Blog – Page 13 – only here for the cricket

Just like Christmas Eve

It was the 24th, it was freezing, there was a palpable sense of excitement building as midnight approached… it must be the Ashes.

Four years ago I sat on Robbo’s sofa, full of apprehension, waiting, as it turned out, for Sky to duff up their coverage of the most anticipated toss in recent history (they missed it completely), and then watching Harmy bowl the most anticipated first ball in recent history (he missed the cut strip completely). Poor old Harmy. There he was last Sunday, sat uncomfortably in the Sky studio, appearing on a guest panel for the Ashes preview, not, presumably, for his insightful comments, and what did they do but show THAT delivery. Eight times in all. Poor old Harmy – briefly the best bowler in the world; bounced out the West Indies in their own backyard; but now immortalised in the phrase “doing a Harmy”, which means bowling the ball direct to second slip.

With the First Test beginning in the early hours of Thursday morning, Wednesday evening’s preparations were crucial. A visit to my newly refurbished local gym was probably not ideal in terms of energy retention, but a ski holiday is looming just beyond the Fifth Test, and some fitness must be regained before then. The sign on the gym wall made me smile – “Please restrict yourself to 15 minutes on the CV machines at peak times”. Frankly, an unnecessary instruction for the likes of me, who would fall off any machine after more than 15 minutes of use.

A quick pizza to restore some of the calories carelessly burned off in the gym, and then a visit to my friend Slid, where we blew up his coffee machine in a quite entertaining fashion, but nevertheless managed to generate some liquid caffeine to aid the Ashes-watching effort.

Back home, settled down with some biscuits and a (glass) bottle of Coke, the hype finally ended, the cricket began. And three balls later the familiar watching-England-in-Australia pose was adopted – slumped forward, head in hands, disbelieving. England captain Strauss cut straight to Hussey in the gully, England 0/1.

Woke up early, out of necessity, to catch a flight to London. England four down but Bell and Cook sounding in control. Mum was driving me to the airport, so headed the few hundred yards down the road to her house. By the time I had sat down in her car, England were seven wickets down, and Siddle had an Ashes hat-trick (Australian Daily Telegraph headline: Pom Disposal Expert). Cue a certain, familiar despondent feeling.

Still, all not lost just yet. Bookended the flight with an espresso in each airport, keeping me awake through a course on social networking, and now in London, staying with the family. Sebastian, not yet two years old, was left under my care for part of the morning today. A touch of recklessness on my sister’s part, I thought, but we got on rather well, and never more so than when catching up on the second day’s play at the Gabba. Sebastian, unaware of his obligations to support the Poms, sportingly applauded all the boundaries and wickets with equal vigour. In a post-highlights-watching discussion, he agreed with me that Graeme Swann was guilty of dropping it a little short at times, and noted that Michael Hussey was particularly adept at rocking on to the back foot and pulling through midwicket. I explained that his Uncle Andrew is very like Hussey in many ways, perhaps especially in the art of smearing suncream on one’s face.

In other news, Nasty Jen can now add The Sprinkler to Reversing the Bus, Lightbulbs and Shopping Trolley on her list of classic dance moves. Check it out on Graeme Swann’s Ashes video diary at the ECB website here. Starts about 7 mins 30 seconds in – although the whole thing very entertaining and worth a watch in my objective not-remotely-cricket-obsessed opinion.

Must have a nap – third day’s play starts in 8 hours. First session crucial, England must make inroads with the new ball, Sebastian reckons. I reckon he’s right.

September on the wane

There’s a nip in the air now, even in the South of England it would seem, as even there the cricket season has drawn to close. Nasty Jen and F… have looked a little wistful of late, and are wondering how they are going to get through the winter evenings without the gentle cadences of Aggers’ voice describing the floodlit scene at The Rose Bowl, or Lord’s, as England complete another successful run chase.

Now there’s a thing. England successfully completing a run chase in an ODI. Again. Two or three years ago, who’d have thought we could say that.

But NJ and F… need not fear. One of the joys of being a cricket supporter is that the season never really ends, it just has a short break. And then Test Match Special returns, only at different times of the day, sometimes in the middle of the night. The forthcoming Ashes series will return me to a series of familiar experiences… waking up to the radio… shaking off the early morning torpor… feverishly wishing CMJ would hurry up and give a score update… realising that Ponting is at the crease… clocking that Australia are 290-1… groaning, slumping under the duvet, welcoming the torpor back with open arms…

It’s not all good news though. Frijj chocolate milkshakes, so good they should really be illegal, are no longer 2-for-1 at Tesco. Bah.

