Bubbles and Sods

If I'm prepared to show how I cope with domestic bliss then Seb and the LOWLIFE Committee et al can own up to their neo Whitehall Farce they are putting us through only to turn our dreams into the Pipe Variety as we somehow knew would be the case.

Learning a lesson from yesterday's disappointment I adjusted my strategy. Dead on 11am I searched the London 2012 website for Events. Equestrian Jumping at Greenwich Park was the target. They said it would take 15 minutes to check if the tickets that were available at 11am were available. They told me at 11.15am that the tickets I'd applied for were not available. I tried again for a different day upping my price ceiling. 12 minutes to wait this time before I was told that these were not available either. I tried a couple more variations, but the reduced searching times and the disappearance of all but the most expensive tickets told me not to bother any more.

It wasn't unlike the way in which the film 'Jason and the Argonauts' depicted how the Cruel LOWLIFE Greek Gods played Olympus games with the mere mortals. In this game you have to hold on to a soap bubble for 15 minutes without it bursting. Only then will the bubble reveal its prize - Olympic Tickets. Like all good scams there isn't actually a prize i.e. there are no tickets available, or only such a small proportion compared to 'corporates' as to be negligible.

Seb and the LOWLIFE Ticket Masters need to watch out that their Fat Cat Bubble doesn't blow up in their faces. In my student days I was trying to upgrade a time honoured hydrogen experiment from suds to bubbles in the deep recesses of a laboratory prep room. Similar to the time wasting in the photo but with a bit more excitement and daring that goes hand in hand with younger years.

I made the hydrogen in a large conical flask with zinc and dilute hydochloric acid. A delivery tube from the flask dipped in and out of a beaker containing soap solution producing sizeable hydrogen filled soap bubbles that rose vertically into the air. Using a wooden splint you could set light to the bubbles which 'popped' with a yellow flash.

Like the LOWLIFE Committee I got too greedy. I produced a huge bubble; one that quivered and squirmed at the end of the tube but stubbornly held on. It became bigger and bigger but still refused to budge despite the pressure. In the end I put the lighted touch-paper to the bloated bubble. It was the flask that blew up sending glass shards to all corners of the room. I made a mental note that I only had eight lives left and would leave this particular demonstration to the history rather than the chemistry lessons.

Unpleasant sight as it will be I so hope that Seb and the LOWLIFE Committee get caught with their trousers down.

Have we got the guts?

The significance of Lizzie's latest pose will have to wait as I need to go into training to prepare for my next and probably last chance of getting hold of some Olympic Tickets. Only 40 minutes to go. I didn't apply yesterday as weightlifting and even beach volleyball don't press any of my buttons, and I'm afraid Seb and the LOWLIFE Committee won't be able to recreate yesterday's tension in their football unless they relay a replay of the 1966 World Cup Final on the big screens.

Okay, I will be happy to digest my tasteless words in Golden Hindsight if Psycho is seen punching the air after his team wins the gold medal for Britain. Having been to Boris' London Prepares Series, my inclination is to go for the Track Cycling or the Swimming, as the venues themselves together with the atmosphere created were sensational, unlike Boris' Island where London prepares to empty its guts all over the Thames Estuary merely to help promote Boris' ambition to become the next King of England instead of Charles.

We've actually got a game of cricket for next Saturday. The wonderful John Harley who at a stroke revolutionised fixture finding has arranged for us to play Hartley Country Club 6ths at Eynsford. I'll check the Satnav's proposed route to DA4 0HA as that Ford of theirs must be a raging torrent by now with all this drought. Must go as it's Olympic Ticket picking time. Visa at the ready.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

What an experience Seb. It was like being in an immigration type queue at Boris' Heathrow Airport trying to buy budget airline tickets to replace your cancelled two week holiday only to find that when you get to the desk a jobsworth directs you to the back of another queue which you join only to find the same thing happens again and then again and again.

With your interest and perseverence only being maintained by virgin sirens in red uniforms as you finally get to the front of the queue a fortnight later, the person at the desk you reach tells you that the only tickets available are £950 pounds each, with Stansted as the last remaining destination.

I don't want to, couldn't anyway because of the hosepipe ban and indeed wouldn't because of my nature throw cold water onto your Olympic Torch itinerary Seb, but if I were you I wouldn't get the LOWLIFE Committee to get involved in the organisation, as things are bound to go belly up and the torch like me will not get to light up the Olympic Park at all.

