Bye bye Brisbane, bye bye Bob and Good Luck

We are flying to Adelaide today. I liked Brisbane and it will be even better when it is finished. Some didn’t think that it matches up to Adelaide or Perth. They say that it is like Swan Vestas compared to the Ugly Duckling box of average contents. What you have to remember is that the average age of our tour party is over sixty so you have to take what is said with less than a pinch of salt or a VB. I’ll let you know about Adelaide. Perth will have to wait for a future tour.
I phoned home to see if the missus was missing me. She wasn’t. What would you do if your ex-deputy head husband went off to Australia? Correct. You’d get the other ex-deputy head to move in. Or is it ‘any deputy will do.’? Well so long as it’s not a sheriff. I trust Terry but I wouldn’t trust that Sheriff of Nottingham, Alan Rickman. I’ve seen the film, and so has the missus. Six times in her case! All above board I’m sure. Well we are on board now. 38C says the plane which the bloke next door tells me is 100F. He showed me his conversion chart which he had in his hand written set of notes. I told you we were all over sixty. There’s me writing down all this shit and there’s him writing down really useful information about what time we were leaving the hotel, emergency numbers and the average number of matches in an Aussie matchbox. The missus’ position which I’m sure you know, ( if not it’s similar to the missionary except you have to dress up as Wyatt Earp, and reply ‘OK’ to the question ‘How was that?’ rather than any reply so long as it is in Latin,) eases my conscience to think about the Gorgeous lady. She was by herself in Hong Kong for six hours. She had to recheck in for some reason and hadn’t realised where the rest of us were, didn’t read the blurb and so didn’t come up to the Executive lounge where the rest of the group were tucking into the freebies. I hadn’t spotted her and even if I had done my motives might have been misinterpreted if I’d invited her up to lounge around for six hours with the rest of us.
I don’t suppose Cyril would have been as bashful. As I said we missed out on our esteemed lost leader at Brisbane Airport. We had to look out for other landmarks. The bloke next to us with the sensible notes was a bit harsher on Cyril than me. I was cross only as I had missed out on the last waltz. He seemed to think the atmosphere was better on their coach that morning. They didn’t have to fold their arms. I heard that Cyril had had some injections and was staying on at Brisbane. I don’t know whether there was any truth in the rumour that he was going to work for the Gabba Ground Authorities to improve their image. It’s an ill wind. Our rep took over the running of the show. He’s great. He keeps you informed, isn’t in your face, runs a tight ship, marshals the troops well, and doesn’t treat you like kids. If he gets the push I’ll recommend him for a deputy head’s job, missus allowing of course. I said that we ought to send Cedric a ‘Get well card’, but I told the bloke with the notepad that I’d include any of the day’s misdemeanours, as this could help with his convalescence.
The pilot keeps saying that we will be off in five minutes. We’ve had three five minute delays, we’ve been seat belted for forty minutes and we are still on the tarmac. I told the bloke with the notepad that the pilot is like Strongy, the bloke in Gravesend market who always had ‘Another last one’. He said that strictly speaking Strongy was correct. Each one became the last one when the previous one was sold. My apologies, Strongy. There was me thinking that you had been telling porkies to increase your sales. I almost told the bloke with the notepad to fold his arms, but I just nodded. I did make a mental note to do my own calculation on that temperature. Right. 38C becomes 100F. I can just about remember from school. You add 32 and then you multiply by 9/5. I think. 38+32 = 70 x 9 /5 =14 x 9 = 126. That can’t be right. This is getting like the ‘Da Vinci Code’. I wish I had a mirror. Back to basics. Memory tells me that 100C = 212F. The boiling point of water. So let’s try timesing by 9/5 and then adding 32. 100/5 is 20, times 9 is 180, add 32. There you are Professor Teabag 212! Eureka. Sorry wrong bloke. So 38 x 9 = 342. 342/5 is 684 divided by ten. 68.4 + 32 is 100.4F. There you are I told you he was wrong!
I moved my watch half an hour on to Adelaide time, though I began to wish I hadn’t done as I couldn’t then work out how late we are. Never mind. I’ll ask the bloke with the notepad later. The Qantas lady handed out some water. The boy said that this was ominous as they wouldn’t be handing out water if we were taking off in five minutes. The captain confirmed this by telling us that we would be taking off in five minutes. I adjusted my stockings as we were well above the clouds. Before you start thinking what you shouldn’t be, they are anti-embolism ones rather than fishnet. That’s why I have been sweating with my jeans on rather than glistening in my shorts. My knees are not a pretty sight at the best of times, but black stockings under shorts is not a suggestion for alternative viewing that I wish to impose on anybody other than the missus. I did notice that the Gorgeous Lady was wearing jeans. She might be wearing stockings, but the reasons for her cover up would be different to mine. Remember I said that the average age of the planeload was well over 60 and she probably didn’t want to be the cause of a drop in the average contents due to over excitement. The clouds are sweeping along now. Like a carpet I mean. The outside temperature is -50 C out there. What that Effing is I don’t know, and it’s no good asking the bloke with the notepad as his chart doesn’t go that low. The clouds become more iceberg like. I suppose it’s that low temperature. OK! OK! -50 x 9/5 =-90’ add 32 which is the same as take away 32 here gives -58F, which is about the same. Whatever. It’s 13C in London, which is 13 x 9/5 + 32 which is 117/5 + 32 which is 55.4F or 55 F as the bloke with the notebook would say. Positively tropical where we are headed just like the fruit juice that the Qantas lady gave me with my breakfast. Despite the clouds looking like icebergs, I dismiss the T word from my mind, though the poor souls who perished on that vessel would have preferred the consistency of our bergs to their one. I’m not going to pursue funnies about getting into deep water as it would be churlish and disrespectful to the souls who were lost. Besides this is not the place to be tempting providence as there’s plenty of equally unpleasant fates lurking up here if your number is up.
