Cricket – only here for the cricket

Footballers saying sweet F.A.

Scotland, like the rest of the UK, and – I assume – Europe, is in the grip of a cold snap. We had a moderate fall of snow in Porty a week ago today, and although that (and the snow that fell two days later) has now melted, temperatures have mostly remained below zero. I can’t remember such a sustained spell of freezing weather here. No doubt this is due to global warming, which seems ironic.

It saddens me greatly to read of glaciers melting and shrinking. If it’s any consolation, I found some small glaciers had formed on the inside of my living room windows a few mornings ago, although I suspect they won’t go any way to offsetting the damage being done in the Alps and elsewhere.

A few months ago, I began leaving the butter out of the fridge, so that it would be more spreadable on my toast of a morning. Now I’m considering putting it back in the fridge, to soften it up a little.

While Britain freezes, meanwhile, we’re watching a World Cup played in (mostly) high temperatures in Qatar, a tournament dogged by controversy and allegations of corruption, which seems par for the course. It was, after all, organised by FIFA.

But this year there’s been a fair bit of bleating from various ‘progressive’ nations about Qatar’s various human rights violations, with respect to immigrant workers and treatment of the LGBTQIA+ (I may not be up to date with with acronym, and so will use ‘LGBT’ from here) community.

I fully expect (having not read up on it fully) that Qatar is indeed guilty of many crimes in these regards, and abhor any such human rights abuses. But I find the responses of the various FAs and the players themselves distinctly underwhelming.

If they (the FAs) were so upset about Qatar being chosen as the venue for this World Cup, they could have boycotted it. Not turned up. That would have sent a serious message to FIFA, and to Qatar. Would they have been financially sanctioned by FIFA? Probably (I don’t know). Would they have lost out massively, financially? I’m sure they would. Would some players have lost their only opportunity to play at the highest stage (if indeed it is the highest stage in football, these days)? Almost certainly.

Too high a price to pay? Maybe.

While Qatar are no doubt guilty of various crimes as alluded to above, I don’t remember anyone complaining about the World Cup being held in the USA in 1994. The USA, perhaps, can’t be placed in the same category as Qatar, but are likely responsible for variously bad behaviour both within and without the borders of their own nation. So, I imagine, are all countries, really. If the World Cup was ever held in England or the UK, the finger could be pointed at us for various misdemeanours. Especially if history is taken into account.

So if we’re going to hold a World Cup in an actual country on earth, and not on a neutral venue such as the moon, then let’s expect that the host country probably isn’t a shining light, morally-speaking. It seems a safe assumption. And if the nation in question really has ‘crossed the line’, then have the strength of your convictions and boycott the thing. Although the question remains for me – who gets to define where the ‘line’ is? If we – as humans – have taken it upon ourselves to decide what is right and what is wrong, then which of us gets the final say on what is and what isn’t?

At the start of the tournament, several captains of European nations announced their intention to wear armbands supporting the LGBT cause. Until, that is, they were threatened with the sanction of…being booked. Would this have hurt them (the captains) personally, and harmed their teams’ chances? Of course. But how much do they care about these causes they purport to support, if they aren’t prepared to make even the smallest sacrifice to make the point? It all looks like shallow posturing.

In 2003, Zimbabwe’s Henry Olonga and Andy Flower wore black armbands in a match in the Cricket World Cup, being held in South Africa. They publicly stated why – to “mourn the death of democracy” under the Robert Mugabe regime. Were they sanctioned? Olonga received death threats, never played for Zimbabwe again, despite being only 26 and in his prime, and was forced to live in exile.

Footballers, if you want to show support for a cause you believe in, please do so. If you will only do this if it’s convenient and doesn’t cost you anything, please don’t bother.

Stay warm, Britons. And Happy Christmas, if I don’t write before then (as seems likely…!)

In the footsteps of Beckham

Hackney Marshes, 6am. The sun is up, but only just, and the vast expanse of grass is still damp with dew. There are a few fellow runners out at this hour, along with a dog walker or two, as I circumnavigate a number of cricket outfields, and several football pitches. It was on these pitches that a young David Beckham honed his skills, maybe even was spotted.

I am reasonably confident that any athletics coaches in the vicinity will not be spotting me today, as I lumber around the white-lined perimeter of pitch N7. The mercury is to hit 26C today, and even at this unearthly hour it’s warming up.

