Tag: Wiseman

Manchester, Day 2

Pakistan 119 & 12/0, England 461/9 declared

It’s been a long day in the sun. Top, top weather, and great cricket. England, revelling in the sunshine, batted very well today, and really should win the game from here. After Pietersen unfortunately got out in the first over of the day, we saw Ian Bell play an outstanding knock to finish on 106 not out, some great shots from Collingwood and Alastair Cook complete a fine century. On a more personal note, my arms and knees are on fire. Could have made more judicious use of the sun lotion.

Still, it’s been a great day, rounded off by a meal at a local establishment, as local as multinational chain restaurants get…

A word more about our hotel room. It’s got a disabled-access bathroom, which is fine except that there is no bath or shower cubicle to shower in. The shower head is simply fixed to the wall, and a very slight incline in the floor drains all the water away, provided you don’t turn the power up above 30% or so… Mark hadn’t worked this out last night, hence the flooded bathroom. Tonight we improvised some coastal defences with a couple of towels. He has just re-emerged after another visit tonight and reports that the defences have been breached, which is unfortunate… will have to check the tides before my next visit.

So, tomorrow beckons. Not sure how much cricket we’ll get tomorrow as the forecast is a little ropey. And I don’t have an umbrella or a raincoat. But that’s all for tomorrow. Meantime I’ll finish my cup of tea and settle down to watch the highlights of today’s play… night night

Manchester, Day 1


Well, after a longish drive down, Wiseman and I have arrived in Manchester, in anticipation of Days 2 and 3 of the 2nd Test against Pakistan. The trip was marginally longer than anticipated due to Mark’s insistence on having a large slice of cake after his meal at motorway services number ONE, and then further delayed by his demands to stop for a cup of coffee at motorway services number TWO. His strongly-worded coffee demands may have had something to do with the fact that I was nodding off at the wheel and he had to resort to conversing with me in order to keep us both alive.

Finally we arrived at the hotel, check in and make our way up to our room, only to be confronted by the immeasurably frightening vista of a room with a DOUBLE bed. Disaster. Nothing for it but to turn tail and head back down to reception, whereupon we engaged the intermittently helpful staff in a conversation which involved a lot of staring at the floor and mutterings that we didn’t want to share a bed. The upshot of it is that we’ve managed to score a TWIN room which someone hadn’t checked in to yet. Mark has just had a shower and flooded the bathroom. He is now typing on his laptop, and very helpfully sharing his internet connection to my Airport Express, which is broadcasting it to my laptop, (Jones are you impressed…?!) as for some reason I am unable to pick up the hotel’s wireless network anything like as strongly as him.

Wiseman has just noticed the tea and coffee making facilities and appears to be considering his second black coffee of the evening. There is no apparent limit to the man’s caffeine intake…

Mark gets a Mac


Well, it’s nothing to do with cricket, but today marks a momentous occurrence… my good friend Wiseman has taken the plunge and purchased a Macbook… it’s taken a good few years of hard evangelism but he’s finally seen the light 🙂

I was just lying on my mum’s sofa, concerned with nothing more than digesting another sumptuous lunch, when I asked Mark what he wanted to do this afternoon… to which he replied “I think I’ll buy a Mac”. About 20 seconds later I realised what he said and practically fell off the sofa. About 20 seconds after that we were on our way to John Lewis.

On Thursday we head down to Manchester to watch Days 2 and 3 of the Second Test v Pakistan. Now that Mark also has a laptop we will be able to stick to purely digital communication for the two days. We might never need to actually speak to each other again…