Remember that this is November 06, slightly before Global Warming became fashionably political. We all knew that we were in the shit then, and many including moi were concerned, but the politicians hadn’t quite worked at that stage out how to make money out of us out of it. I am one of those people who only does things, gets things when every else has done it or got it. So there are millions of others just like me doing it, getting it. You know what I mean. I get a second car to help the growing family, the night before a countrywide congestion charge is introduced. When I finally decide to sell something on E-Bay, there will be a shithead tax downloaded on me from a height of Governmental proportions. I spend hundreds of pounds on postage and printing to get a book published, but as soon as my first copy gets sold the taxman somehow knows and feels a right to claim. Right I feel better now. What it is really about is bums like me being above my station. How dare I go to Australia. Bognor, Clacton and Arsewipes-on-sea are the places for the likes of you meaning me, and go by bus! And don’t eat cod and chips, as you meaning you have fucking screwed up that part of the environment as well.
As I was saying the agricultural land looks more Panderosa rather than Brookfield over here, though you can’t always tell with those Archers. Have David and Ruth split up yet? Pip or Stone or Seed whatever her name is won’t be happy if they have. The same sort of thing seems to be happening over here. On the Aussie telly there was a programme that was about Aussies buying up land on some of the Pacific Islands. The locals thought they were getting a new resort rather than just private developments. ‘Sorry Mate, your beach is now my front garden.’ Never mind. I expect we will be able to sit the Sky Cricket lot on the decking when they play a future World Cup there. As usual I can’t think of a witty line to add. I ought to ask the funny guy from Birmingham who always had a one liner for every situation. I said to him that he ought to write all his funnies down. He said that he was more about spontaneity, and that with reproduction it wouldn’t be the same. I can remember the missus saying something similar when we were trying for a family. I remember disagreeing with her saying that a shag was a shag. QE2. See what I mean?
While reflecting on global warming, I was wondering whether the aeroplane was an ecosystem within itself. We all enter and eat and drink their food. We piss and dump in their toilet. On the assumption that they don’t dump the piss ‘n dumps out into the atmosphere, the overall balance should be maintained. Farting may be a different matter. Is that methane, me being profane or just hot air? What about sweating? Flaking skin? Breathing out our carbon Dioxide must add to the carbon footprint, or am I walking on thin air? Since coming back, TV programmes have come out with suggestions of how to restore the balance. We don’t all trust scientists as we know they have the capacity to fuck us up big time, but they sorted out the problem for Apollo 13, so sort it out for Earth 1. I’ve made my suggestions for eating more shellfish on a strict sale and non return basis, forcing the CO2 in the atmosphere to replace the dwindling dissolved variety. Not Cash On Delivery type dwindling of course. The telly programme had artificial trees absorbing the CO2. They didn’t look good but with a few birds on them they would soon fit in. If you didn’t agree and still thought they looked hideous and out of place you could always stick them in the Tate Modern.
11.30 am Brisbane time but I can’t work out how long to go because of the delayed take off and me putting the watch forward too early. The big Telly doesn’t tell me either. It’s got some Aussie group on. I don’t know who it is. It’s got a lead singer who looks like Alex Sayer and a ginger bloke, if that’s any help. The gorgeous lady said she hasn’t watched any telly in her hotel room. I told her that she was missing loads of cricket. Not just highlights of the first Test but cricket highlights of the fifties. Richie Benaud and his team must have been on tour somewhere over Christmas. Where would that have been then? South Africa? It couldn’t have been as they were all recorded in black and white sending Christmas greetings to their respective families. Richie was polished and articulate then. Some of the others looked uncomfortable and tripped up over their words. Maybe they had just got off the pedalo! Not Richie. What was Atherton? FEC was it? Future England Captain? Richie must have been known as FAB in those days. Future Australian Broadcaster.
Two rows in front a bloke gets out a giant map. It’s the one with the mate who escorted the horny woman off the paddle boat the other night. Surely he can’t work out where we are? There are only fields and more fields without a telegraph pole in sight. A couple of minute before we descend into Adelaide Airport says the captain. How did he know? ‘We disembark in twenty minutes,’ he added. I put my hands over my balls as well as doing up my seat belt, wishing I had worn tights instead of stockings for greater protection and to gird up my loins. FAB. You decide what that means here. As I’ve also said. Bye bye Bob. At least you won’t have to read any more of this crap. Mind you Bob, you were the sort of bloke who would have had something positive to say as a fellow 48 rat, and no doubt would have offered some helpful advice. See you at the St Lawrence Ground one way or another.