Multiple circuits complete, I run back along the towpath by the River Lea, over a deserted footbridge, and past several tied-up barges with quirky names.

A fox emerges from the bushes, and darts back in again, before I have time to question if it was the culprit responsible for distributing the contents of my sister’s food bin across the garden path during the night, and then defecating in the middle of the gateway. On arriving back home, I find myself increasingly keen to find a fox to help me with my enquiries in this matter, as I clear up all the food detritus before the heat of the day causes a stink.

Today’s work venue is Chingford, where David Beckham went to school, as it happens. It’s my sixth day there, and all has gone well, apart from some momentary confusion on Day 1 when I blindly followed the citybound crowds at Clapton down to Platform 1, when I really needed to be on the quieter Platform 2, heading out of town, towards Essex and the M25.

I experienced the glory of the M25 on Friday night, heading north to visit some old friends for the weekend, but despite my trepidation it was child’s play compared to the static queues on the M1. However, I was in no rush, and made it in time to have a decent burger near Kenilworth Road, prior to taking in a raucous first leg of Luton Town’s Championship play-off v Huddersfield Town.

There followed a weekend of mostly sitting around in the sunshine, watching play at the local cricket club, who conveniently have their ground just on the other side of my friends’ garden gate, making it perhaps the best back garden known to man. Cricket-loving man, at any rate.

So, the London leg of the tour has been a reasonable success. I am developing quite a fondness for bagels from the Jewish bakery on Brick Lane, and crumpets, and the warmer temperatures.

This weekend I head southwest to Horsham for the next date on the tour. I am unsure if David Beckham ever made it to Horsham. I shall enquire.

The C-19 Diaries. A Tale of Two Christies.

Day 54

My sister sends me a video of my 7-yr-old nephew announcing “If you’re Uncle Andrew…” and then falling face-first onto the bed.

I fainted once at high school, circa 1986. There were mitigating factors, including a freshly-painted door and a gas heater left on overnight.

My sister’s version of this period of my life has been enhanced, embellished, and refined over the years, such that she will now regularly proclaim to any who will listen – primarily her children – that “Andrew was forever fainting at school.”

Now Christie has joined in. I feel persecuted.

Day 56

I’m getting fat. I go for another run. I am beginning to tire of running. I mean, it’s tiring. But also I am tiring of oncoming runners gliding serenely and effortlessly past me.

While I am panting heavily up a slope (the slope is irrelevant), sweating hard, and sucking air in great ragged gasps, as though through a partially blocked straw.

I am tired of running.

Day 57

In a determined attempt to not run anywhere, I go for another epic walk. I wander down through Restalrig and on to Portobello.

Then along the coastline in a northwesterly direction, and I find myself seduced by what looks like a sort of causeway running round the outside of the sea wall. It looks adventurous, so I meander along it. Before long it becomes apparent – mostly via my sense of smell – that I am skirting the outer perimeter of the Seafield Sewage Works.

The aroma is not overpowering… but it’s there. And it’s there for quite a long time. I finally reach the end of the causeway-thing without my gag reflex kicking in, and head back towards where I think the main road must be, as in all truth I have no idea where I am and even Google Maps is failing to locate me.

I emerge onto the main road just across from Seafield Crematorium and Cemetery. On the footpath outside the gates, a trio of mourners are standing having a smoke. I am suddenly and forcefully reminded of Coco – a hard-drinking, chain-smoking swing bowler, raconteur and an integral part of the fabric of Holy Cross Cricket Club, who passed away last week. His funeral is also today, at a crematorium on the other side of town. Six Crossers have been permitted to attend – in more normal circumstances there would have been a massive turnout.

The cricket season, like everything else, has been put on hold. Latest indications are that we might get to play some games in August. A memorial match for Coco is uppermost in everyone’s mind.

I deliver some nigh-on-unobtainable bicarbonate of soda (corner shop folks, the corner shop is always the answer) to my mum, and chat with her briefly, before heading up Broughton St and homewards through London Road Gardens, once again declining to put life and limb at risk by climbing a tree, but wanting to.

Day 61

It’s a blustery day. I go for a walk again. I am enjoying these rambling walks. Sometimes I take diversions down streets just because they have a nice name. For this reason, today I walk down Christiemiller Avenue, idly wondering who Christie Miller was.