Life’s Rich Tapestry

It’s a Saturday in September, and the cricket season is over. Saturdays feel a little empty without cricket at this stage, and I didn’t fancy taking part in International Burn a Koran Day, so I headed down to Arboretum Road to help put the cricket square to bed for the winter. A football match was in full swing, however, and so the remedial work was postponed for an hour. I took the opportunity for a coffee down at Ocean Terminal. Stopping off at the news stand on the ground floor, I interrupted the proprietor, a middle-aged lady, having a chinwag with the cleaner.

“That’s me going to be a grandma again”, she says. “For the fourth time.”

“I’ve got five”, says he. “You’d better get a move on.”

Distinctly put out that she was lagging behind in the grandchildren count, she paused for a moment before declaring

“Had my first at 36.”

I too paused for a moment, to consider this. I am now 36, and haven’t managed to have a child yet, never mind a grandchild. I paid for my newspaper and moved on.

It’s remarkable what you overhear in conversations, without deliberately eavesdropping. Only a week ago, a bunch of us were in Princes Street Gardens, watching the Festival Fireworks close-up. Just to the left of our picnic blanket was a group of middle-aged people with, if it’s possible, an even more middle-class picnic selection than we had. I was quite impressed with our effort, comprising as it did olives, white wine, paté and a cheese board, but they were in a different league. Behind us, slightly further up the slope, were a couple of girls, getting gradually more and more hammered, and discussing recent visits to the hospital.

“Looks like it did during the Lang Siege in 1578,” declared a gentleman’s voice to our left, as some fireworks landed on the Castle Rock and continued to burn for a while.

“So, I wis thinkin’, right, is ma gall bladder f**ked?” came a voice from behind.

All part of the rich tapestry of life…

England in shock World Cup exit

I find myself in London, watching the game with my sister as England take on Germany in the World Cup.

“Great tackle. GREAT tackle”, emphasised Mark Lawrenson as Ashley Cole went in studs first on a German ankle.

“The referee got that one right,” the commentator asserts not long after, as replays showed Rooney throwing himself melodramatically against a German defender.

My sister can’t understand why I am not fervently rooting for England. I find it hard to grasp why she is. Alison, though, lives in England, where the hysterically one-eyed media coverage of England’s various footballing campaigns doesn’t seem quite so inappropriate as it does in other parts of the UK. For my part, I take no specific pleasure in England losing, as some of the natives in my adopted country do. An English exit from a major tournament brings relief, rather than glee.

Germany’s keeper whacks a long goal-kick down the middle, and Klose holds off the attempted foul from Upson to poke it into the corner past James. “Sunday pub league goal,” dismisses Lawro, as if the Germans should somehow be ashamed of themselves for scoring it.

Podolski makes it two after 33 minutes.

I was midway through explaining my Brits-don’t-have-the-right-psychological-makeup-to-win-consistently theory to Alison, when England, rather inconveniently, scored. She shrieked. I slumped.

This seemed to be a good time to ‘catch up’, my sister having paused the match near the start on account of retrieving baby Sebastian from his slumbers. She fast-forwarded the TV back to normal time, just in time to see Lampard’s shot crash off the crossbar and over the line. Not given. Cue a studioful of half-time experts who, it would seem, have been campaigning vociferously for goal-line technology to be introduced for years.

Mercifully England’s overall ineptitude meant it finished 4-1 rather than 2-1, or there may have been riots in the streets. Not in Hackney, probably, where there may well be more local support for Ghana than England.

Two days later, Peter Singer, writing in the Guardian, has a pop at the German goalkeeper for ‘cheating’ by not owning up that the ball had crossed the line. As, no doubt, the England goalkeeper would have done in similar circumstances. He quotes cricket as an example of a sport where players sometimes walk even when they haven’t been given out. Tellingly, to find a high-profile instance of this happening, he has to go all the way back to the 2003 World Cup, when Adam Gilchrist walked against Sri Lanka in a semi-final. Walking is not common in high-level cricket, or even at lower levels, for that matter. Besides, Gilchrist once walked thinking he’d been caught, when replays proved his bat had hit the ground rather than the ball. Gilchrist’s approach was laudable, but at that level a player is entitled to allow the umpire to make the decision. And if Neuer, the German keeper, had insisted to the referee and his assistant that the goal should stand, they would most likely have waved away his protests.

