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.