Eugene Peterson wrote something interesting, that I read this morning.

“At our birth we are named, not numbered,” he wrote.

“The name is that part of speech by which we are recognised as a person: we are not classified as a species of animal… We are not assessed for our economic potential and given a cash value. We are named. What we are named is not as significant as that we are named.”

Later I would walk along streets and avenues named after Moira, Stanley, and others, still thinking about Christie Miller.

“The whole meaning of history is in the proof that there have lived people before the present time whom it is important to meet,” wrote Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy.

I make it to Portobello, where, despite the strong winds, the sea looks disappointingly calm. I like it when the sea is rough – reminds me of growing up on the County Down coast, and watching line after line of white-tipped waves pound the beach on stormy days. I guess the wind is coming from the wrong direction for that today.

I stop at a kiosk and get an ice cream. Chocolate waffle cone, with butterscotch ice cream. Shortly after I walk away, the wind whips up some fine sand and showers both me and the ice cream with it. Thereafter it’s a grittier experience.

I think Benjamin Franklin, confident only of death and taxes as life’s certainties, could have added to his list the fact that – on visiting the beach – one will return home with sand in every known orifice.

I head for home, across a golf course, and stumble upon a park with a lake, an island, and a boardwalk, which extends out into the lake a little. I am reminded of boardwalk adventures shared with my friends the Robinsons – on the Gulf Coast of Alabama I think, and maybe Louisiana too. It’s fair to say the climate is not all that comparable.

Solo adventures are ok and fun in their own way. But sharing adventures with friends is better.

Looking forward to being able to do that again.

The Longest Day

It’s getting on for the end of June, dear reader. The country remains in unresolved Brexit turmoil, although attention has now shifted to the Conservative Party’s leadership election, which will determine our next Prime Minister. Once this is resolved, for better or worse, Brexit will again, I imagine, consume us all.

In Edinburgh, the summer so far has been unusually damp. Unusually damp, I say, for it has been damp even by Scottish standards.

Accordingly, the cricket season has been patchy. Last Saturday the Holy Cross 2nd XI, of which I had been carelessly – but happily only temporarily – left in charge, played their first game in a month.

We were away to Musselburgh. I lost the toss. This was the first indicator that it wasn’t to be a good day. We were asked to bat on a damp wicket, and bowled out for 21, which – for those not in tune with cricketing matters – is a pretty low score for one batsman, never mind a whole team.

Captains and managers in sport are frequently said to have “lost the dressing room.” I took this a step further by losing the dressing room key, which went missing from the scorer’s table at some point during the first innings. Fingers were pointed and accusations levelled.

In due course the key was located, in one of my team-mates’s pockets.

Normally at this point we would all ‘take tea’, which would involve picking at whatever meagre fare the home team had produced, before commencing the second innings. However, such was the low score that Musselburgh needed to chase, we simply went back out again.

Four overs later, Musselburgh required 7 runs to win. I threw the dice, and made my first bowling change, bringing on Ollie the Offspinner. Ollie delivered his first – entirely respectable – ball, and the batsman, in an act of considerable discourtesy, deposited it over long-on for six.

It bounced on the path which ran beyond the boundary, right over the wall, into trees and dense foliage, and was lost forever. We found another ball from somewhere. The same batsman edged this one through the slips and it was all over.

We trooped into the changing rooms. The showers were cold. We emerged again, and the tea, sadly, met our expectations fully.

A dismal performance, a lost game, a lost ball, a lost dressing room key, cold showers, and a poor tea. At least it wasn’t raining.

The following Friday we celebrated 2019’s longest day, on an East Lothian beach. We really should have been at Akva, our monthly Swedish haunt, but the weather had taken an upturn, as if acknowledging that the longest day deserved better. So we cancelled our booking, in the process denying ourselves Akva’s pagan midsummer celebration complete with flower crowns and frog dancing, whatever that is.

Suitably equipped with fish and chips, we wandered down the sandy path to the beach. The tide was in. The fish was excellent, the chips too, although sand – unfailingly able to find its way into every available orifice – found its way into my box of chips, and became a most unwelcome garnish of the grittiest possible kind.

Nicola, garlanded most appropriately with a flower crown, produced a couple of bags of Haribo from somewhere, and we watched the sun sink slowly in an almost flawless blue sky, painting a pencil-thin orange stripe towards us across the water, and the wet rippled sand.