Having sweated my way into town yesterday and exhausted myself by simply pootering around the South Bank in the heat, I have decreed today to be a rest day. Sitting around, mostly outside, reading Marcus Berkmann’s Rain Men, has been the order of the day. My sister is just about to go out for a walk with Maggie and the little girl she looks after on Tuesdays. Sebastian is upstairs asleep, and I am instructed to get him up at 3.45pm.

“Do I need to do anything after that?” I enquired, hoping that I wouldn’t be expected to do anything too complicated, like change his nappy.

“Change his nappy.”

Deep breath.

“Ok.” How hard can it be?

Spotify and Steve Earle

Summer is definitely here. I know this because I drove to Aberdeen and perpetrated mass bug genocide with my windscreen. Several weeks later, my windscreen still remains a memorial to the fallen bugs of Fife, Angus and Aberdeenshire.

It appears that the Eyjafjallajökull (yes, I copied and pasted that) volcano has stopped erupting. Hurrah. Perhaps they have blocked it up with shredded tyres and golf balls. Just in time for my flight down south to London. With BA. Although their strikes haven’t been affecting London City. Double hurrah.

I am listening to Spotify right now, as I write. And, marvellous though it is, I have discovered a second reason to dislike it. As they are wont to do to us free subscribers, they interrupted my listening pleasure with an annoying advert. “Ha!” I thought. “I’ll fox them.” I muted my speakers and switched them back on after a minute or so. The advert was still running. I muted my speakers again. After another minute or so I switched back on. The same advert was still playing. In fact, it seemed to take up exactly from where I muted it. They can tell when I mute my computer speakers and pause the advert until I put them back on. The cads. Whatever next?

The first reason to dislike it, of course, is that guests in your house can put on whatever music they like when your back is turned. This is an embarrassingly obvious example of music snobbery on my part, but honestly, when someone hijacks your computer, in your own home no less, and forces everyone present to listen to irritating teen-pop, I am liable to splutter something I shouldn’t.

Having left my entire music collection in the seat pocket of an aircraft, I do hope the nice steward or stewardess who trousered it is enjoying my carefully crafted playlists and smart albums. I’m not, obviously, and have had to resort to old-school listening techniques in the car, such as putting on a CD. Due to a rediscovery of the joy of listening to a good album over and over, along with general inertia, I have become very closely acquainted with Steve Earle’s Transcendental Blues. What an album this is. Edgy country, bluegrass and an awesome ballad to finish. I met Steve Earle once, just before Christmas in 2004. He was playing a show with the Dukes at the Usher Hall, and they needed ear impressions taken to have new in-ear-monitors made. I shuffled up the road to the Usher Hall on the day of the gig, and took impressions for Earle and his band in a very dimly lit Green Room. I have no idea how the impressions turned out, my hands were shaking a fair bit. I hoped the inadequate lighting would mask my obvious nervousness. I chatted with him a little, asked him if he was looking forward to getting home for Christmas. He wasn’t, really. Loved it on the road, he said. He went on to explain that his band (The Dukes) lived all over the place. The bass player, Kelly Looney (real name, I believe. Well, you probably wouldn’t choose it) lives in Paris, for example.

I have subsequently become very familiar with, and very fond of, a Steve Earle song called Ft. Worth Blues. Wiseman will testify, wearily, to this. It names a number of cities and places in the world – Amsterdam, London, Paris, with a recurring phrase: “It never really was your kinda town.” And so at this point, if, as the man himself said on another occasion, I knew what I know now then, since Paris had obligingly popped up in the conversation, I might have casually suggested that it never really was his kinda town. Many, many times since, in my imagination, I have relived this moment, and delivered this show-stoppingly dramatic line. In my imagination, Steve Earle is impressed with my knowledge of his lyrics. In reality, he might have thought I was taking the mick, and this could have been a dangerous thing given that he’s spent time in jail on a firearms charge. Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t know the song, really.