I fear that the one legacy of London 2012 that will remain in my mind, Boris and Seb, is the fact that my daughter and her partner have been asked to get out of their flat near Victoria Park E35, despite being the tenants to die for, by the landlord so that 'His mother can stay for the Olympics'.

If you believe that you will believe the rest of the promises about London 2012 being for the ordinary person. Where did I go wrong? Perhaps I should apply for some of those parenting vouchers from Boots to find out.

Gutted? Of course I am. Over the top? Sorry Sirs, we don't do that for the likes of you any more, and it's not a matter of not having the guts to do it.

There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Not so I'm afraid. We struck gold with Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Fortunately we weren't attacked by the bronze statue further down the road. Instead he told me that The Great Ticketless British Public would soon become a misnomer.

The LOWLIFE E-Mail came today. It was more like a political manifesto monumentally praising itself for the fulfilment of its promises. It told me that I could enter the second phase of applications on Sunday as I was unsuccessful in the original application and I didn't apply for the second. Not quite the case. I seem to remember their website crashing for the latter preventing me from applying.

Notwithstanding Friday's fait accompli that the 47 000 Athletic tickets will be gone before my leg starts, nor the fact that I am unable to remind them of the impossibility of logging in at the crucial times as it is a no reply no return White Rabbit E-Mail, I intend to remain positive.

I will let my non-athletic fingers do the walking on Sunday provided they don't get bruised in my dropping, sorry I must be positive, in my taking of any catches at Eltham CC's non waterlogged pitch at SE9 2EL on Saturday.

I'd like to thank the ECB for letting us know about the second hand Ark that Lizzie inspected (See Photos) on Monday. She thinks it will fit the bill to transport Gravesend CC Shrimpers to and from away matches easily enough and reckons that the Captain's Cabin is perfect for post match analysis with the natty table specially designed to prevent the beer glasses from sliding off.

Hence if there are any villages in Kent that can offer our weak to medium side a game for Saturday 19th May please let me know as soon as possible so we can set sail.

The Late Cut

Like all good fixture secs, I am awaiting to respond to the expected Thursday phone call from our weekend opponents informing me that their pitch is waterlogged. Ironically Gravesend CC 5ths (Medium to weak, away games only) don't have a game scheduled for May 19th which no doubt will be the first Saturday dry enough to play.

As the number of readers of my last post has flagged, the veg patch is too squelchy to dig and I have already finished readjusting the sticking front door lock back to its winter settings I have nothing better to do but blog.

I wouldn't have minded bowling up the hill at Pluckley last Saturday as they have a park bench under overhanging branches just where deep fine leg would be to a right hand bat. Perfect to rest on before your next over.

There is something satisfying about being a bowler, having done your bit and then not doing another thing in the game yet appearing to play a full and active part, if you can call walking forward and back then crouching down with cupped hands 'active'.The pleasure is playing in a game but not always having to partcipate. Anathema to certain industrious captains, of course, but I have found this periodic inactivity something to savour.

Although I used to play for the school football team, I much preferred the games in class PE lessons. Most of the kids in my class were either crap at or not interested in football. You could lean by the goalpost talking to the keeper or to any other non combatants shivering in your own penalty area waiting for one of the opposing team to come towards you with the ball. Inevitably he'd overkick it or lose control, so you could boot the ball up the other end and have a few more minutes in which to switch off.

The PE teacher eventually twigged and moved me to inside left. In the long run I wasn't too disappointed as I developed quite a good 'Alan Gilzean' type glancing header. You know, where you use the speed and direction of the ball to deflect it goalward with very little effort, or pain come to that. As a token of my appreciation I headed the winning goal in the staff match that season. My favourite cricket shot? The late cut.

The wife and I were meandering near Covent Garden in London on Tuesday. I was recovering from the Lucian Freud exhibition. I happened to mention to her that the Bat & Ball, Gravesend would be a good place to position one of the Olympic Games Defence Missile launchers as it would come in handy if Boris' Island was ever built when this statue (See photo) came alive and put a knife to my wife's throat. I asked him whether The Great Ticketless British Public should expect a similar response every time a word of criticism was uttered against Seb and the LOWLIFE committee.

He said no, but if the wife dressed up again as an Aussie Cricketer like she did half a dozen blogs ago, he'd be back.

P.S. The game's off.