We walked eastward to the end of the beach, on the way enacting what we thought frog-dancing might be, and parked ourselves on a massive piece of driftwood, as the sun sank even lower. Eventually, just after 10pm, it dropped behind that little hill across the water in Fife, whose name escapes me now.

I remember someone telling me that there are parts of the village of Falkland which are in shadow for six months of the year (or thereabouts), due to their proximity to that hill.

We returned along the Golf Coast, courtesy of Sonic Boom Bef’s thrill-a-minute driving, and stopped for a McFlurry at Fort Kinnaird.

It was at this point that I noticed TK Maxx. It was looking as good as a TK Maxx ever has, I would venture to say. The distant horizon, still burning a fiery red, was reflected in its polished glass frontage. This, combined with the odd solitary tree and manicured grass of the Fort Kinnaird car park, made for a striking image. Made me think of Malibu.

“It’s just like Malibu,” I remarked to Nicola.

Nicola snorted.

I’ve never even been to Malibu. Later, I found a picture of the TK Maxx in Malibu (although of course it’s TJ Maxx there). It was surprisingly unimpressive-looking, although there were real palm trees in the picture. Fort Kinnaird for the win, I say.

We found a table by the window, with a gorgeous view across the roundabout to Screwfix, and Bef had her first ever McFlurry. It was a momentous day.

Sun, sea and socks

A month or so ago, I wandered through to the back of the flat. There was an odd noise coming from outside. I didn’t recognise it.

Two days later (my membership of Neighbourhood Watch has been rescinded) the noise was still happening. I peered out the window, and realised that one of my neighbours was running a sprinkler in their back garden. A sprinkler, I say. Attached to a hosepipe. Watering the garden. For days. I have only read about such things.

This is a Scottish summer of unprecedented heat, certainly the best summer since I was in short trousers. And I’m back in them again. I have been wearing shorts for weeks, which has turned my legs from a shade of translucent blue into a dull pink. I have been to the beach multiple times, and even paddled in the sea. The grass in Holyrood Park is brown. I have, on several occasions, left home without an emergency jacket and pair of trousers in the car boot. And I have completed several loads of washing without washing a single sock. Well, almost.

Although several of my acquaintances consider cricket to be a game which requires one only to stand around in a field, wearing white, the unpopular truth is that one does have to break into a gentle trot now and again. And breaking into a trot while wearing flip flops is positively dangerous. Ergo, cricket socks have been worn and washed.

Only last Saturday I was standing around in a field wearing white, and wearing socks, and looked over to see the opposition players huddled underneath a couple of umbrellas on the boundary. This is not an entirely unprecedented sight in Scottish cricket, except that it wasn’t raining. And the players under the umbrellas were, to a man, of Asian extraction, sheltering from the fierce Scottish sun.

A few days back, I walked up a brownish hillside in Holyrood Park, and found a clearing to sit down in. There were discarded bottles in the nearby bushes. Water bottles, not alcopops. Even da yoof are concerned about dehydration it seems.

Meanwhile, all the way from Russia, the World Cup has been captivating most people, especially south of the border. “It’s coming home” has been the hashtag of choice.

Again.

I feel confused. What is coming home, exactly? I thought football came home in 96. Did it go away again? Is it coming back?

Except that the tournament has been in Russia. Do they mean the World Cup’s coming home? In which case, England isn’t its home. It was made in Italy (I checked) and Germany would surely have the best claim on it being at home there.

All very confusing.

The Glamour Girls and myself watched the England semi-final at IndigoYard last night. England took an early lead from a free-kick. There was a somewhat muted response… a couple of shouts, suppressed quickly, the shouters suddenly conscious of their Englishness in a Scottish bar. But they needn’t have worried. Most of the place didn’t seem all that interested in the game, and there were no celebrations when Croatia equalised. Not even from me, although that may have been because a large man in a blue sweater walked in front of the screen at the moment in question.

Croatia went on to get stronger and stronger, and eventually scored the winner in extra time. I was saddened, although not distraught. England exiting a major tournament always brings a certain amount of relief. Although if they won something again at least it would mean we presumably wouldn’t hear quite so much about 1966. Maybe.

Now I guess football isn’t going to get a chance to come home for a while… Croatia and France aren’t such bad places to hang out for a few years mind…

Have yourself a merry little Christmas….

