Mahinda’s Little World

Almost exactly on cue, Cricinfo did an article on cricket-related songs!

Here’s the entry for Dreadlock Holiday:

Dreadlock Holiday - 10CC
The song that contains the oft used line "I don’t like cricket, I love it", the lyrical equivalent of a leg-side full toss to any TV producer looking for cricket-related background music. The song was successful in its own right, reaching No. 1 in the UK in 1978, and its reggae rhythms mean that if England are in the Caribbean then it’s sure to be resurrected by Sky Sports. The fact that the song had been embraced by the authorities to promote the game rather overlooks the fact that the overall theme is about being mugged while on holiday in Jamaica. Unlikely, therefore, to feature as Jamaica’s World Cup song, especially as it came from the album Bloody Tourists.

No, not the guitar-ridden tattoo-strewn speaker-overloading music genre.

Lead, and plenty of it.

On Sunday, we had a working party at the rifle club. These are arranged when some work needs doing, and they’re usually timed to coincide with me being away. This time, however, I could actually make it to one.

An "after" picture - unfortunately, I’ve not got a
"before" one, but it really was pretty full of lead

See the angle? ‘Twas like mining a seam!

Almost a foot long, and several kilos in weight

Clare likes burning stuff

Gwillum (or however it’s spelt), the shaggiest
blackest dog in the world!

I was a bit lazy, to be honest, and only got there at something like 12.30pm, to find Clare doing her best "Victorian child labourer" impression. The target board had been removed from the end of the range, leaving the butt open. Behind the board is a sloping metal plate, which ends up joining the floor at a tight angle a couple of feet behind the board.

Now, the butt was absolutely full of lead (or at least, it was when they started), that had to be dug out. When I got there, Clare was kneeling down, half inside the butt, whacking bits of lead with a crowbar!

We reckon that it might have been over 20 years’ worth of bullets back there - in short, a shedload (buttload?!) of lead. I reckon it can’t have been too far off 150kg worth, to be honest, some of which was pretty solid.

Probably not one to write to health and safety about, to be honest, but we did have dust masks. Lead does sort of leave your skin all greasy, though. Well, it did mine.

I went on lead mining duty while Clare went outside to burn things. And take a sledgehammer to our old pigeonholes. She seems such a nice fluffy peaceful girl…until you put a hammer and/or matches in her hand! She was assisted by Gwillum (no idea how it’s really spelt), Dennis and Sheila’s huge black shaggy dog. Definitely a canine of character, and able to play ‘fetch’ with considerably more than your average twig. He’s been known to try it with bits of telegraph pole, apparently.

While we were doing all that, Adrian, Dennis and Mike were fixing a bit of floor that had collapsed. Having jumped around on it last night, I can confirm that it’s all well and truly sorted

Once we’d dug out as much lead as was feasible, Sheila and I replaced the thick rubber sheeting that lies behind the firing points, and generally swept/vacuumed the range. I then headed off at something like 5.30pm.

Barbecue

When I got home, I marinated some chicken - it’s quite simple really - take some chicken breasts, butterfly them, and just add a tsp or three of hot chilli sauce. I usually use Encona West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce, as it’s really tasty stuff, with just the right kick for effective barbecuing. Also, it’s vinegar based, so serves to tenderise the chicken nicely.

Unfortunately, I was out of Encona so used some of my mother’s home-made stuff - tastier, but too spicy to use much of - and added a handful of chopped rosemary plus a generous squeeze of lemon.

Leaving the chicken to marinate, I jumped* into the shower to get rid of all the dirt and lead. Fun.

* Not literally.

Off to Pete’s place, and I was running late. No matter. The barbecue was good - dual barbecue action in the newly-cleared back garden.

Highlights include:

• No rain
• Many many sausages
• My chicken getting a general thumbs-up
• The World Cup Final (first half on the radio, then we all watched the second) between France and Italy
• Ribery (a French player) blatantly diving to get an early penalty
• Luc (part French) tripping over one of the barbecues…dive!
• Luc tripping over something else, but not knocking it over this time
• Italy equalising
• Extra time
• Motson and Lawrenson being just too annoying, necessitating a switch to ITV
• Penalties
• ITALY WINNING! TAKE THAT, FRENCHIES!