First Success for Coalition

Well, the England-South Africa Cricketing Coalition won a major international tournament on Sunday, ending “35 years of hurt” (the BBC news website there, perhaps slightly over-egging the sense of national disappointment at not having won an ICC tournament). I must say it’s been a bit of a shock, witnessing England play confident, aggressive limited-overs cricket. I don’t suppose the presence of Kieswetter, Pietersen et al can rightfully be considered part of a coalition since, unlike the Lib Dem activists in Birmingham this week, the exiles’ South African compatriots are, er, not overwhelmingly approving of their presence in the England side. Their actions are perhaps more analogous with the MPs who have defected from the Lib Dems to the Labour party, except of course that the cricketers have, it turns out, joined a winning team. At least in the shortest form of the game, at least for now…

However welcome or unwelcome they might be, and realistically England have always had a fair few ‘foreigners’ in their ranks, it’s hard not to credit them, and perhaps the Zimbabwean coach Andy Flower, with the change in attitude of the England team as a whole. South Africans (and Australians, for that matter) always seem to possess so much more of a winning mentality than Brits.

So the presence of Lumb, Kieswetter and Pietersen at the top of the batting order, and the attitude they bring to their game, quite apart from their heavy contribution in the runs department, must have had a massive effect on the confidence of the overall team. That said, how much the bowling unit needed an injection of confidence is open to question, given that Broad, Swann and Sidebottom are not known for their diffidence.

Last weekend, in Yorkshire, I didn’t manage to get a bat as Maggie seemed unwilling to hand it over. What’s more, she despatched my third delivery through square leg for four. I decided it was time to go back to the swings.

Perhaps my weekend off contributed to some rustiness this weekend, but Holy Cross’ return to Falkland produced a dismal defeat, with my own brief stay at the crease consisting of a lot of flapping and scratching around, before being predictably trapped LBW and departing for an ignominious duck.

However, onwards and upwards. Wednesday night sees the mighty Bellevue team swing into action for the first time this summer. And the sun, apparently, is going to shine…

The Day after the Election

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…

Cricket, Scrabble and the Election

The cricket season is almost here. Nasty Jen is pumped. A palpable sense of excitement hangs in the air, poised, expectant. Sort of like Morpheus in the Matrix as he hangs, suspended in mid-air, before slamming to the floor and putting his knee through the floorboards, somewhat carelessly. Perhaps they were able to claim on their buildings and contents insurance. Ah, the Matrix. It’s been with us for eleven years now. Almost as long as this Labour government. Now, this is not a political blog, goodness, it’s not even a blog about cricket. But the impending general election does provide some joy in this corner, as the nice people in the comedy department at Radio 4 produce a veritable glut of satire on the subject. And it’s even been possible to watch Gordon on television, shamelessly trying to imply that Labour have been doing a grand old job of running the country these last thirteen years, which is quite entertaining. And, unlike most people I speak to, I haven’t found the recent televised leaders’ debates a dreadful bore, in fact I have to confess that I’ve enjoyed them, what I’ve seen of them. I was prevented, sadly, from witnessing the early exchanges in Bristol, due to my involvement in a titanic Scrabble battle, where I was pitting my wits against a stellar line-up which included DC, Wiseman and Mrs G. I have pitted said wits against them on an almost annual basis since 2002, when Mrs G was still Miss C, and Wiseman may well have been DC’s flatmate. (That was a short-lived arrangement). Each time I have been found wanting, the spoils being shared over the years between Mrs G and, more commonly, DC, the latter’s word power being head and shoulders above ours. Much like his head and shoulders. So we were all more than a little taken aback when I emerged from the fray victorious, looking mildly shocked but unmistakably pleased with myself, almost Clegg-like in fact, to claim the prize (a rather fetching pewter tankard). You could have knocked me over with a small plastic tile.

I should warn you, dear reader, that due to a withdrawal of support for ftp publishing by Blogger, this blog may, around the beginning of May, disappear from the ether. Or into the ether. Disappear, anyway. But do not fret (of course if one or two of you did, momentarily, fret, I’m sure it would do no harm at all, and I would find it gently reassuring), as technical issues such as this are Wiseman’s speciality, and he assures me everything is in hand. At least, I think that’s what he said. I trust you will be able, accustomed as you are to this blog being updated with near-military regularity, to stick it out for a few days without a fresh post should everything go belly-up. You’re a hardy lot.

But back to the cricket. Tomorrow sees the start of the season proper, and an outing for the mighty Holy Cross 3rd XI. The weather is set fair and I may even have a new pair of batting gloves in time for the occasion. Brilliant.

No upcoming notes

Once people reach a certain stage in life, they start sending out a Christmas Letter to all their friends and acquaintances. I’m not entirely sure what causes one to cross this particular threshold, in the case of some whose festive missives I’ve read, it would appear that having high-performing offspring is the catalyst. Mercifully, the day when I spawn offspring – high performance, high maintenance or otherwise – appears to still be a long way off, and perhaps as a result I have never written a Christmas Letter.