“Let your heart be light… Next year all your troubles will be out of s-i-i-ight…”

Every frickin year Jane McDonald promises me that all my troubles will be out of sight. Next year. Every year.

Clearly Jane McDonald has not invested any time and money in watching England play cricket, or she wouldn’t be making such rash predictions.

A shade under one month ago I sat down in front of my laptop, all excited that I had managed to secure a way of watching the Ashes online from Australia. My happiness was only enhanced by the time difference, which meant that the day’s play in Oz didn’t start at midnight (as it does in the UK), but at 6pm. Perfect tea-time viewing.

My American room-mates observed my nightly rituals with mild amusement, and gradually absorbed that each day’s play was not a match in itself, but a continuation of a single match stretching over five days.

And aside from the occasional question along the lines of “Wait, what now? They’re taking lunch?” we all got along just fine, until I lost the appetite for watching (usually around Day 3), and by extension the desire to explain what was going on.

“This isn’t going so well, is it?” would be met by a defiant explanation of how, if England’s batters were to perform to an acceptable international standard, England could still be in the game here.. and then within a few hours the same question would be met with a shake of my head, and a resigned grimace.

Within a couple of weeks my joy at being able to watch the Ashes had been severely dampened by actually watching said Ashes.

Well done Mitchell Johnson. I didn’t think you had it in you to perform consistently for more than one match in every five. Apparently you now do. If you had discovered the secret to bowling that well earlier, I suspect the results in the 2009, 2010/11 and 2013 series would have been different.

Anyway, on to cheerier subjects. Like my car, which has been in for repair three times since I bought it in September, and quite separately from those issues, fails to start some mornings. All these failings I could live with, if the horn didn’t sound like a toy bugle, thus rendering me utterly incapable of expressing my displeasure of others’ driving habits in any meaningful way.

Last week, we had a significant snowfall in Nashville. It fell late on Monday night/early Tuesday morning. Probably a whole inch. Immediately the schools closed. The program at Grace Center that I help out with cancelled the morning’s activities. What else was I to do but head to the Jam? The Jam is my favourite coffee shop in Nashville. It’s run by a lady and her three daughters who moved here from California a few years ago. They serve great coffee, and what’s more they’re so close to my house that I can actually walk there when I come over all European, or (more commonly) when my car doesn’t start. Walking there provokes great astonishment in the Jam Girls, roughly equivalent to the dismay they experience when the sun momentarily disappears behind a cloud, or the temperature drops below 75F.

The place has become a regular hangout for me and several friends. Much along the lines of the Central Perk in Friends, I am informed by younger friends who are more in touch with popular culture. They started making a flat white for me at my request, and have even added it to their menu. Apart from that they regularly heap abuse on me for spending so much time in there.

So, imagine my disappointment when around 8.30am I pulled into the parking lot to find the Jam closed. Clearly Momma Jam and the Jam girls were so dismayed by the snow and the cold that they had not ventured beyond their comforters that morning. Sometimes I don’t wish they all could be California Girls… 😉

Curry, cricket and Charleston

Found myself at an Indian restaurant the other night. Nothing unusual in that, except that Indian restaurants aren’t that common in Nashville. And this was a vegetarian curry house, which I’m reasonably confident I haven’t had the dubious pleasure of experiencing before.

It turns out Mushroom Masala is very similar to Chicken Tikka Masala, but without the chicken, and with more mushrooms. Who knew? It was extremely tasty. And since poppadums, mango chutney and peshwari naans have no meat content, not too much of my regular Indian restaurant experience was disturbed.

A bunch of us from the school were meeting to mark 3 weeks since we graduated. Three weeks is not especially significant, I think we were all just missing each other.

As the meal was winding down, I asked the waiter if he liked cricket. I always do this in Indian restaurants over here. The last time the guy was Nepali and liked football. Very disappointing. This guy was more rewarding. We dived straight into a conversation on corruption in the IPL and spot-fixing in general. I felt like I was getting reacquainted with proper sports chat, after many months of double plays, RBIs, and rosters. It’s going to be wonderful to again watch a game that’s allowed to finish with the scores level.

And then, just as my internal sporting equilibrium was returning, news filtered through that the Holy Cross 2nd XI had won a game. What gives?

