Pressing Cricket Matters

15-0 as Cook gets the first four and the missus brings me a cup of tea. We are back from a map buying visit to Redon. We took ages to get there. We didn't have a map. The man in the Presse shop told us that it will rain until Thursday and that a good place to eat was the green restaurant down the road. The mademoiselle told us to come back in a demi heure.

As we had an hour to spare we went into the church to get out of the rain, like my parents and a few millions of others used to do in Ireland. In all this time of writing England have only got one further run 'in the gloom of the Rose Bowl with the floodlights on.' There was a bloke playing the organ ( In the church not the Rose Bowl! These days it is hard enough to bring in a trumpet voluntarily ) which gave the church an atmosphere belying its 11th century feel. ( More oxygen, less carbon dioxide, a tad more nitrogen and the rest in methane, due to farting out loud and running up to tap the nearest candlestick saying ' How's that for corkers.' being more commonly acceptable in those days. We lit a candle with a tapir as is the norm aujourd'hui. Just me mum and dad this time as all others are thankfully well.

The mademoiselle turned out to be of the English variety. She was from Bromley and had moved in to the restaurant business with her fiancee after negative experiences with teaching here in France. She had studied in Bangor where the missus had gone to college. I drank more wine than I should have while they reminisced. The steak frites was or were fine, the missus was not sure of the chicken curry. More Vesta than the Patak we are used to. C'est la vie avec Sag Aloo.

Prior hits a six just as I'm about to snide on him as an opener. More chicken chat between him and Zaheer, but no doubt not the sort of exchanges that the Bangor Belles engaged in. The missus had to drive back to the gite as I would have been over the limit. England are 40 with out loss.

165-1 as I come to. Belly and Cooky. Oceans of overs left. 199-1. Alec Stewart summarizes. 201 -1. They are freezing. End of the over. A four takes Cooky to 99. He gets it. His first century in ODIs. 222-2. Aggers refers to it as a Double Nelson. No wrestling jokes as you can't get a Half Nelson in cricket. In years to come HMS Associations will be more Mandela than Horatio, though hopefully never Andre or 'Ly The Elephant. Malcolm gives us the facts of Cooky's innings. Bill has retired from international one dayers (IODs) just like international cricketers have to doers one day.

Unlike International cricketers are supposed to do one of the Indians mis fields for a roasting. Stewart and Aggers don't spot that he did it on purpose as he was so cold. 230-2. It isn't cold here but it is grey and wet. I'm waiting for Pietersen or Bell to slice one. Not that I expect them to as B has got his eye in and P is too good. I only want it to occur as the missus has found a useful word in tranche which she wants to use in future markets. B gets his hundred. P almost gets a six. Neither is a tranche.

Five overs to go. I'll make a stew Stew as the 250 comes up, It's the chicken in the round carcass that we got at the market yesterday,along with the Fresh veg. We bought cinq bouteilles de local cidre doux for just over €2 a bottle. 'Local' being St Martin sur Oust. Within cycling distance if the weather clears, I get the gears sorted and we finish the five said bottles. I don't know why I told you all this Stew as you went off air just before I began. I wonder who will be on between innings. I hope I don't cause them a tear or two as I slice, sorry tranche up the onions.

Bell comes off Nelson with a single. Suddenly it's 269. Two overs to go. I'm looking forward to chopping up the onions. Not because I'm maudlin. It's because we have bought one of those small vegetable knives as we always do in the first French market we visit. Bell finally slices one. He gets a four next ball but then tranches one for two to go to 221. I hear the missus bemoaning the weather as she turns on the French telly. I hear the double chop chop of the speedy knife, as TMS tells me that the Shipping Forecast will come on as soon as the last ball is bowled. 287-2. Last ball. Only one. I'll listen out for Finistere. Shannon? Have I missed it? I must have. It can't be on it any more. Most said rain. Victor goes. No he's still there. Who was Simon?

There is an Isle Aux Pies just down the road. More magpies than poor bowling. Warney would be welcome there for his heritage rather than his cricketing abilities. We might go for a tranche when the weather improves. By the time I get the radio on the missus has seen three 'Weathers' all of which emphasize cloud rather than sun for a few days. It's back to Friday before they reverse. I've cleaned and scraped the potatoes and carrots, lest they feel out of it.

'Tout la Sport' belies its title and says nothing about the cricket. Well what do you expect? 'French and Spanish Cricket hasn't yet been published. There's a programme on tomorrow night that mirrors our old 'Treasure Hunt'. I didn't quite get the name. It was something 'Treasure'. It follows the same trusted format. A pair of buttocks and a helicopter. We'll be clueless as with our version but it won't stop me following the bot, I mean plot.

The missus is good at getting us around here, by sticking closely to the signs, as you can see by the photo so she'll be able to nudge me every now and then like Kenneth Kendall used to do if I get a bit lost. She finally switched off when a sort of 'French Neighbours' came on.

27-2 when I turn on radio 4. Aggers gets a bit of stick about a past 'A View from the Boundary' with Frederick Forsyth. He was reminded by Victor as 'The Day of the Jackal' is on BBC 1 ce soir. Too late for us even if we could get BBC on our French telly. Victor got told off for stirring it up. 'A barrel of laughs.' Aggers recalled. I can recall listening to it but I can't remember laughing like a hyena.

