Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
Everything I want to say about this matter is covered in the King Cricket piece that I wrote up in my capacity as Ged Ladd.
Alex “King Cricket” Bowden was clearly taken with the piece, as I submitted it on 21 March 2024 and it went up on King Cricket less than a month later.
Just in case anything ever happens to the King Cricket website, here is a scrape of that piece.
Back in mid September, I sat next to Amal at a 50th anniversary bash for Saddlers’ Scholars. Amal had been part of the very first batch of such scholars, while I had been part of the very second batch.
Naturally conversation got around to cricket and naturally Amal and I ended up arranging to have a net at Lord’s for old-times sake a couple of months later.
Everything I want to say about that evening was captured in a King Cricket report on the matter, published soon after. (Less than a year is “soon after” in King Cricket terms):
If something ever befalls the King Cricket site, you might click this scrape instead to read that report.
Amal’s recollection was pretty spot on, if this extract from the Alleyn’s Scribblerus 1974 is anything to go by. For some reason, Colin Page doesn’t mention Amal carrying his bat for 0* -can’t imagine why not. But apart from that…
Actually the visit on 30 August started off as a real tennis match in the morning, in which “The Coley Kids” (which sounds like a 1960s Saturday morning pictures series) took apart me and my doubles partner Andrew Hinds.
Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.
Andrew and I consoled ourselves with a light lunch at The Ivy and then watched The Hundred women’s match together, before Andrew sloped off to Vicarage Road while I stayed on and watched most of the men’s match…
…before ambling home before the end.
Pretty much everything that Janie and I want to say about finals day has been said in our (Daisy and Ged’s) King Cricket match report:
(If anything ever goes awry with the above links, click here instead).
We witnessed the whole of the women’s match and bailed out about 30 balls before the end of the men’s match, which turned out to be a closer finish than we anticipated. Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.
Chilly Ginger Beer On Day Four
Pretty much everything I want to say about Day Two of the Platty Joobs Test has latterly been published on the King Cricket website – click here or below.
If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, you can read that piece here.
We had a very enjoyable day. It was bright and not all that cold.
I had also bought Janie a guest ticket for Day Four – she likes to see the end of a test match and Day Four is often that. We could always pop back on the Monday if need be.
On this occasion, we knew there would be a result that day – the only question was precisely when would that be.
We got to the ground early to secure good seats although not many people turned up on a dank day to see a much shortened day of cricket.
As it turned out, England batted with such purpose the match was completed within 25 overs.
Janie thought the action was tremendous value for money…which it was…not least because the ECB deemed it to be a full refund day.
Here’s a link to the scorecard and all the CricInfo resources.
It was a strange period; the height of summer in regular times but the autumn of the pandemic, as it were.
The government had signalled a possible “relaxing of pandemic restrictions” for towards the end of June, but the highly infectious delta variant of Covid 19 led to the deferral of that “freedom day” until 19 July.
There was much re-jigging of diaries and arrangements in the weeks leading up to and following the revised date.
For the most part, Janie and I carried on doing what we had been doing during partial lockdown: working, volunteering and playing tennis.
The plan was for me and Janie to go with Fran & Simon on Monday 12 July, but plans have a habit of going awry. The weather forecast for the Monday was awful and indeed it was heaving down with rain in Ealing.
Janie and I abandoned all hope of going to the game by mid afternoon, despite the fact that the rain was mysteriously dodging Northwood and play was taking place beneath leaden skies.
I’m rather glad we did decide to bale out of going, as I learnt the next day that it took people from Ealing/Acton way a couple of hours to get home due to the flash floods.
Simon ended up watching some rather good cricket solo on the Monday, while I ended up doing similar on the Tuesday.
I had arranged to play real tennis at Middlesex University early on the Tuesday morning and went on from there to MTS for my first sight of live county cricket since September 2019.
Social distancing was still the order of the day, so I sat in a reserved area and was suitably reserved.
We were allowed to stroll a bit, which enabled me to encounter some of “the usual suspects”, such as Barmy Kev and Jeff Coleman, who for some obscure reason were bemoaning Middlesex’s poor play and poor luck this season.
I tried to cheer myself up by reading The Economist, which for some obscure reason was bemoaning the economic devastation caused by the global pandemic.