Col is a good guy

 

This is a picture of our touring team disembarking with Col in the lead. I'll include another picture of him at Brisbane. It illustrates to the human race what a better place the world would be if it were full of Cols. Plus gorgeous ladies of course. I mean you have to think of future generations!

Alas poor Cyril, I knew him well.

Poor Cyril indeed. It turned out that he had to be airlifted back to Brisbane hospital with back spasms and wouldn't be fit to rep for the Adelaide Test. We saw the helicopter circling. There were some who did not shed a tear. I knew where they were coming from. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Cyril's strength is that he is tall. You could see him from one end of an airport lounge to the other, and so never miss a gate. I think he fancied the lovely lady with whom he had the last dance. Then again we all did. She proved herself to be lovely in so many ways. Cyril had offered her a place in their taxi to the Brisbane river paddleboat evening meal. She loyally turned the offer down as she had asked me and the boy to go. I told you she was gorgeous. Like the handful of international cricketers we know about we walked. We knew the way. Another guy joined us. He was a librarian with a limp. We had to leg it as we were a little late and Cyril doesn't like late. The librarian with the limp did well to keep up. He was knackered at the end. He didn't complain. Not loudly anyway. He could have done. We wouldn't have told him to be quiet. We were late, and there was a queue to get on board. Cyril homed in on the lovely lady and with us attached she was taken to the front of the gangway. I checked that it was a gangway rather than a gangplank before I set foot away from terra firma. Cyril sat next to the lovely lady.I was landlocked at the far side of the table. The ticket included one free drink. It had to be your first drink and you needed another ticket which we duly got. Not all types of drink were allowed as freebies. I think the Brisbane River Authorities were in charge of ground rules. No drinks arrived so quite naturally I asked what the gorgeous lady and the boy wanted to drink and went up to the bar to get them. It seems as if by this act I caused mayhem and confusion. The beautiful lady's selection was not on the freebie list. I must have given Cyril a drink problem. The waiter seemed to be getting stick. 'I'll sort it Cyril' I said. I'm a deputy head (recently retired) and I'm well used to sorting out difficulties. I do it every day.' I didn't really need to add that last bit, though I did mean it. What I wanted to say was 'Look, it's no big deal, don't let it become an issue. I apologised to the waiter, hoping that my parched throat hadn't got him in trouble. As with all Aussies he wasn't worried. He's had all sorts on board. Later on in the evening I bought Cyril a drink. I'd seen what his free drink was and I got him the same again and put it in front of him. 'Have that on me Cyril' I said. He came up to me later and said 'Thanks for the drink.' I appeciated him saying that, but I didn't let myself break into'Nice one Cyril, nice one son, nice one Cyril, now have another one.' Lucky really as if I'd thought that it was me that had caused him to totter in that last waltz with the gorgeous woman, it would be my conscience that would have been pricked rather than hers, if you excuse the pun made in the last blog about Cyril being stiff. Talking about being pricked, one of the guys managed to resist that request from a lady who must have drunk all those missing free drinks. After disembarking he escorted her to a taxi acting as a perfect gentleman. If it wasn't for him she could have ended up in the drink as well as on it and maybe a disembowelled being as well as being disembarked. Paddle wheels can be as dangerous as other types of waterwheels. What do you mean what do I mean? Look what happened to one of Michael Caine's German soldiers in The Eagle Has Landed. You know, the one with JR Ewing in it and where the bloke in Klute got thrown through the window in the Channel Islands. No not that one!That's the one with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood! Ask yourself in all conscience would we all have reacted in that honourable way if it had been our pricks that she had designs on? How say you Cyril? How say I? How say you all? As the missus said when she was telling me about the theme of her RE lesson today.'Do unto others as you would be done by.' Now if you like some say Cyril is are up your own arse, I don't want to know.

Is there a masseuse in the house?

It's one of our days off. We are off to Moreton Island. It's second only in size to Fraser but only by a bucketful or two of sand. There's an overloaded ferry to take us across. The bar had been topped up with various lagers as the crew had been told that we were the Barmy Army. They must have been tipped off by the Brisbane ground authorities as I'm sure I saw a police car parked by the quay. If they were expecting a load of animals, what they got was a load of vets. Heavy Brigade or not, we were well prepared to lighten their load. The lovely lady had noticed that there were not many overweight people in Australia. Well we found where they hide them. They were lying in wait on Moreton Island. The ferry crossing was quite smooth. The overland journey to the far reaches of the island was not. While others got into their 4X4's, we got into a Dads' Army / Corporal Jones lorry type of bus. The huge driver apologised about the state of the road. He explained that the light house on Moreton Island was no longer serviced by road. The bulb was now changed by helicopter and was one of those energy efficient longer lasting ones that the missus has installed at home. You know the ones that give off hardly any light so you can't see.
