Torchy Torchy the Battery Ploy

I did hear that a snatcher turned his attention to a hotter property in Gravesend this morning. Let's hope that he got his fingers burned and gets the appropriate roasting. I certainly hope he didn't and doesn't get away with it.

I was in the town centre this morning to pick up my Sky wireless router that they promised to give me free of charge after not too much fuss so I can see films anytime, which is a plus. Anyway it was buzzy and busy. I didn't hear any untoward planning, maybe because of all the whistles being blown.

Despite one of my ex-pupils carrying it in the town centre we had other plans to amble down the road from our house past an old flame's house to see the torch.

I called in to the Old Folks Home in Darnley Road to see if Gaynor Kingston( some of you may remember him from Gravesend Cricket Club) wanted to go down to see the torch. He did. I picked up a folding chair as all that batting over the years has given him a bit of a dodgy back. Otherwise he seemed in great form and off we strolled.

The torch bearer (See Photo) seemed happy and excited as did everybody else. There was even some enthusiasm still evident amongst the battery of also rans and promoters, but as they are getting to the end of a long journey you can forgive them running out of juice. Maybe the torch snatcher had drained their energy.

The freebies weren't exactly flowing. A limited edition of coke bottles was all that was on offer. Hardly the real thing though I did get one and gave it to a young lad who was reticent about going to the front of the crowd. When the Tour de France went through Gravesend a few years back many more hats and flags were offered free of charge. Of course the exchange rate is different now apres le deluge. I didn't have time to ask the flag seller 'What's your best price?' I didn't see him sell any.

Is it true that they were waiting to get to the leafier outskirts of Gravesend before the Corporates emerged from their buses to offload their riches? To see the Lloyds coach was a bonus now that they are Co-operating

I couldn't get over how friendly and happy the Police Motorcyclists were. Has Theresa May promised them a pay rise for bailing out the Security for the Olympics or are they just trying to Court favour again after getting their fingers scalded by the kettling, or was it Sunburn?

Seb seemed to get away with it on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning. He sounded like the politician he is. We all want a successful and safe London Olympics. But it would have been nice to be there, to be part of the real thing. I should have asked for 'Hands up if you've got a ticket'. I bet there wouldn't have been more than a handful.

I'm proud to be part of Gravesend. I think the local community here is great. I enjoy being part of Gravesend CC. Like so many I'm happy to be a bit on the side part in the torch relay and unlike the LOWLIFE and milk snatchers of this world I'm okay with staying on the sidelines. Ironically enough like so many of the people I talked to today I do get the feeling of being sidelined as far as Olympic Tickets are concerned. But it's okay as like the rest of the masses I've seen the light and won't be storming the Bastilles. (sic).

A sop? A ploy? Probably. No worries, I can sit on the couch and see it all on TV eating my Walker's potato crisps in a plain brown bag. Good to see Boris so 'ebullyent' (sic) about it all. Oh Yea. Me? I'm happy to wait until a few more whistles are blown to 'Hear all about it'.

Skeletons in the Cupboard

It was on my son's school's cricket tour to Cork City. We were due to play 3 games against Cork City's Presentation College, Cork CCC and Munster CC respectively. The weather was reasonably kind and only one of the matches was abandoned to rain. None of the opposition sides missed out as it was the same 11 youngters who turned out on all three occasions.

In the first game our side was batting and I was umpiring. My son pushed one to leg and they took a quick single. The other umpire signalled and shouted ‘One short’ and the total went down by one, even though it hadn’t gone up by one in the first place. One of the opposition kids came up to me and with a smile on his face he said ‘Only in Ireland!’ ‘Don’t worry;' I said 'we’ll get it in singles.’

I hope I’m known as a fair umpire and give it as I see it but I was almost tempted by the most melodic and appealing of Irish accents ‘Now how will that be then?’ with my son plumb in front. ‘There’s no English blood in my veins either’ I explained to him, at the end of the over, with the boy's grandparents coming from 20 miles down the road. Even though they are both dead like WG Grace who has played on The Mardyke at Cork CC they would have come to see him bat not me umpire. Well I said I was Irish didn’t I?

One of our tour visits was to Cork City Gaol. It wasn't exactly the place for a barrel of laughs but that was what was heard from each group as they rolled out of a particular cell on the first floor. Not funny for me or my son. As I entered I saw my uncle and his great uncle Cornelius Kelleher(pictured) looking like a corpse serving out his sentence of indefinite duration for being constantly drunk and disorderly.

As parents do, I took the opportunity both to remind my son of the perils of the demon drink but also to reassure him that the DNA in his genes was not entirely sourced from his Great Uncle Cornelius, now twice removed.

At a previous Gravesend Cricket Club AGM the 3rd team captain praised the boy for his bowling abilities. 'It's nice to see that Mike has passed on his cricketing genes' he said. As I was beginning to glow, not just with the effect of the couple of pints I had sunk, he followed up with 'It is a pity that he didn't keep any for himself.'