Middlesex were in a bit of a hole second dig, so I do understand why people were pessimistic, especially as Middlesex had been snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory all season. Still, I was strangely optimistic about Middlesex’s position given my previous experiences of seeing teams bat last at MTS.
For once, I called it right – click here for the match scorecard .
Janie had hardly met any of her new Samaritans colleagues before, other than in an “on shift” context, as she had done all of her training by Zoom and they had not been able to meet socially during lockdown.
So the “party in the park” idea seemed to be the ideal opportunity to meet some more people…
…which indeed it was. It was just a shame that, apart from Janie and Ilkay, whom Janie had already befriended and met, no-one from their traning group attended that night.
Still, Alison Shindler (coincidentally an old friend of mine from BBYO, as reported here) was there with her husband Joe, which was fun. We met some other very nice Samaritans volunteer folk including some of the Ealing grandees.
Janie was so late back from work, however, that we missed the entertainment for the evening, Marie Naffah, who was doing 50 gigs in 50 days, apparently. We arrived just in time to say goodbye to her, so for now the video below will have to do.
In the end we only got to see half a double-header, as the weather closed in after the women’s match. What was predicted to be the possibility of some light showers turned out to be torrential rain and flash floods which caused havoc around London.
Mercifully, my weather app tipped me off before the weather got too bad.
I have reported the event for King Cricket, click here or below:
Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, a scrape of that article can be found here.
Despite shortened event due to the weather, we rather enjoyed ourselves. I had arranged to return for the midweek games myself and Janie was scheduled to join me on Finals Day, so we anticipated that we’d still get our fill of The Hundred.
Janie and I had an early game of tennis, then met Simon at lunchtime/early afternoon at Radlett. I chatted briefly with Mike O’Farrell and others, holding up the process of finding some decent seats and settling in for some old-fashioned List A 50-overs-a-side cricket.
The weather sort-of smiled on us until mid to late afternoon, when a shower threatened to end proceedings but in any case was enough to scare us away from an exposed ground such as Radlett.
After the rain, a tense Duckworth-Lewis finish, which Janie and I watched on the stream at home. As has been the way this season, Middlesex were “close but no cigar”.
In my desire to really check out The Hundred tournament, I had reserved a member’s place for myself at both of the midweek events at Lord’s. This was the first of them.
I enjoyed the women’s game from the pavilion terrace, where I was sitting right in front of the assembled rockets (as it were) while they waited to do their thing.
I was delighted to be invited to help choose the walk-on music for some of the players, although I didn’t recognise many of the bangin’ hits on offer.
I had planned to take in the men’s game from the sanctuary of the Upper Tavern Stand, but just before the end of the women’s game I was joined by Alvin, who then popped out to make a call before I had the chance to tell him my plans. So I watched the first innings of the men’s game from the pavilion, with Alvin, then relocated to the Tavern Stand for the final innings.
London Spirit did not do very well in these matches…
Oh well.
Long in the planning, it was super to see Caroline, Alan and Jilly after such a long time.
In fact, last time we saw Caroline & Alan for a meal, Janie and I were still full of Japan, as it were.
It’s summer, so Janie went for wild Alaskan salmon as the main, after some nibbles in the garden.
The afternoon and evening flew by, surprising us all when we realised that it was getting dark. That’s what tends to happen these days.
An opportunity to watch some more cricket and get some reading done, I took in the second of the midweek The Hundred double-headers.
I decided to watch the women’s match from the Upper Allen stand and the men’s match from the Upper Tavern.
The women’s match was probably the best game (i.e. the most exciting game of cricket) I saw all tournament – see the scorecard here.
The men’s game probably the least exciting.
Oh well.
Our first venture in a cab and our first indoor event since lockdown. Shirley was very keen that we join the event, as we (along with so many of their friends) had been unable to attend the funeral during lockdown.
Grace had organised the event wonderfully well. Mosimann’s is a stunning venue and was well suited to the occasion.
The speeches were heartfelt and moving, but it was mostly a party, which was, apparently, what Pete wanted. Pete usually got what he wanted in life, I believe, so he was certainly going to have what he wanted in this regard.
In July 2021 Janie and I went to the first day at Lord’s of the controversial new domestic cricket tournament, The Hundred.