We set off along what I suppose was the road. I couldn't see it. I could only see sand. We lurched for a 100 metres or so before we came to a jam. The other 4 X twos had come to a halt. Our tour rep was being carried back towards the ferry terminal, or 'beach' as they call it over here. He could have been on a stretcher. He should have seen it coming. He'd had the last waltz with the lovely lady the night before on the paddle boat on the Brisbane river. I think that could have been the first signs of stiffness. One Rep down we careered on, descending into depths and climbing out of chasms at five second intervals. It was my first experience of a white knuckle ride. The movement became more exaggerated front to back. It may have been the pot bellied driver's preference for the larger potholes that caused the guys in the back seats to head butt the luggage racks. What would this guy have done to us if we had beaten the Aussies in the first Test?
Despite his passengers hanging on grimly to negate the bouncing that he was handing out on a track that would have been declared unfit even by Lillee and Thommo in their heyday, he insisted in pointing out each individual bush and blade of parched grass. In his defence there wasn't much else to see.The highlight was when we passed a rusty pole. He told us it was the remains of a telegraph pole used by the army in World War II. As one of the guys pointed out, just before he hit his head against the luggage rack again "We've come over 3000 miles to see a 'fucking' telegraph pole!" 'Oh by the way fellas, did I tell you that Moreton Island is a dry island? He hadn't hit my head yet, but he'd managed to grab me by the throat. We were all aching by the time we reached our beach destination. Like the good English we are we formed two orderly queues. One for the BBQ manned by the driver's equally large family,and one for the lady who had rubbed sun cream over my legs on the ferry. She turned out to be a masseuse and was in great demand to help ease the aching limbs. Having already had the benefit of her fingers, I decided to go into the South Pacific Ocean to loll in the surf. I didn't go in too deep. Despite the aching nature of my limbs, I didn't want the pain to be relieved by losing any of them to a foraging fucking great white shark. And if it was of the same dimensions as the rest of the Moreton Island Great whites serving the kangaroo steaks I would soon be legless even though the island is teetotal. Luckily Jelly fish and shark fin soup and moi were not on the menu. Having been revived by sun, sand, lemonade, kangaroo and the aforementioned masseuse we managed to reestablish English pride by impressing the Moreton Island residents with the standard of our beach cricket. Which should we offer to the England team for Adelaide? The route back to the ferry was a different one but was of the same ilk. We rolled about in the aisles as if the place had been a gin palace and the missus had been making the jokes. I'm sure there could have been a better way. There's always a choice of routes.
The missus always seems to know the way even if the route is unfamiliar. Planning routes is not everybody's forte.We had come to these parts a couple of years ago with some of the same friends who were in France with us. Unlike Manuel who came from Barcelona we wanted to go there. We had flown down and landed in Girona. For those of you who know your maps this route we wanted is in the opposite direction. We wouldn’t have noticed the route anyway as we just followed those who like to lead, plan and control in the silvery hire cars. All easy stuff when you are cruising through the various empories of the Catalan countryside on your Rutes dels Castells or your Ruta de los Jardines to mix the Catalan and the Spanish or vice versa, but not to be recommended in the fair city of Barcelona. As you would expect I was not party to the detailed planning of what route to take and where to park when the families decided to visit the place. In actual fact all went smoothly until the final left turn into the preset parking place. What do you do? Go into the car park? Stick together? Yes we stuck together. I may have been born in the year of the rat but I don’t leave a sinking ship just because of poor navigating. Wrong decision. You know when a line of ice skaters are going round and round together on an ice rink and the ones on the end are doing everything ten times faster than the people in the middle. Well that’s how it felt. Their lights were green. Ours were red. Their turns were sudden. Ours were U. Their cars were silver. Ours was turning blue.
We got to the chosen car park about an hour later. I remember the name of the area had something to do with Angels. I wasn’t feeling very angelic. My little part in all this had been talking to a Spanish family next door to us on the campsite who actually lived in Barcelona and had offered to take us around the city. During our first week at the campsite nothing more than a couple of nods in their direction were made. We assumed of course that they could not speak English and the families bridled at their badly behaved and noisy children. I remember that the man was large the lady was tasty and the grandparents nodded more than the parents. They had a lifestyle I empathised with. They got up late. A long breakfast. A quick shopping spree usually for food. A snacky lunch with beer and wine. A long afternoon siesta followed by a visit to the beach. They come home mid evening to another liquid supported meal. They clear the table of solid food around 11.30 pm and start to play Spanish Bingo. As far as I can see the rules are the same as ours except he shouts out the numbers in Spanish, and you can’t understand when he says the equivalent of two fat ladies. I suppose familiarity breeds contempt, but ‘Cincuenta cinco’ seemed more harmonious than the missus saying ‘fifty five’ when we used to play Lotto with the kids in the caravan on that farm site in Devon when it was pissing down with rain. When wasn’t it?
Anyway later in the week when we were just about to join the early rising other families down the beach, I offered our kids’ badminton rackets and shuttlecock for their little ones to play with. They had often watched in awe as our kids played. We were then in awe as Xavier and Mercedes thanked us in English for being so kind. Awe not awe and wonder. Xavier and Mercedes are the parents not the children. Anyway we got talking and despite the missus confusing the life out of them and the fact that their kids were whacking stones with the rackets when we got back from the beach, there was no stopping the neighbourly chats for the rest of the week and hence the offer of a guided tour around Barcelona. There’s always a downside, and I fully expect Great Britain to lose in the final of the mixed pairs at badminton in the 2008 Olympics to a Spanish brother and sister pairing.
