It’s the day after the election, and if the media accurately reflect the mood of the country then it would seem that we’re being consumed by post-election fever. However, one suspects that for most of the country it’s more like post-election indifference, and the media are frothing about the possibilities of coalitions here and minority governments there for their own amusement more than anything. Having surprised myself by becoming moderately exercised about the election this time round, now that it’s over I would quite like someone in authority to just sort the whole mess out, form a government and get on with it. But the whole thing seems destined to be played out on our TV screens for some time to come.
The first cricket outing of the season was not spectacularly successful. Having washed my hands in countless places where the Nanny State has placed large danger signs to warn you of the fact that the water is VERY hot, it almost came as an ironic pleasure to have my hands nigh-on scalded by the water from the cold tap in the changing rooms at Inverleith Park. As regards the cricket, well… grinding out 16 runs before being trapped LBW was not in the script, particularly, but such is the lot of a batsman sometimes. The following week, playing for the 2nd XI, I made some unknown single figure score before getting myself run out. So far, so distinctly ordinary. This weekend my only shot at redemption will be if I can persuade Maggie to bowl me some rank long hops so I can dispatch them into the children’s play area. The family and I are spending the weekend in a North Yorkshire cottage to celebrate my mum’s 70th birthday. Mum and I left early this morning to drive down, and after a recent series of late nights I was mildly worried about my prospects of staying awake at the wheel. However, sleep was never a threat with my mother’s minute-by-minute account of a recent wedding lasting until just before Alnwick. Shortly after, I received a text from Nasty Jen, reminding me to vote today, or as she put it, “2day”. Not entirely sure what happened there.
Somewhere near Morpeth, we stopped at a Little Chef for a coffee. The young waiter seemed unable to speak anything other than Teenager, which, when combined with the local accent, made communication tricky. However, we managed to secure a couple of coffees and made good our escape.
Neebs, sadly, and perhaps uniquely, there was no great crowning moment which sealed victory in the Scrabble tournament. I did play a word which used all my letters (I can’t even remember what it was), however my thunder was somewhat stolen by DC who had already played a (better) seven letter word the round previous, and garnered considerably more points. I nullified this to some extent by harvesting 40-odd points from JAGS on a triple-word score, and then Mrs G finished her letters almost immediately afterwards, denying DC his turn in that particular round, and sealing a single-digit win for me. There may be no great crowning moment, but with a little bit of encouragement I’m quite happy to talk about it anyway, as you can see. As for the Pronouns thing – as far as I understand this was an example of the media getting a story wildly wrong and propagating it enthusiastically. A highly unusual occurrence, I’m sure you’ll agree. I believe that Spears have launched a new *version* of Scrabble, which allows the use of Pronouns and the like. The rules of “proper” Scrabble, as I understand it, remain unchanged.
If it ain’t broke…