Aggers homes in on some streakers and got some more stick as Victor said that they had bikinis on. They didn't go onto the field of play. By the sound of it Aggers will be off soon to get a different view from the boundary. I take back all I said about not missing live cricket on the telly. Despite TMS's best efforts over the years Cricket is still a visual game. Tendulkar brings the lie to that by getting caught by Bopara, as a sunset appears in a gap in the clouds like the gap on the leg side that Tendulkar thought he had. If this is a day night game what time are the highlights at home? Soon by the sound of it as Cook catches Youvraj.

We got the Sunday papers on the ferry so I can look to find out and send the boy a text. Victor proving the point I made earlier said that the only thing that Cook did wrong was to look surprised. Victor Hugoes on to tell us that if the next ball was a dot ball it would be a double wicket maiden for Anderson. It wasn't and so it wasn't. What you miss 'Tout la Sport'. What you miss!

Cricket services

Can't be bad, we have settled at the Gite in Brittany, with the news of Hayley's pregnancy confirming that we are able get radio 4, which means that I'll be able to listen to the one dayers or twenty 20's which ever it is on Tuesday, always Tuesday, on good old long wave.

How will digital balls up my future cricket listening? If a DAB clock radio gets recommended by 'Which' what sort of service will I get? Will I be able to listen to 'The Morning Service' if I stay in bed, and will I be able to pick up 'World Service' when I go to bed early on a Sunday night when there's only boring ranting mind numbing phone ins on 5 and educational bollocks on 4? How will the world receive World Service abroad when we go digital? Will we sell them short?

I can hear you now Aggers, even though I haven't got a radio on. Broadband, mobile phone, digital TV channels. Well at the moment Aggers, I am sitting in the Gite's back garden watching the twilight go down on me hoping that the missus would follow suit. Just like with the missus, two buttons and a twirl and I'm there on my Nancy Roberts radio. No seriously folks, no dial ups, log ins, passwords, memory cards, downloads or pod casts. Yes I know reception is everything, and I know you think that if I was not receiving due to poor signals I'd be fuming about the lack of the digitalis variety and admitting that what I said earlier when I was venting my spleen and stoking up trouble was just a smokescreen. I don't care if I am fueling the raging controversy as I've carefully thought out an analogurythmic answer that will clear the airways of dross and extend in true British Empirical fashion the shipping forecast to the rest of the world.

Like Labour became New Labour, Long Wave would become Longer wave, and the shipping forecast would reach further shores (or just off them). Thus weather reports would go to all 11 or is it 12 or 13 Oceans of the world. What a Service? In addition the rest of the world will benefit from the ruminations of Blowers and his birds, not to mention those of Eddie Grundy and his cows, and we all know that the world will be a better place for that. E-mailers who would tell me that Eddie doesn't own any cows should be reminded that the birds don't belong to Blowers either. We already extend the forecast to some extent as the informative brochures in the gite tell us that Finistere is a region of Brittany and I've heard that being mentioned in previous forecasts.


Up bright and early. English time at least. I see they haven't lost that hour yet. We have! We've overslept. It's 9.30 and the missus is on the itch to get to the market at Redon. I was on the itch to get on something else, but needs must. On y va and I'll look for mal y pense later on. People have said that Brittany is just like Cornwall. Sure enough as soon as we stepped out of the door it started to rain. Never mind le buzzcocks we are on our vacances. At least we wouldn't get soaked in the rain fiddling with the key unlike previous occupants who wrote in the comments book that 'la porte est juste une peu dure a ouvrir.' as I WD'd it.

According to all who have been here the gite has come out with flying colours. 'C'est un gite que nous recommendenons sans hesiter a notre famille et a nos amis.' Moi aussie mate , moi aussie. That's aussie as in 'also' not Aussie as in antipodean, Osborne or Clark come to that. We set off to Redon and I waved at the first French farmer we saw who stared back incredulously. Before I had a chance to pass comment to the missus we almost hit the second one head on. We had forgotten to sing' Always drive on the right side of the road' to the tune of 'Always look on the bright side of life.' Thankfully neither of us were driving fast. He waved in the same vein as I had to the first one. The missus said that I had poo pooed the idea of getting one of those things that plug into the cigarette lighter that tell you to drive on the right. It was almost her turn to pooh pooh herself this time, but luckily our guardian angels were about and we survived to tell the tale.

We do it every time we go to France. We like a traditional holiday. Hopefully this will be the last time though I don't mean that in a terminal sense. It's a shame you can't plug in your guardian angel into the cigarette lighter as maybe they would have coughed up the information a little earlier. We contacted 'Which' to see whether we could borrow a Sat Nav to test out in Europe, but they must have lent them all out already. If I do get one I'll look for a feature that gives out various warnings. You know like 'Remember your wellies, you are going to Brittany' and 'Have you got clean underwear on now?' The boys should have come. There are fishing places all around as per usual in France. They could have bivvied five minutes away and fished all night. A carte de peche for a 15 day period is €30 which isn't bad as a day's permit is €10.

We cycled up and down the Oust or Arz (Wasn't he a golfer?) looking for spots for me to fish, Blowers to bird and for the missus to yak, read her book, write the postcards and paint the scene for posterity. No good now as the rain doth fall, the ink and paint would run, the cricket would be off and it wouldn't be just the squid who would be damp. No King pairs, King Fishers, Fisher Kings, King prawns, King Kong (I'm reading a book too) or anything fucKing else!