Now, some of you lot will know me as an inveterate font-fondler. As such, I view Comic SODDING Sans as A Very Bad Thing.

Sure, it has its place (after all, it was designed for use with comics), but what gets me (and many others) is the "ooh, look at the cute font" brigade who persist in using it everywhere.

For example, our HR Officer, while an absolutely lovely woman (he says, in case she ever reads this!), has a penchant for the font. Cue serious organisational announcements in cutesy Comic Sans.

Anyway, this post was inspired by Workmate Caroline sending me a link to the Ban Comic Sans website - it’s great!

In the interest of fairness, however, here’s the Comic Sans Appreciation Society

Ended up playing tennis last Sunday, for a couple of hours in the blazing heat. Oh, and energy-sapping humidity, as evidenced by the violent thunderstorms that swept through South Manchester just an hour or two after we finished.

Got home, courtesy of Linden’s car, and coughed almost continuously for a couple of hours. No lasting harm, though. Then headed over to Pete and Rosy’s to watch the last two episodes of 24. Which were okay. Not great, though - series 5 is definitely a fair way behind series 1 for me. Now I’ll just have to see how 2-4 compare.

Monday was shooting, and I actually did well for a change. Finally free of my annual hayfever nightmare*, I hit a 97 and 95, both of which were better than the scores indicate - the sort of cards where the bulls are all dead centre and the one-offs are only just out. I might finally be getting use to the trigger action on my rifle.

* Basically, I get hit really badly in May/June - it started out as a week or two of sneezing, about four years ago, and it’s been getting worse year on year

Tuesday saw me stay in and cook. I’d picked up a lovely bit of fillet steak on Monday night, and I had the urge for steak and chips. It must be one of those primal things - every so often, I just need a big bit of meat, still bloody, accompanied by deep fried potatoes.

In this case, I made a job lot of chips, with plenty of paprika and smoked garlic to give them some flavour, and did the beef medium-rare (by accident - I was aiming for rare but got sidetracked by the first batch of chips) with onions and Portobello mushrooms in a peppery brandy cream sauce. Had some fine beans on the side, too, just to stay healthy!

Mmmmmmmm. Though I say so myself, I do make excellent chips.

My hunger well and truly sated (and then some), I waddled to The Red Lion at Kate and Linden’s behest, where I found the aforementioned girls, Adam, Rob and Heather. I’d not really chatted to Heather for ages, so it was nice to catch up.

Wednesday saw the usual hockey-in-the-park shenanigans. Fortunately, the torrential showers let up for two hours - it had been looking a bit biblical just half an hour before we started! Saw Mike and Pam in Hardy’s afterwards, who’d come up from Cheltenham for Mike’s PhD graduation ceremony. Dr Mike, indeed.

And now it’s Thursday. Looks like I’m staying in tonight. I could certainly do with the relaxation.

Okay, nothing to do with me, but three of my mates are attempting a monstrous sponsored cycle ride. They’re not hardcore cyclists (well, they weren’t when they had the idea, anyway), so it really is quite a challenge. They set off tomorrow!

Adam, Mark and Dan are cycling from John O’Groats (top of Scotland) to Land’s End (tip of Cornwall) - hence "JOGTLE" - in aid of MS (Multiple Sclerosis Society), Mencap and Sense (National Deafblind and Rubella Association).

Basically, you should all sponsor them. It’s a bloody long way!

I was going to start this post with a throwaway line from that song…but instead I thought I’d see if I could find its lyrics…

DREADLOCK HOLIDAY
10cc - 23/09/1978 (GREAT year!)
1 week at #1 - 13 weeks in charts

I was walkin’ down the street,
Concentratin’ on truckin’ right,
I heard a dark voice beside of me,
And I looked ’round in a state of fright…

I saw four faces, one mad; a brother from the gutter.
They looked me up and down a bit and turned to each other.

I say, I don’t like cricket, oh no,
I love it!
I don’t like cricket, no no,
I love it!