Since school got out I have done a bit of travelling around.. toured the Jack Daniels distillery, which I discovered is located in a dry county. Alanis, that’s ironic. Spent a week in Charleston, South Carolina and then a weekend in Memphis. Charleston was beautiful, unusually walkable-around for a US city, and very relaxing. Memphis was sketchy, run-down, full of deserted buildings, and jammed with music history and history in general. Loved them both. Tomorrow morning Ryan, Katie and I hit the road south again, for New Orleans this time. Katie is nervous about spending yet more extended periods of time in the car with Ryan and I, on account of us both being extremely talkative. We have both promised to tone it down and try hard to maintain periods of silence now and then.

New Orleans is one of the few places in the world I have specifically wanted to visit for a long time. For the cajun, and the music. Not going to lie, am kind of hoping to see a funeral while I’m there. Not an easy thing to arrange, but you never know…

Unexpected sporting connections

I’ve found a sport that the Brits and the Americans both love. Skiing. And we even have the same name for it. Naturally there are some differences in nomenclature. Here, as I understand it, my pants are held up by suspenders.

We’re two days into a 3-day ski trip to West Virginia, and tired muscles are recovering in our overheated condo. This is my first experience of skiing in N America and not Europe, and the Showshoe resort seems great. Speaking to a stranger does not require a preliminary assessment of what their first language might be, and resort staff (and slope users in general!) are considerably more courteous than those in France. It sits at a lower altitude than any resort I’ve been to in the Alps, but there have been shedloads of snow, and all the runs are covered right down to the bottom. Also, despite the lower altitude, it has somehow has been much colder than anything I’ve experienced in the Alps. Two days before we arrived the temperature here was minus 4. Fahrenheit. Today was a comparatively Amazonian 10F. It would appear that this is cold enough to cause beer bottles, left out to chill on the balcony, to explode. This has never happened before to me on previous ski trips. Although that was usually Kronenberg 1664 and this was Corona. Perhaps French beer is more suited to low temperatures than Mexican beer. Hmmm, makes sense.

Anyhow, the result of 5 exploded bottles of Corona (Corona Light, in fact – never shop for beer in a hurry) was a considerable amount of yellow snow. Possibly the only time yellow snow has been worth eating.

I’ve been back in the US for exactly 3 weeks now. My journey and re-entry to the States was pleasantly hassle-free. On the NYC-Nashville leg of my journey I found myself sitting across from a dude with a guitar. This is not an unusual occurrence on a flight to Nashville. He struck up a conversation with me, thus:

“Excuse me sir, are those in-ear-monitors?”

“Yes they are, absolutely.”

“Did you get them in Nashville? I need to get a pair.”

“Oh no, sorry, I actually got them in Edinburgh, Scotland!”

“Oh, wow, ok, that’s a long way.”

“Yes.”

(Then after a moment)

“I played rugby in Edinburgh once. When I was 12.”

But of course you did.

“I was at school in England, and we were on tour. It was very cold.”

Yes, that’s the one.

On another trip to the States, a few years back, I was taking a cab with my colleague from the airport into downtown Washington, DC. The cab driver was an enormous black dude. The conversation turned to where we had flown in from.

“Edinburgh, Scotland.”

“Oh.” (Then, after a moment)

“I played cricket in Edinburgh once. In a tournament.”

But of course you did.

“It was pretty cold.”

Yes, yes, that’s the one..

Public Transport and T.B.

Still a decent amount of snow in Edinburgh’s suburbs, with a corresponding lack of car parking available in Balerno, where I go to church, and so I took the bus out this morning. Felt quite virtuous, and texted Wiseman accordingly. In due course, after he’d woken up, he replied and we agreed to meet for lunch in town.

“No idea when I’ll be there, like, what with this transport for the common people”

“Any bus journey you make without contracting T.B. is a total success in my book” he replied.

Inveterate snobs, both of us, although he at least speaks from experience (of buses, that is), being a frequent user of public transport, with a couple of Driving Lesson vouchers still lying unused on his increasingly crowded Unwanted-Christmas-Presents-From-Andrew-Shelf. I’m not remotely bitter about this.

Anyhow, the contraction of T.B. will remain unconfirmed until the next visit to my GP, likely date sometime in 2013, when I’ve amassed a number of complaints, none of which, on their own, would justify troubling him with, but put together, I feel, generate a composite condition worthy of investigation. I usually consider three complaints to be the minimum number for a GP visit, but suspect that T.B. might be worth at least two minor complaints, possibly more.