Funnily enough there was a similar event in the French campsite with our touring caravan with some Dutch; except the game was cricket and they didn’t offer to take us around Amsterdam. Again our much maligned family friends didn’t think a lot of the Dutch people across the way. No English spoken and no manners. As ever ‘Sports’ as the misssus calls it, lovingly similar by the way to her ‘Hawaii 505’, almost came to the rescue. The biggest pain in the ass Dutch kid became fascinated by our kids playing cricket on the road between us and them, and joined in the fielding. He took some spectacular catches but couldn’t get the hang of waiting his turn to bat. The kids not having parental prejudices gave him a go at batting when the girls were out, and it turned out that he had a flair for the game as well as a good eye for the ball.
It didn’t make any difference to the frostiness between the non English speaking Dutch families and our Camp David. You know the sort of thing. Their kids were noisy when we were resting. Ours skateboarded past them while they were still in bed. Them having digs at us. Us taking slingshots at them. We and they alternated in staying up for noisy drunken nights preventing the other side from sleeping. If we felt really annoying we’d start up an argument about religion and that would always make us last an extra hour or two. I use the same argument in trying to persuade the missus to dress up as a nun back home. With no give from either side I decided to send in a Trojan horse in the guise of the missus. One evening when both parties were manning the barricades at the same time sipping cooling drinks I explained to the missus that a couple of the Dutch did in fact speak English and had been interested in finding out the laws of cricket. The missus did ask why I hadn’t explained the game to them and I told her that there was a little bit of feeling between us and them and I felt a bit reticent. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid’ was the wonderfully received response from the missus.’ Somebody has to break the ice. I’ll draw them a diagram.’ She stood up, took some paper and a pen from her handbag and was just about to cross no-man’s-land when the missus’ mate burst out laughing letting the cat out of the bag and unfortunately the Trojan guinea pig smelt a rat. ‘You swine! You were trying to set me up’ She bellowed accusingly. What a shame the missus’ mate couldn’t have kept a lid on it. We’d have had a ring side view of something similar to Professor Stanley Unwin expounding the theory of relativity at his ineloquent best to Playschool viewers through the round window.
Relations didn’t improve despite my attempt at sending over the diplomatic bag. As we were still winding up the stays of our caravan getting ready to depart, you could see the Dutch scowls trying to wind up our friends as they drove off. It was like Ajax supporters with liquid ammonia after having been beaten by a big big carpet for less than half a crown. Their mouths formed a different shape however as their jaws dropped when I strolled over and presented them with a plastic bat for the good young cricketer. They were still stunned as we drove by, but not as stunned as the missus was at me being able to tow the caravan from the pitch without the help of any Dutch people. Oh yes they did help. There was no way I was not going to do it by myself. I'm looking out to see if the kid is playing for Holland in the Cricket World Cup this week.
Anyway our follow my leader friends and the missus had formed a committee to work out the best place to meet Xavier and Mercedes. I was kicking some cans with the boys but keeping a close eye on the girls as a few shifty characters had driven by (Present company excepted). After 15 minutes of lively debate and cross examination with the commitment of argument and destruction of character reminiscent of the ‘The Moral Maze’ on Radio 4, a route was decided upon. A few dumped televisions later made me break my rule about interference, and I suggested we phone Xavier. He and his senora arrived within 15 minutes and he suggested a different ruta. ‘If you go down that road you will have your cameras and your purses taken’, he said. I think the earlier reference to Angels was that they would fear to tread in this carefully chosen part of Barcelona, let alone park in it.
He took us around all the sites via the metro, the cathedral, the Gothic area, the commercial district, Las Ramblas and finally a park with a fantastic musical and illuminated waterworks show from the fountains. It is a lovely city but I found it a bit too Gaudy. Xavier and Mercedes and their two kids said their bye byes, goodbyes and adioses. The young boy turned out to have the Spanish version of ADHD and kicked my mate in the goolies, no doubt as a farewell gesture of goodwilly or as a request for balls next time not shuttlecocks. I don’t know whether Xavier and Mercedes will accept my mates’ offer of a Balti in Birmingham with a free supply of Ritalin for the boy. I purposely left the two silvery cars pull away out of sight before I asked the missus ‘Which way?’ We had the beer on ice, the Rioja opened and a spaghetti dish simmering by the time they got home. ‘Bloody one way system’, they complained. If only it had been earlier in the day, they could have said that they came back terria the Ruta de les Cultures knowing that this was a route that I would have avoided like the plague.
It’s weird that none of our friends want to come on holiday with us this year. Our own kids too come to that. You don’t think that the missus’s sister will be spending her last holiday with us do you? The missus tells me that we are going back on the autopistas. She said that she’s fed up with me taking the piss out of the French and she doesn’t intend that it carries on in Spain. It’s unlikely that this will be the case as I can’t ask for a cup of coffee in Spanish or even Catalan come to that, so I’ll have to take what they give me, and I don’t want to be seen as an aseos in public.‘Did you get lost dear?’ I enquired. ‘Get lost yourself’, she replied. ‘Junction 4, Vilamalla ,Vilacolum not Vilamacolum, Torroella de Fluvia, Viladamat and then L’Escala’ she exclaimed with a triumphant air surely reminiscent of the gladiatorial victories that must have been a feature of these parts before package holidays and touring parties reached these shores.