Don’t you walk through my words, you got to show some respect.
Don’t you walk through my words, ‘cause you ain’t heard me out yet.

Well, he looked down at my silver chain.
He said: "I’ll give you one dollar".
I said: "You’ve got to be jokin’, man,
"It was a present from me mother".

He said: "I like it, I want it, I’ll take it off your hands,
"And you’ll be sorry you crossed me,
"You better understand that you’re alone" (a long way from home).

And I say, I don’t like Reggae, no no,
I love it!
I don’t like Reggae, oh no,
I love it!

Don’t you cramp me style, don’t you queer me pitch.
Don’t you walk through my words, ‘cause you ain’t heard me out yet.

I hurried back to the swimming pool,
Sinkin’ piña colada.
I heard a dark voice beside me say,
"Would you like something harder?"

She said: "I’ve got it, you want it, my harvest is the best,
"And if you try it, you’ll like it, and wallow in a Dreadlock Holiday".

And I say, don’t like Jamaica, oh no,
I love her!
Don’t like Jamaica, oh no,
I love her, oh yeah.

Don’t you walk through her words, you got to show some respect.
Don’t you walk through her words, ‘cause you ain’t heard her out yet.

I don’t like cricket, oh no,
I love it (Dreadlock Holiday).
I don’t like Reggae, oh no,
I love it (Dreadlock Holiday).
Don’t like Jamaica, oh no,
I love her (Dreadlock Holiday).
 

It really is quite a dark song, (presumably) about a man on holiday in Jamaica. He tries (?) to talk cricket and reggae, but still gets mugged. He also gets offered some drugs. There are probably all sorts of other hidden meanings of which I know nothing, too.

The song’s become something of a summer anthem for cricket fans, but only that one chorus really. One of my stronger childhood memories is of listening to cricket on the car radio while waiting for my dad (I did A LOT of sitting in the car waiting for dad when I was younger), parked up somewhere in Willesden on a hot summer’s day. It was the time of one of the series against the West Indies, so songs like that featured pretty large.

Back then, the streets of Kensal Green were quiet enough to play cricket in. How times change.

Okay. Did you find this post by Googling for "the I don’t like cricket song", or something similar? Trust me, you’re not alone.

Bear with me here. You probably like cricket…right? How about online games? How about… * cue drumroll * …an online cricket management game?

Battrick. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s fantastic. You get your team, you train your players, you choose your lineups and, twice a week, your lads play one-day games against other people’s teams. Real people. You get commentary too, in real time — you can spend an entire Friday following your team score

First class games are in the pipeline too — four whole days of cricket to follow!

It’s not easy — it’s going to take two years rather than two weeks for you to get to the top. If you make it, that is — you’d be competing against 7,000 other cricket lovers from all around the world.

What’s the catch? There isn’t one, apart from the addiction that WILL take hold. It’s completely free — you can get from bottom to top without paying a penny/rupee/cent/rand/etc.

So, just have a look. Go on. See what you think. And please leave me a comment saying what you do think. Or if you’ve got any questions.
 

Anyway, this post was meant to be all about the two ODIs I watched last week, so I’ll stop blathering…

Old Trafford - 4th Eng vs SL ODI

Whenever The Mighty Sri Lanka tour England, I organise a trip to Old Trafford for a bunch of mates.

Front row - (l-r) PhlAsh, Cattac (aka Chris)
2nd row - Katy (sunhat), Andy, Nic (cap), me, Dan

Front (actually the 2nd) row - Nic, me, Dan
2nd row - Kate (standing), Adam, Matt, Sam
Third row - Allan (tall), Pete, Nick, Adrian

Pete’s pasty was completely empty

The England team takes to the field

The hapless England fans had to make their own
entertainment - in this case, a 10m long snake
made of stacked plastic "glasses"

Clare, Chris and PhlAsh signal four…while nobody
else does! Not set up at all, then…

Toby, Allan and Pete signal rowdily

Linden and Sam (looking like a Miami Vice extra)

This time round, there was only one match there, a One Day International (ODI), and it was on a Wednesday.

