acknowledge us. The crew of the USS Enterprise did not wave in deference. In fact their bow wave gave us quite a shock. I expect they were on another mission. The loudest vessel of the lot was the Marie Celeste, but it just drifted lazily by as if it were empty.
We soaked it up. It was pleasurable to turn the tables on the cruising coast and space hoppers whose intention to land on those deserted sandy bays or planets where nobody had been before by land for a picnic, was hampered by dozens of others doing exactly the same thing, making them realise they were holiday makers or humanoids just like everybody else. ‘An abundance of shags’, said the missus pointing to the cormorants on the rocky outcrops. As it turned out she wasn’t far off the high water mark as we were to find out when we got the low-down on what actually happened amongst the rocks and coves when the tide was out, Gala was away and the only hoppers were of the sand variety. The water boatman turned out to be a greater rather than a lesser water boatman. When we reached the furthest point away from Portlligat and just before the meter ran out, he turned the boat around to head back. The coastline was now on my right and on the missus’ left. He took out a photograph album from below the seat. Up to that point he had been talking to the couple separately on and off in Catalan, and we had been pointing at the views saying little as if we were in a railway compartment on the Cornish Riviera Express pointing at the holiday makers on the beach at Dawlish Warren, on our way to Cornwall.
Now with the exception of the little nina who was still keeping her distance listening to a lesser Sony walkman, we were all in a space huddle. For the first time Luis showed some interest in his missus. He touched her silky sarong. Perhaps his cold was coming back. The boatman showed us a picture of Gala and Dali sitting in the boat. Our view matched the one in the photo. He pointed to himself, the boat and towards the steep rugged cliffs of the rocky shoreline. He spoke with a sense of pride to the Figo-Depardieus. He was the boatman in the picture. We were sitting in the same spot so to speak in the same company as D & G. I stole a glance at Luis-Gerard. Despite the miracle cure, he had continued to wipe his nose with the black silk handkerchief. In the time it had taken to get to the point of return he had charcoaled a mustachios that stretched out both sides from the middle of his top lip, then up and back, again both sides, towards the middle of his nose. I’m glad I could not so to speak the lingo as anything I uttered would be so patently inadequate. To prove the point I boldly shouted across to Scotty who was on ‘The poop of the vessel’ to ‘Beam me up’. The Enterprise shot off at Warp nine.
‘Would you like me to translate?’ said Gala. I mean Mrs Figo-Depardieu who turned out to be Madame Figo-Depardieu. I should have known. There had been clues. The touch of her hand, the fact that French and Catalan are so similar so to speak. Her English was pretty good, and there wasn’t any stage in the earlier undressing and dressing where she didn’t look sexy and at ease with herself, the world and the voyeurs. Compare this with the changing techniques of the grockle on Dawlish Warren, and you can understand why all the emmets on the train were pointing at them. She told us that he described Gala as being ‘How you say? Strong willed?’ According to the boatman, assuming nothing was lost at sea in translation, there were lots of stormy arguments between Dali and Gala that rocked their boat but not their relationship in their wake. Dali must have written an escape clause into his contract made with Gala. On calmer days Gala would not be there and the boatman became a ferryman for Dali’s friends who would party on the sandy beaches and skinny dip with some lowlife that Dali imported from Barcelona and put up in some of the properties more accessible by land, which are now left as landmarks in their own right along these shores. It leaves you thinking who was the King of the castle and who was the dirty rascal.
A lot more was said than the missus and I were led to understand. Even if the conversation had been in English I got the feeling I would have missed out on the subtleties of it all. Whatever was said It must have hit a chord with the Figo-Depardieus as they became quite lovey dovey. I would have liked to have known whether the boatman had joined in the regatta, but I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the boat race to ask. She wouldn’t have heard me anyway. She only had eyes for Luis-Gerard. ‘Momie’ said the little girl.’Puis je assis avec toi et Papa? The missus and I budged up. We knew it to be a Brian Johnston champagne moment, and we knew also there was a time to take a back seat. Even the boatman seemed choked. Luis-Gerard had finally twigged. He must have seen the same image on the rock face that Dali had seen on the side of the cliff that he recreated into an Apparition of the face of Gala. Only Luis-Gerard would have seen his own image as Narcissus before the beautiful features of his wife’s face finally etched themselves onto the impenetrable rock strata that was his mind. It was not easy to distinguish between little loved and a little love amongst the rocky nooks, but he had at last managed it.
The rest of the trip back was noteworthy for the ‘joie de vie’ that bounced like tennis balls between the French family, the missus and the boatman. I wasn’t really part of it. Whatever I’d been served up in the little restaurant in Cadaques was still there or thereabouts. Despite the offshore breeze that would have blown the evidence away, I knew that this was not the moment to break wind or confidences. I’d wait until later when hopefully my conscience and my bowels would be clear. My worry was that if I lost concentration not only would I destroy the ambience, I would so affect the waters that were still running deep out here that the blue flag Dali and Gala awarded themselves for godliness like the whale of the same colour would be beached into blubber. The missus was almost blubbing herself as the romance of it all overcame her as we prepared to disembark. My reaction was to hold on to the tethering rope until all had stepped safely ashore. ‘Merci monsieur’ she said as one and all exchanged handshakes, but not addresses. The water boatman took a haddock and a San Miguel out of the icebox, flicked the little hand to the 8 and rejoined his fishermen friends, tossing the fish onto their barbeque. You didn’t need to be the pupil of the week to know that it meant 8 am not 8 pm Spanish time.
I don’t know what number Luis Figo plays for Real Madrid or for Portugal, but this bloke had a number ten on his back as he walked away arm in arm with madam with the jeune fille skipping happily on the pavement at their side, the walkman nowhere to be seen. I glanced back to the Gala. It was a seminal moment. Maybe I was expecting a wave to emerge from the Gala. All I saw was a gentle sway and a ‘trompe-l’oeil’ of Tom the cabin boy, and he was saying nothing. The missus and I scuttled down the quay, squeezing past a car that had parked near where the fishermen were cooking. It had a Barca FC sticker in the window. Three of the tartiest looking women I had seen since leaving England, got out and strutted across the quay in their stilettos and fishnet tights to join the party. ‘There’s the answer to your question Englishman!’ shouted the water boatman, from a clear throat as he held up his beer in salute. The missus didn’t need to pull me away. There was a hierarchy of high heels and I had the former pair already impressed upon my soul. Besides I needed to leave an impression somewhere else p d q. I chose the high ground overlooking the eggs on the roof of the Casa Dali, on the assumption that it was the omelette that did for me back in Cadaques. The missus asked me if I was OK. A little bit of loving goes a long way. We set off together. There was a long way to go. I was physically and mentally drained. It must have been a good hour since I saw the missus’ face on that rock.