No names no duck billed platypus

Help is required for Photos. Probably my built in computer protection devices. I'm not going to have a go at them as they may prevent horrible hackers desperate trying to improve the standard of my writing. The Barmies were in full song on the Monday of the Brisbane Test. 293-5. The word is that it will be over by lunchtime. We'd listened to Kerry O' Keefe last night at our Tour Dinner. He was funny. We also listened to Derek Pringle. I can't take to Pringles, though I know many do.
A lady in the coffee queue gave me her radio. She's not going to Adelaide. I bought her a coffee. I should have waited. She asked for a flat one. By the time the froth from my cup of chino was off my face Pieterson was out without scoring caught Martyn bowled Lee. The stadium seems empty. Just us Brits. 'We are going to win 4-1', sing the Barmies. The questions were getting quite heavy to K O'K and DP so I told them that being the only bloke who had been able to smuggle in a pair of binoculars past the garotting ground authorities, was I the only one to see Michael Atherton filling the cracks in the pitch with dust from his pockets through his trousers to the accompaniment of the Great Escape tune sung by the Barmy Army. While many in the hall stared in disbelief. K O' K said 'You're my sort of bloke.'
I read somewhere, or heard somewhere 'If you ever have a chance to meet Derek Pringle, ask him about.....' Exasperatingly I can't remember what it was. I want to say it came from Ian Chappel, or was it Freddie Trueman? Somebody knows. Please tell us. The newspapers were full off the miserable attitude of the gangrenous Ground Authorities. It must have had some sort of effect as they must have handed out fun passes to the Barmy Army who were now together and in top form. Hence a wide from Brett Lee is loudly but not widely cheered. I checked with the caretaker of the school next to the Gabba this morning. He said that The GABBA let the school have their annual Sports event in the stadium, but that's all. He was loyal though. He resisted my attempts at seeing whether the Ground Authorities were brought in to help any children who had communication difficulties. It turned out to be the reverse. He said that the GABBA had given the school a lot of money.
I'd bought an umbrella today to influence the weather. The Barmies were waving theirs and singing 'Singing in the Rain' to influence the umpires. There were no fanatics. 'You're supposed to be at home. Shall we sing for you?' the BA sang. There's a partnership of 22. Gile has 4. Jones' middle stump goes. 326-7. The Barmies mimic Lee's exercises. The lady who gave me the radio said she had been staying in was it the the Stanhope Hotel? 'Gee' said an Aussie 'That's Posh'. 'Yes', she went on to say, 'That's where the Press are staying'.
'Get your shit stars off our flag' and 'God save YOUR gracious Queen' reigned over us. At last the TV lot worked out where the real entertainment was. Monty's face appeared on the big screen as the Musical Military chanted his name. I'm sure I saw Fletcher's red face behind him. The missus said later that the Barmies were constantly being showed. My 'Gravesend CC' flag wasn't shown. We've made drinks. Just! Gilo is out 346-8. 'Same old Aussies always cheating' they sang. 'Warney Warney send us a text.' The 350 comes up. I changed my sunglasses for my ordinary ones, as it's cloudy but the only drops are tears. Clark gets Hoggart. Almost curtains. I stayed for the aftermath. Zoe and Dave from EGCC? were hugging. Photos will be available one day. They are very much in love. The Barmies are still singing, though the music over the tannoy sounds quite good. I wish I could name it. Dave and Zoe will be able to tell you. I't will be 'their song'for ever and a day.
I couldn't get my missus to fly to Australia. I'll work harder for New Zealand 2008. What we need is a National Trust place to stop off at in Hong Kong to break the journey like we used to with the kids.We never used to stop at Motorway service stations to eat. Strictly diesel. She would always find a Stately Home to stop at with a garden to picnic in, a sort of Aire with Graces. One of her favourites is Killerton Gardens near Exeter in Devon. When the traffic is bad on the M5 we call in. We always call in. We’ve been round the house too. It didn’t cost us anything as we are members of The National Trust. It didn’t cost me anything either each and every day during the three terms I lived there in my first year at St Luke’s College. What a saving I would have made. If only I was aware of it at the time. I only used the garden for an occasional leak after my meat and one veg on a Sunday, or was it Tuesday?
Sir Richard Acland and his missus lived there and ran the place. He was also a lecturer at the college, probably to add a bit of class. He used to be a Labour MP at Gravesend, so there were a few connections. At dinner, Lady Anne used to talk about the evacuees from the East End that she put up and by the sound of it put up with during World War II. She said that all they wanted to eat was fish and chips. There’s the connection. I wasn’t meaning class; I lived next door to a Fish and Chip shop in Cornwall. Sir Richard had the graveyard slot of lecturing to the whole year group on three consecutive Saturday mornings giving a religious slant to the theory of Evolution. The least he could have expected was a decent Christian burial. The College had imposed a three line whip. Too many of the previous sex education semenars had been missed. A lot of the women had been late. Some of the boyos had come early. Some of the mature students who were always there didn’t come at all. The place was packed. Most of us couldn’t say three words of Latin let alone write three lines. Yes, the place did have pretensions, not to mention delusions of grandeur.