Buoyed by the early response, I ordered twenty tickets, and pretty soon had plenty of takers. Closer to the game, however, lots of people dropped out. I did manage to get rid of all the tickets, eventually, but it was a close run thing!

So, we met up outside the ground just after 10am. The weather was fine, if a bit overcast. It was a fairly mixed crowd going, with connections all over the place:

• Hattrickers
  Pete, Allan, Toby, Nick, Adrian
• MUGSS (vaguely!)
  Matt, Kate, Clare, PhlAsh, Chris D, Chris Y, Linden, Sam, Dan
• ChemEng
  Katy, Andy
• Others
  Al - ex-housemate)
  Nic - friend of a girlfriend of a friend, met just a month ago
  Adam - friend of a friend, met on a ski/snowboard trip

As always, some people fall into two camps, and I’d have probably met various people along the way, even if I didn’t know them primarily through MUGSS, etc. 

Almost everyone got there in good time…Matt was the only exception, phoning in to say that he was running pretty late. He eventually joined us around midday, having actually gone into work that morning. His workmates didn’t expect him there, which gave him a bit of a clue. Unfortunately, he was travelling from the far side of Sheffield, so it took a while. D’oh!

We sat in a 4x5 block, which was handy. Of course, I was the only one supporting Sri Lanka - I was roundly jeered, by both my mates and a couple of groups behind us, whenever I proudly waved my flag, but I really didn’t care. All good-natured stuff, really. Directly behind us was a group of really annoying schoolkids - I really don’t think Allan was a fan!

SL batted first, and started very nicely indeed, with Tharanga, Jayasuriya and Mahela (Jayawardene) motoring along. Indeed, Mahela got a hundred. Apart from that, the middle order didn’t do too well (four batsmen all got out for seven runs apiece!), but the innings was saved at the end by some serious hitting from Maharoof and Bandara.

So, 318/7. A pretty imposing target, but considerably less than it was looking at one stage.

England started the chase well, with Trescothick and Cook batting pretty well. Strauss and Bell were pretty useful, and took the score to 161/4 off 28 overs.

Just about on course, then, but the run rate was still high. From there on, wickets fell steadily until England were bowled out for 285, with just over an over left. Looks as though Maharoof’s late flourish was the difference.

The England innings had been properly strangled

Mahela doing some damage

Proper reports and stuff:

• Match summary
• Scorecard
• Guardian over-by-over report

To be honest, England got much closer than I’d expected. To make things interesting, I’d stipulated a "Mahinda’s pint target" - if they got within 30 runs of the SL total, I’d down a pint of Thwaite’s. I got pretty nervous towards the end!

So, everyone got on, and much beer was consumed. Thanks a lot to all who were there, for making it an absolutely superb day out in the sun.

Most of the group, sunned-up and sozzled
(l-r) Dan, Nic, Chris Y, Clare, PhlAsh, Kate, Al, Andy, me, Katy, Sam
(missing) Toby, Matt, Chris D ("Cattac"), Pete, Allan, Nick,
Adrian, Adam, Linden (taking the photo)

Thanks also to Linden, who supplied most of these lovely pictures!

Meeting Mahela

The one disappointment of the day (Pete’s pasty notwithstanding) came after the match.

Okay, so it was a fair wait at the
end, but some people are just far
too easily amused!

Now, Mahela Jayawardene is a family friend of Shaluki, one of my close friends back home. Indeed, his parents were staying at her place for the duration of the series.

I got a call from Shaluki a couple of nights before the match, with her father telling me that I should take my friends around to the pavilion at the end of the match, and Mahela would come out at meet us all (I’d met him once before, several years back).

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get word to him - I should have been pushier with the door staff, I guess - so all I got was a handshake while he had to get on to the team coach.

Oh well. It wasn’t my idea, but it would have been nice.

Curry

After the match, where else to go but King Cobra?!

I spent plenty of time waving my flag gleefully

We headed back to Hardy’s Well, to meet up with some others. I nipped over to say hello to the hockey bunch in Platt Fields - it was 4-1 when I got there, so I joined the losing side and got things up to 5-6, before joining the other side and getting it to 6-6. I’m amazed I didn’t fall over more, after all the beer at the cricket!