Passed NJ’s flat the other day on my icy walk/slide home from work. Her immediate neighbour appears to be outdoing her on the ostentatious Christmas decorations front, and I pointed this out. Perhaps she could stand in the window with Christmas tree lights wrapped around her and perform the Sprinkler of an evening. I think it would brighten up the journeys of many a passerby.

Last night I met up with a number of Holy Cross teammates for a drink in the St Vincent. Our most recently-acquired resident Aussie, Pat, had been drinking since 3pm, possibly in an attempt to numb the pain of being 1-0 down to the Poms in the Ashes. I’m not sure it helped. He repeatedly stated that on paper, the Aussie team is better than England’s. Cue raised eyebrows all round, and several discussions on mental strength vs talent, and how much easier it is to be mentally strong when playing in an outrageously talented team. Highlight of the evening may well have been an arm-wrestling bout between Smudger and Shifty (see above), the prize being the captaincy of the first XI in 2012. Not entirely sure whether the winner or loser got the prize…

Bus journeys appear to provide good blogging time, must take them more often. Disease contraction-permitting, of course. I think I feel a cough coming on…

Surreal

It’s been a surreal week. The snow in Edinburgh has been deeper than anyone can remember. The Forth Road Bridge was closed, and avalanche warnings were issued for the Pentland Hills and Arthur’s Seat, of all places. It feels like the only difference between Edinburgh and an Alpine ski resort right now is the lack of big mountains nearby. And perhaps the fact that ski resorts don’t always have this much snow.

Even more surreal has been England’s dominance in the Ashes down under. Bob Willis, possibly the grumpiest man in cricket, tonight described England’s performance in the Second Test as “absolutely first-rate”.

I don’t know whether it was the bat-dominated last two days of the First Test, and the promise of more to follow at Adelaide, but I didn’t bother to stay up to watch any of the first day’s play live. And so it was only natural that it would be “the most exciting start to an Ashes Test in history (D Gower)” with three wickets falling in the first three overs.

Perhaps my lack of Ashes-watching stamina was just down to the Tests being back-to-back, and not having recovered fully from the late nights watching the First Test. This staying up into the early hours lark is proving tricky. The BBC very helpfully posted an article on how to stay up through the night, including such advisory gems as “One way to stay awake is to drink coffee intermittently.” Thanks for that one, Auntie. And for the important safety message. “Anybody going without sleep and then trying to go to work should not do anything like driving or other tasks where an accident could be dangerous.” Presumably falling asleep in front of a client won’t lose me my job, then. Excellent news.

So accustomed to touring England teams being in disarray, it’s frankly confusing to witness Australia in trouble during a home series. It appears to be a commonly-held view that this Ashes series is pitting two mediocre teams against each other, lest we should get carried away. I’m not about to get carried away, but I think England are better than that. Anderson has always been rated as a high-class bowler, but has been dogged by the damning caveat “when he fires”, or “when the ball swings”. He now bowls brilliantly, regularly, on all manner of pitches. Strauss is a class player at the top of the order, although he’s done his best to hide this in two out of his three innings so far. Trott is a solid number 3, KP now has runs under his belt (and a wicket!) and the strut has accordingly returned, and Bell, critically, now no longer needs to put on a show of confident body language, as the confidence is already there from some high-quality knocks in pressure situations. Swann is world-class and can bat, Broad is ever-improving, although now sadly lost to this series through injury, and Finn is the real deal. What cannot be coincidental to all of this individual success is that the core of the team has been together for a decent time, they are clearly well-managed, and they play as a unit.

Australia, by contrast, have some very good players, but are desperately short of confidence, unity and direction. And no wonder, with their trigger-happy selectors. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for players like Marcus North – trudging off after another low score knowing that their international career might well be over. Granted, North has had his chance, but Xavier Doherty? It’s been hard not to feel sympathy for him, preferred as Australia’s spinner to Hauritz by the selectors, apparently only to buy Pietersen’s wicket. Which he did in the Second Test, but not until KP had racked up a double-ton. Doherty will now surely be dropped for Perth. He has experienced the kind of morale-shattering selectorial caprice that so undermined England in the nineties.

England now go to Perth knowing they can effectively wrap up the series with a win there. Just like Australia did in 2006…