Perhaps the advent and perplexing popularity of social networking sites will put paid to the Christmas Letter. Certainly there should be little need to summarise one’s news annually when those who care have been notified of every status change and toilet visit along the way.

My mother, not being ‘on’ Facebook (yet), sends out a Christmas letter every year. One Christmas a few years back, I was somewhat dismayed to read her letter and discover that, following hard on the heels of a paragraph detailing my sister’s exciting life, my year’s activity was summed up with a single sentence, the precise wording of which I can’t recall, but I know ran along the lines of “Andrew hasn’t done much this year.” It might as well have read “Andrew is a bit dull,” or “Andrew could get out more.”

A little miffed by this dismissal of an entire twelve months of my life, I lodged a complaint with the Christmas Letter Composition Committee. She responded by suggesting that my sister and I write our own sections of the letter in future. Which we did. And every year since, I have struggled to know what to write, or how to fit it in, or how to cope with writing about myself in the third person, which is weird.

This year (well, last year), I pondered a little before writing “Andrew would like a quieter life so he could spend more time watching cricket, frankly.” At the time I was in the midst of the most frenetic run-up to Christmas I can remember. One kind of music practice followed another, followed by a choir practice. I had no time to enjoy what is one of my favourite times of year, I had no time to write Christmas cards to old friends, I had no time to visit close friends in Glasgow who had just received bad news. I got ill, inevitably. I resolved to make 2010 the year I slowed down. “No upcoming notes” is the text that appears on my mobile phone whenever I have no meetings or reminders scheduled for that day. Seeing those three words on the screen makes me happy. I’m looking forward to them appearing more regularly. And watching more cricket.

Wiseman turned 44 today. We celebrated with a milkshake at McDonalds. Or we would have done, if Wiseman hadn’t, within sight of the Golden Arches and blithely ignoring that my car was pointing entirely the wrong way, put forward a proposal involving a burger restaurant at the West End. Several LH turns and a good deal of muttering later, we arrived at Wannaburger, which could be renamed WannabeAmericanburgerjoint, although it’s probably snappier as it is. And once served by any of the staff, you’ll be left in no doubt that you’re in Europe and not the USA.

So, I ordered a milkshake, and I told Wiseman he could have anything from the menu, a dangerous offer in a licensed establishment, given that his alcohol intake alone comprises 40% of our combined restaurant bill on a regular basis. However, he opted for the root beer. And the largest burger on the menu, fries and an ice cream sundae.

Happy Birthday big man.

John Mayer and Costa Coffee

As previously confessed, I’m a big fan of John Mayer. So when a friend said he’d been on Jonathan Ross’ Radio 2 show a few Saturday mornings ago, I fired up the iPlayer with a certain amount of anticipation/apprehension. Meeting your heroes, it’s said, can be a disappointing experience. I find that even listening to your heroes on the radio, or seeing them in concert, has a certain amount of risk attached to it – how can you fail to be disappointed? Your expectations are so high. When I saw JM in Hyde Park a few years back, I was disappointed, because he didn’t set anything alight (I mean metaphorically. Although it’s true to say that he didn’t physically set anything alight either, this didn’t disappoint me). I consoled myself in the knowledge that he only had a 45 minute set, which didn’t allow him to express himself fully. And this was vindicated by his Hammersmith Apollo gig a few weeks ago, when he torched the place. Metaphorically, of course.

Anyway, back to the radio show. I’ve never found Jonathan Ross compelling listening, not because he’s not funny, because he usually is (IMHO), and not because he gets paid ridiculous amounts of money, because I don’t hold that against him. I find his show irritating in the extreme because there’s this bloke who sits in with him every time (possibly his producer) and laughs at everything he says. Everything. In a nauseating, sycophantic kind of way. Drives me crazy. Or at least it would, if I listened more.

I steeled myself for the sycophant, and tuned in. However, it was Ross himself who wound me up early on by first of all introducing the guitarist JM brought along to play live (Robbie McIntosh) as “his (Mayer’s) dad”, and then proceeding to either forget, or pretend to forget his name, and make up new ones for him every time he referred to him. Serious lack of respect for a fine musician. He then confessed that he knew of Mayer only through his appearances in gossip mags and the like, and expressed surprise when it transpired that he really could play guitar. Which is, quite frankly, lazy. Any small amount of research would have revealed that Mayer has played guitar with Buddy Guy, BB King, and Herbie Hancock. Oh, and Eric Clapton. And that he’s done stand-up, and writes well too. And he features heavily on my iPod. But I still don’t like his new album. Only two songs of any worth, I reckon. Neither of which he played at the Apollo, naturally.