Anyway, we had a lovely curry and then, knackered all, headed home. A pretty fantastic day!

Headingley - 5th Eng vs SL ODI

I got an email from Josephine on Thursday morning - her boss was trying to shift some tickets for the last ODI in the series, at Headingley on Saturday.

To cut a long story short (there’s a first time for everything!), I ended up going with Daf, one of her workmates, whom I’d met about three times previously. Nice chap, so I didn’t have any worries that we’d not get on.

I had to get up far too early on Saturday morning…not early enough, though, as I ended up missing my train to Leeds by a few seconds. No matter - the next one wasn’t far off.

A lovely day at Headingley

Found Daf at Leeds station, and we braved the taxi queue. We shared a cab with two others - a lad who was meeting friends at the ground, and a girl who lived close by (Headingley’s a seriously studenty area - roughly the Leeds equivalent of Fallowfield), who’d literally just gotten back from Brazil.

Got in, grabbed beer, and sat down. We had absolutely fantastic seats, right at the front of the North East Stand’s upper tier.

So, the match. England won the toss and batted first, on an absolutely glorious summer day in Leeds. After five overs, Vaas and Malinga kept the score down to something like 2/0, which is absolutely phenomenal stuff! However, once the ball softened a bit, Tresco and Cook started going well. 82/1…157/2…225/3…it didn’t look good for SL, really.

A thoroughly unholy lot!

The eventual target was 321/7. I reckoned that SL might have a bit of trouble. Okay, so the pitch seemed to have nothing in it, and the weather was fine…but it was Headingley, home of late swing and batting collapses!

How wrong I was. Jayasuriya was ANGRY! The fifty came up after five overs, the hundred after eight. I’ve never seen scoring like it. By the time we lost our first wicket, it was 286/1 off just 31.5 overs!

The eventual win had become something of a formality after the first ten overs, with SL reaching the target with more than twelve overs to spare. And that was after taking it easy for a while towards the end.

Utterly, utterly amazing hitting. If SL had batted first, we could have seen something REALLY special - if they’d batted like that for 50 overs, 400 would have been almost a certainty.

So, that brought the series to an end. England had been absolutely taken apart in the end, 5-0 at home. Okay, so it’s only ODIs and not Test cricket, and England were missing key players, but that’s still a worrying thumping. England have absolutely no chance at next year’s World Cup.

Sri Lanka celebrate their 5-0 thumping of England

Proper reports and stuff:

• Match summary
• Scorecard
• Guardian over-by-over report

It was my first time at Headingley, and I was very impressed. A lot of money’s been put into the ground recently, and it showed. Relatively comfortable seats, with good raking and plenty of legroom. It’s just a pity they had no draught bitter on, despite having Deuchar’s IPA as their "Official Beer"

I asked a pretty blonde barmaid there about the Deuchar’s, BTW, and she’d never heard of it. An English student, she was just doing a bit of agency (bar)work to tide her over until she got a proper job. Her bitter/ale knowledge, unfortunately, topped out at Caffrey’s.

Penalties

If Trescothick had been given out on 30something, as he clearly should have been, the match might even have been over in time for the second half of England-Portugal!

As it was, we were in time to see the last few minutes of extra time on Headingley’s big screen, followed by the penalties. By the end of the SL innings, the ground was less than half full. Oh well.

So, England bombed out of the World Cup. On penalties. Again.

Birthdays

So, nicely sunned-up and sozzled, Daf and I headed back to Leeds station, where we parted ways. Back to Manc for me, to catch up with people for Si and Matt’s birthday celebrations.

I eventually joined the throng (Si, Matt/Barney, Mike, Pam, Spikey Rick, Linden, Rosy, Nick, Pete and Sarah) in 42nd Street for indie-oriented goodness.

Lots of people left early, leaving Linden, Rosy and me dancing away until just shy of 2am, when we got a cab back to Linden’s. Rosy and I walked the rest of the way home - I just managed to catch the last of the cricket highlights, then collapsed into bed.

It had been quite a session. What a day!