The boy now a man scored 110 at the Bat & Ball on Saturday. I couldn't have been more proud. I had however to shake him by the hand without looking him in the eye as I couldn't co-ordinate my movements, not just with the effect of the couple of pints I had sunk but because of the lingering pain in my neck caused in my successful attempt to take a catch in the deep at Telston and Mereworth Cricket Club earlier that afternoon, confirming skeletal remains of this particular cricketing gene.

We lost the match with a mid order collapse , but T & M adjusted their bowling attack to make a game of it which to me is why I so much enjoy non league cricket. The tea they provided was fantastic and we thanked them for allowing the ladies to join in the feast after returning from their jaunts around some nearby South East Open Studios. Telston and Mereworth CC and their Fix Sec, Chris Keeler have a reputation for producing a fixture card that contains much that will amuse and this year's is no exception with its hilarious advertisements.

They also have The AA's (drinking sort) phone number on the back which could prove to be personally very useful if Uncle Cornelius twice removed passed on more of his DNA than I initially thought.

Not just a 'Fenton!' Deja vu

Like all good deja vues, I've been there before. It's an hour to go before I make another despairing attempt to get hold of some worthwhile affordable Olympic tickets.

It's an hour to go before (well it is about deja vu) we are told that rain has delayed the start of the 'second' which hopefully will be the first day at Edgbaston. The gusting wind has blown over the sweat peas and the slugs have finished off most of the runner beans and half of the cucumbers while I was distancing myself from the Jubilee in the Brecon Beacons.

I'll admit last weekend was a significant one. I dropped a catch in the deep off the captain's bowling against Locksbotton Sat 2nds. As that was the only cricketing skill that I thought I had retained, it was a moment to contemplate retirement from the activity of the game itself.

The forgiving captain ( or was it a vengeful one? ) suggested I bowl with four overs to go with them approaching 200.

I took a wicket, bowled off his pads, first ball and only went for 8 runs in the two overs so I decided to make myself available for selection for our next game against Telston and Mereworth, and duly selected myself. I hope the Cherry Tree in their car park doesn't get blown down today as the sale of their cherries usually pays for our match fees.

The game at Locksbottom was enjoyable. They are a pleasant lot. Okay they beat us easily enough but we made a reasonable effort with the bat in reply, with one of our U16 Colts who we included because he has had a shaky start to the season, playing really well which gave me ten times more satisfaction than my first baller.

As I write this, my poor lady wife is sitting in the A & E at Darent Valley Hospital waiting for them to confirm whether or not she broke her rib on the trek to Table Mountain on Monday Bank Holiday (or was it Tuesday Bank Holiday?) We only live 10 minutes away, she's got my digital radio that she bought for me to listen to the cricket and she has a hands free device for her mobile in case they plaster her up from head to toe.

She didn't go to the Neville Hall Hospital in Abergavenny where they saved her life 33 years ago after being knocked down by a car on Llangynidr Bridge as she expressed the commonly shared belief of 'What can they do about a broken rib? You just get on with it.' I hope she is able to tune to Radio 4, otherwise her ribs will be giving her jip as they are tickled listening to Phil Tufnell's jokes on TMS.

The circumstances of the injury causing fall she experienced mirrored what can be seen on the 'Fenton!' Utube feature, except our dog is a Bichon Frise, the deer were sheep and Brecon Beacons is Richmond Park. It wasn't a field but there were sheep dotted around and the dog should have been on the lead. As we went around a dry stone wall corner we came face to face with 3 sheep. They took fright and bolted. Not deliberately wishing to mix up the species Fenton, sorry Tess, didn't give a monkeys for our calls and hared off.

lizzie, fearing for the lives of the sheep and for Tess in case of any trigger happy shepherds being present repairing their dry stone walls, made a grab slipped and fell landing on our new Nikon Coolpix camera recently bought from Tesco Direct with Clubcard points still in its ill fitting pink case that we couldn't be assed to return.The ill fitting case saved the camera but not Lizzie's rib which Darent Valley confirmed to be cracked after a two hour wait and without the need for an X-Ray.

It's an ill fitting wind. We don't need to worry Tescos about the wrong case as it's damaged, and we don't have to think any more as regards what to get as a present for our son's birthday as The Tackle Shop is just down the road from the hospital and we knew he needed a new set of scales. The treatment? Same as we prescribed, except you need tablets for better pain relief. This helps you breathe properly thus lessening the chance of infection.

I don't believe in private medicine either but the least you could do in return for the passing on of this helpful information is to click on the adverts to earn us a few bob just in case the Government does take away our right to free subscriptions. My eventual dive to catch Tess had a similar outcome to the one at Locksbottom CC the Saturday before. I took heart from that occasion, tried a different approach and trapped her lbw. (Leg before wall).

There being 'no prospect of any play at Edgbaston today' turned out to be true.

There being 'no prospect of me getting any affordable Olympic Athletic tickets' turned out to be true.

A great shame as I've been saving my last two year's lots of Heating Allowance for this.

Only Joking. But not about Seb and the LOWLIFE Shambolic Committee continuing to con the Great Ticketless British Public.

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.