I created an ‘evening’ playlist a few years back, containing songs of a more, um, reflective nature. Melancholy, some might say, and I wouldn’t contradict them. It’s my favourite playlist, by some distance. Wiseman’s response to my musical taste is usually a despairing kind of snort when yet another miserable track comes on the car stereo. On one occasion, I was driving Nasty Jen somewhere, and as Bill Withers wailed “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,” I realised I was listening to the melancholy stuff. Jen is a teeny-bopper really, and should know better at her age, but I thought I would humour her and switch to my ‘pop’ playlist, which contains songs of a generally more upbeat nature. After a few seconds delay while the iPod found the new playlist, the opening track kicked in.

“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone…” lamented Bill, again. I resolved to get some happier music on my iPod.

On a more recent occasion, Wiseman and I found ourselves listening to some tunes from the 70s on the car radio. Wiseman took great delight in identifying, usually incorrectly, the year of each track from these, his formative years. Sometimes he has even been heard to sing along to seventies tunes. It’s quite a sonic experience.

The car radio has been employed more often of late, since I neglected to remove my iPod from the seat pocket in front on arrival in Geneva last month. The airline was Jet2, and to anyone flying with Jet2 in the future, I would strongly encourage you to follow their advice and take all your personal belongings with you, as contact with said airline afterwards can prove a touch elusive. All “post-flight communication must be in writing” (that’s letters, rather than emails) and so far they have failed to acknowledge either of mine. Which rather stymies my as yet unborn insurance claim, unfortunately.

After lunch today I made the trip to Arbroath to see a client. Having plugged the postcodes into Google maps, China’s least favourite internet company advised me it would take 1hr 50 mins. For some reason I read this as 1hr 30 mins. Tapping the details into my sat nav as I prepared to leave, 90 minutes before the appointment, I was somewhat startled to note that it was predicting a journey time of 2 hrs 13 mins. I made haste for the M90. Once over the bridge, I encountered another problem. My body sometimes thinks it’s somewhere in the south of France, or Spain, and takes an involuntary siesta shortly after lunch. I was falling asleep at the wheel. This is never a good thing, I find, and so I have a couple of strategies to combat it. One is to pull over and close my eyes for forty winks (I find five minutes almost invariably does the trick); the second is to stop for a coffee, or any sort of break. I had time for neither, but having pondered the pros and cons extensively in the past, I have arrived at what I believe is a rather sensible conclusion. No matter how late you end up being for your appointment, and possibly all your appointments for the rest of the day, and whatever you were planning to do in the evening, annoying and stressful though this can be, it’s still better than killing people, possibly including yourself.

So I stopped at the Kinross services, and ordered a double espresso at the Costa outlet. Now, Costa. They’re not quite Starbucks, and their coffee certainly tastes better to me. But I don’t really like them either. They’re “Italian about coffee”, or so they claim. Now, I’ve been to Italy, once. I stayed in Milan for a week with my good friend Slid. It was June, it was hot, and humid. I remember sitting in a park with Slid watching some locals play football. Had it not been so hot, we might well have taken them on and shown them a thing or two. But it was very hot. They were playing in a classically slow, Italian style. It struck me that in these temperatures and humidity, there was no other way to play. And I immediately made a connection between the climate and the style of play: Italy and Spain – slow and languid so as not to get hot and tired too quickly, Scotland – fast and frenetic so as not to get cold by standing around in Baltic temperatures. It all made, possibly perfect sense. In that sense, Costa are very Italian. They are chuffin’ slow. Far too slow when you’re running late for an appointment in Arbroath. I lost eight minutes in the service station, although admittedly I had to take a pee as well.

Apart from the speed of service, I find nothing about Costa remotely Italian. Every time I had a coffee in Italy it was outstanding, and it wasn’t supplied by a chain, in an enormous bowl of a cup whose diameter is so great that the coffee sometimes dribbles down the sides of your chin. But perhaps that’s just me.

I was late for my appointment. And the next one. And my evening ‘appointment’ back in Edinburgh. But nobody seemed to mind too much. And what’s more, I’m still alive!