I took my son to look round the place a few years back. Exeter University was one of his choices for Sports Science. So the College did become grandeur. The various technical supports failed. The team had to do a power pointless off the cuff presentation. In other words they were pretending. So it still seems tin-pot. But like my cricket club I like tin-pot. My son wasn’t deluding himself though. He went to Canterbury. It must have been the cricket. I’d like to say that Sir Richard got a standing ovulation at the end of the first lecture but that would be to demean the man, but everyone did stand and it lasted for a full three minutes. ‘You just can’t help yourself!’ said the missus. We played a lot of sport at Killerton Hall. That was handy as you couldn’t get in the 10th team at the College as everyone was so good. The football pitch was near to the house. You had to clear the cows off the field first. No problem for Sir Richard. He would drive down to the far reaches of the estate and blow his trombone. The whole herd stampeded towards him to low for an encore.
He caught me unawares once. I was white washing the penalty spot as near as I could to the correct place, which wasn’t easy to locate because of all the cow pats in the area. This must have been where penalty shoot-outs were invented going by all the evidence of nervous exhaustion in the same spot. Anyway I had just put the odd hand print on the odd inquisitive cow like the aforementioned Ten Bears used to do on his horse and I was on my mate’s shoulders helping to put up the net when the trombone sounded. I know I’ve mentioned before about not mixing the species but the cows set off like Pavlov’s dogs. They were only beaten to the mark by my mate whose shoulders used to be below me. I hung on to that cross bar like nobody’s business. It was somebody’s business that I fell into however and this time it didn’t emanate from any cow. For once I could have done with those GABBa Ground Authorities!

Help is at hand

It's the Sunday of the Brisbane Test Match. Nine overs are gone. We haven't lost a wicket so they bring on Warney. The Aussie fans start to scream and shout. So does Warney. They and he want wickets. Well done Straussy! That's what we like to see. Compulsive viewing this compulsive hooking. You may not be captain Straussy, and I may be here without the missus with a gorgeous lady sitting two seats down, but we must all have a sense of responsibility. Isn't that right, Warney? Caught by the sub while Ponting is off the field no doubt sampling the catering that he's arranged for the extra day. Go on Freddie complain about the bringing on of specialist fielders.
Bell's gone now. 36-2. What were they? 181-1? I've joined in the text competition for the free lunchbox. I know there is no such thing as a free lunchbox. In fact I know that in the Gabba due to the Grouchy Ground Authorities there is no such thing as a lunchbox, but I filled in most of my details anyway. You text off your name, section and seat number to 1976442. I put Richie Benaud down as I thought that if I did win the Grievous Bodily Harm Ground Authorities would think twice about arresting Richie for being in possession of a large lunchbox. We saw somebody win the hamper yesterday. There were two glamorous goddesses who arrived with it together with a cameraman. The word is today that it will be two Aussie Gendarmes with a fingerprint kit. I looked at my phone and it said' Message not sent, try later' Sorry Richie, you'll have to get your own dinner.
The gorgeous lady two seats down persuaded me to go on the trip Monday night on the boat. She was very persuavive. She told me she was going. I was persuaded. The Barmies are reinvigorated, but so is Lee and he looks fast. The cops are in the crowd collecting beach balls. The one that looks like the one or was it the six? in The Prisoner seems to be eluding them. Zoe and Dave must have had a late night unless their flag is at a funny angle to me and I can't see it. 91-2, or putting it another way 91-3. Cookie's out. Hussey took the catch off you know who. You don't! Think of my text. Still no? Think of a giant lunch box. Still no?It rhymes with porn. OK then, credit to you. Think of the best spin bowler in the world. Collingwood hits a six down third man way. One of the Aussie Groundsmen catches it. It was a teriffic catch. I think I saw Ponting take his name to add to his list of specialist substitute fielders. 103-3 at drinks. 131-3 when Collingwood gets his 50. One of our guys said that he saw Ponting run towards Collingwood when he was out in the first innings to give him a good sledging. Rumours of a thunderstorm tomorrow spread like wildfire. 150-3 at lunch. Well done umpire. I couldn't see the infra red ball print on Pieterson's bat either so not out.
The session up to drinks has been so absorbing the blowup doll that replaced the beach balls hardly got a cheer. Perhaps it's a lost leader. Most if not all of us greys join in with the Barmy Army. The clapping is incredibly loud. You clap with the whole hand but it is really two fingers up to the Grizzly Ground Authorities. 230-3. P 65 C 90. I've had my flag up loads of times today. C goes for 96. 250 up. There is definitely a manana today. Well done C & P, you have given us some pride back. Flintoff decides that a lack of responsibility should not just be for other ranks and gets caught at long on by Langer. 276-5.
