Just read Mark Nicholas’ article from yesterday’s Telegraph. As near on a hundred mile an hour winds swept across the South Coast last night, I stared up at a clear Orion’s Belt and thought of the England Cricket Team Down Under and how toasty it must be for them.
One and a half grand to join the Barmy Army for the Sydney Test. Temped? Is Marvyn Gaye?
There are a few things that the late Victorian period bring to mind. Joseph Conrad hammering out works of Genius; I think of the builders who would have laid the bricks of my Mansion Block Flat; and thanks to Mike Selvey’s article yesterday in The Guardian I was awoken to the fact that with the exciting departure of our Ashes Team to Australia, for the first time since the 1890s, our touring Cricket team is in with a shout of winning four back to back Ashes series.
Yes it is very exciting.
Two good things about each of these books :
Cricket’s Strangest Matches : The Bramble Bank game played on the Solent before the incoming tide is one of Britain’s quirkiest traditions; the picture of Wesley Hall bouncing Aussie Norman O’Neill illustrates in no uncertain terms why every schoolboy wants to be a fast bowler.
Wodehouse at the Wicket : Dulwich College’s greatest Old Boy played at Lords amongst the Authors v. Publishers in 1922. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Hugh de Selincourt present, the scorecard is at the back; the poems.
Thanks, Johnners : The photo of Johnners in his Boundary Road study is a cricket fan’s delight; the passages retold of Aggers bounding around the family farm as a teenager listening to TMS are great.
WG’s Birthday Party : The old photo of WG leading the team out into the middle; the fact that Beldam’s black and white adorns the front cover.
Company through the Winter
Went to the last ball – 4 required – but no dice.