I wrote up the event for King Cricket:
Should anything go awry with the King Cricket website, you can see that write up here instead.
Not much else to say, really, other than the fact that the rain that we dodged resulted in flash flooding and all sorts in West London, so I think we did the right thing to abandon the ground when we did.
Here’s a link to the scorecard for the women’s match we saw.
The above logo used with the kind permission of King Cricket
For many years I have written occasional guest pieces for the amusing cricket website, King Cricket. Most pieces are written by webmeister Alex Bowden; a fine writer and good bloke.
My contributions tend to be in the following, especially whimsical, King Cricket categories:
I realise that I have just generated a small list; a list of King Cricket categories.
But that is not the list I want to talk about today. No.
I keep a list of my submissions; I call it my King Cricket Article Log.
That’s the list I want to talk about. There are 83 articles on the list at present; 75 published and eight pieces awaiting publication.
I could simply cut, paste and read all the article titles…but I don’t think that would be much fun for you, or me.
Instead, I have written a highlights list, with explanations, which might be an entertaining story in its own right:
Alex Bowden often publishes my pieces “fashionably late”; not knowing when they’ll be released is part of the fun for me. That’s why I keep a canonical list of my King Cricket submissions.
As the brief for this ThreadZoomMash was to write a story based on a list, I think I owe it to the evening’s central conceit to review the evening in the form of a list:
We had a great chat about each other’s pieces after the readings, which made for a very enjoyable gathering, as always.
In February 2021 I took a stroll and listened to The Ridiculous Ashes podcast while so doing. I wrote up the “event” in the style of a King Cricket match report.
In June 2021 King Cricket published that piece:
If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, you can find that piece here instead.
Until this week, Ogblog has been entirely free of Covid-19. Of course, the pandemic, which began in Wuhan in late 2019, has been well underway across the world for weeks now.
Increasing social distancing restrictions, some recommended, some enforced, have been rolled out in the UK in the past few days. I needed to do one or two things at the office yesterday; I doubt if I shall visit the City again for a while.
So, 19 March, I woke up to the new normal. Virtually normal.
My old mate Rohan Candappa has come up with a cracking idea to help his friends in the performing arts. The above picture link takes you to the Facebook site for the Lockdown Theatre – this link takes you to Rohan’s initiating statement.
Basically Rohan is going to produce a short performance piece each week, for several weeks, for which he is paying performers a modest but much-needed fee. initially at least this will be free to view.
Rohan does good stuff, so I commend this to Ogblog readers for artistic reasons but I also commend the communitarian and “new normal” thinking behind the idea.
So, I spent some time promoting the idea through my personal channels and writing to Rohan.
Where it will lead I don’t know. Rohan doesn’t know. None of us know where the Covid-19 pandemic will lead society either. We have to get used to “don’t know where this is going”. Don’t know but let’s give this a try is part of the new normal.
Good luck and good speed, Rohan. If I can help with this initiative, I shall.
Then I spent several hours doing actual work from home, much as I have done, remotely, most of the time in the past 25+ years. Just more video conferences and Skypes than previously. New normal.
At lunchtime, I took a break from work and checked in eagerly to King Cricket.
King Cricket’s response to the new normal, which in part means that there is no actual live cricket when there should have been, has been to try something a bit silly. He has picked an “all time greats” Sri Lanka side to play an “all time greats” England side in a simulation of the cancelled test matches in Sri Lanka.
He is going to run his simulation of each day of the two cancelled tests on the requisite day and write some humorous end of day reports for each day. The King Cricket community chime in with comments.
I showed Janie the Day Three report (a few hours before writing this Ogblog piece). I had to explain cricket simulation games to her…
…did Janie not know that I had the 1999 version? She and I were long since together back then, although I suppose the game never travelled from my place to hers during my brief infatuation with it…
…and I also had to explain King Cricket’s match reporting idea and the fact that many readers seemed to be enjoying the idea.
You have all gone completely mad, she said.
Then I did some more work (including those extra Skypes and video conferences) until I was done with work.
Then I had some dinner before hunkering down to a virtual show.
Just in case anyone doesn’t know about my past involvement with and long-standing love for the 40-year-old comedy show NewsRevue…
…I suggest you click one or both of the above links.