One of the guys who went to the pub at lunch time was worse for wear. He had slept for most of the final session. When it was all over he couldn't get up. What I couldn't understand that when it came to stumps his mate who had sat next to him all the time left him there. As I walked down the steps I helped him up and guided him down. He was a big lad and I would have struggled to hold him if he toppled. Luckily the boy was waiting at the bottom of the section where he had gone to remove his flag. Another one of our guys and the boy walked him to the bus. The driver almost booted him off. He didn't want him to be sick all over his seats. I reassured him that bile and bitterness only come out of certain cricket correspondent mouths not out of such babes. In the end he slumped into a seat and the gorgeous lady with whom we are going on the boat ride tomorrow went to sit with him to see that he would be OK. I told you that she was gorgeous. I have a photo to show that I speak the truth, but as you know I haven't the technological ability to be sure that it will take.
The young man got through the journey OK. He apologised profusely. No need. We've all been there and done it. Unlike him most of us have the puke coloured T-shirts to prove it. I might get myself rat-assed tomorrow. I can't think of a bette way to get aquainted with the gorgeous lady. And I've never been sea sick in my life. One of my cricketing mates was not so fortunate. His tendency to throw up on board ensured that we stayed in Llafranc near Paracetamol when all the families went for a trip around the bay in a glass bottomed boat. As I said my mate didn’t go as he felt a bit queasy and I didn’t fancy it as I felt in the mood for staring into a different sort of glass vessel.
We waved off the boating party with a ho ho ho and a bottle or two of what my mate called cervezas. We washed these down with one or two more when he suggested that we go to a Tapas bar. I of course misheard him and thought he’d said a ‘Topless bar’. The bar did overlook the beach and it was dead opposite the beach shower. You could imagine on a boiling hot day that there were many ladies cooling down their appendages in the refreshing spray thus compounding my misapprehension. We must have been sharing similar experiences with the boat trippers. Both parties were doubtless by now swaying gently amongst seafood though we were eating ours, and there would have been a little too much salt on theirs for my taste. I expect the only difference would have been that when they saw a topless lady combing her glistening wet hair she would have been sat on a rock with a fish tail and scales rather larger than the ones we were dropping down our throats like a couple of common non American navy seals.
Two of the ladies who had just showered, having put on sarongs a la David Beckham ambled up to the bar and sat down opposite us. They ordered their drinks in Spanish and took out some cigarettes. Thank God I was camping. It meant that I’d had to buy a lighter for the gas cooker. One of the ladies had leant across in that classic elbow on the table, chest protruding, pouting lips, legs crossed, two fingers clutching the cigarette pose. If I hadn’t have bought that lighter I would have put that 2000 pesetas note straight down her cleavage.Despite the fact that the lighter worked first time and I hadn’t actually spoken she said ‘You are English, No?’ It could have been that she had spotted my mate’s handkerchief with the knotted four corners that he used to wipe away the sweat that was building up on his forehead, probably due to the hot little thought processes that were going on just millimetres the other side of the skin he had just wiped. They were two ladies from Girona who were staying in an apartment opposite the crazy golf course just down the road from our campsite. Their names were Teresa and Anna. We took turns in ordering each other drinks. They showed us the sort of local specialities that our touristy eyes had not been able to see. It wasn’t really surprising as we had to rely on photographs and a waiter who hadn’t shown the high level of interest that he did subsequent to the arrival of the two ladies.
The climax was reached as we began to feed each other with our fingers on the pretext of ‘Have you tasted this? I’ve never tasted better except when my mate put a whelk into my mouth just as my eyes were closing in pleasure. Knowing him he had probably already received, tasted and rejected it via me. I made a mental note to offer him some of those Brazil nuts that I keep for special occasions after I have sucked the chocolate off. Luckily as it was in a public place it didn’t turn into a feeding frenzy amongst sharks. In my mind it was like being fed nectar by two humming birds Anna and Theresa. Then the boat came in and the bubble burst. I now accept that from an outsider’s point of view it was more like seeing two beached whales in their death throes with the last rites being administered by Santas Theresa and Anna in the form of seagulls pecking away at blubber.
‘We are not alone’, my mate said as if his script had been written by Steven Spielberg. Before I could arrange a foursome at crazy golf, the families had disembarked and had descended en mass demanding food, drink and introductions. A little overwhelmed the two Senoras made their excuses, promised to look out for us, and offered to pay their bit. We turned their offer down. They left and we didn’t come across them again, despite me and my mate becoming a familiar feature at the crazy golf course. Not that I ever got the hang of hole number six, where you had to overcome two mounds and then get the ball into a tight channel made more difficult by an overhanging bush.
I passed the photographic menu around and recommended the caracoles de mar. The trip in the glass bottomed boat most enjoyed, but some passengers had proved to be poor sailors including one young lad who had been sick while taking his turn in the viewing area. What views below that remained were suddenly not so attractive to those on board, and the families restricted themselves if that is the word to the sights of the rugged rocks and beautiful sandy bays that are a feature of this part of Spain.’ You missed out on some lovely sights. If you’d come with us you would have got a good feel of the area’ said the missus. ‘If that bloody boat had been half an hour later I would have had a good feel of something else’ I thought. But just like Tom the cabin boy, me and my mate said nothing.