Anyway, social distancing means no live shows and stuff for the foreseeable future, as well as no live sport, so the NewsRevue team decided to perform the last show before closure behind closed doors and upload the video for people to watch, from scheduled show time onwards.
I watched the show around about showtime – actually about 22:00 – sat in bed after eating a supersized plate of yummy pasta left over from earlier in the week – thank you Janie.
If you want to see the show, it is embedded below.
Highlights for me were the toilet roll song, “I Love Toilet Roll” at 8:15 and also a wonderful Nicola Sturgeon song at 11:45; a very impressive singing impersonation I thought.
Perhaps not the strongest run ever, but it is quintessentially NewsRevue.
Note to self – do not make a habit of sitting in bed watching a streamed video on the TV while you are digesting your food – the food does not digest well in that posture – especially if you nod off in said posture before straightening yourself out. No need to explain in detail to the readers what can go wrong in these circumstances.
Yes, the end of such a novel day, the virtual new normal, is a time for reflection…and in my case, refluxion.
Let’s be honest about this. Lancashire were already guaranteed promotion and Middlesex were already guaranteed to have missed out on promotion this year before I set off on this trip.
Lesser folk might have bailed out.
Not me. Nor Dumbo, The Suzuki Jimny.
Off we went, at about 7:30 on the Monday morning, arriving at Old Trafford around 11:30 after but one pit stop.
The main car parks were full, so Dumbo had to spend the day at the back of the largest temporary stand in Europe, still there after the Ashes test but decommissioned for this county match.
I then head off to the 1864 Suite to join the other green-bookers – very few from either county that day as it happens – perhaps because this day would have been Day Five of the Oval test, had it not ended in four days.
Splendid hospitality as always, not least from Keith Hayhurst.
I thought Middlesex bowled pretty well on a moderately responsive pitch – although I didn’t witness the first hour, new ball, bowling. But then Middlesex’s day one batting. Oy!
Here is a link to the scorecard for the whole match.
One Middlesex green-booker was so ashamed at the end of day one, he removed his Middlesex tie as he left…to walk the 20-30 yards to the Old Trafford on-campus hotel.
Me? I’d arranged a salubrious AirB’n’B at Stretford/Old Trafford borders:
Tuesday was another fine weather day. Dumbo and I rode out to the Manchester Tennis and Racquets Club – see Ogblog reports passim, e.g.:
A session with Darren Long – very helpful in learning to aim at the tambour with my right arm from the service end and also how to respond to such a shot off the tambour with my left arm from the hazard end. This paragraph must mean a lot of nothing to those readers who are not real tennis aficionados, I do realise.
After showering and changing, back to my digs to drop off Dumbo and then a 10 minute stroll to Old Trafford, to witness Middlesex score the highest ever 1st class score (anywhere by any team) after being 6-down for less than 40. Some comfort I suppose.
To add to my improving mood, I met Clive Lloyd along with Jack Simmons (the latter Janie and I had met at Southport); it’s always a big deal for me to meet one of my childhood cricketing heroes.
Then a chance to wander around the ground and chat with some of the Middlesex regulars.
After stumps, time to go home and freshen up before heading off to the Chorlton Tap to meet Alex (as planned) plus Sam (as arranged the day before) and Steve (who joined the party that very day). A very convivial gathering.
Wednesday morning, back to the tennis court, for an ill-fated match up with a big hitter named Jonathan. My injured right arm had reacted somewhat adversely to the drills the day before and I felt the overuse within 5-10 minutes. Fortunately he is a very friendly, nice chap so we had a good run-around with me playing left-handed off a high handicap and him getting the chance to practice his winners a lot. I donated my Thursday morning court to Jonathan which I thought was the least I could do to compensate him and the chap (a good friend and match for Jonathan) who had arranged an early slot, purportedly for me.
Good cricket on Wednesday, not least a decent second new ball spell late in the day that set up a good position for Middlesex overnight, subject to our boys batting decently Thursday (they didn’t).
A quite evening in with Benji the Baritone Ukulele again Wednesday (did I omit to mention Benji as Monday evening entertainment too)?
Thursday morning – with no tennis I made an early start back to London – dropping off stuff at the house and then passing through the flat on the way to the City for some work and a London Cricket Trust Trustees meeting.
