A tad further than Tipperary

Tuesday 30 November 2010

Whoever wrote It's a long way to Tipperary* had clearly never attempted a trip to Australia. Now that really is a long way. But I'm now over half way there in miles and time. Changi airport, Singapore, to be exact, at 9pm local time. Somehow I have missed seeing any daylight this Tuesday. A weird feeling - a bit like becoming an honorary Laplander for the day (but without the fringe benefits of owning a flowing red cape and long white beard). Frankfurt and its surrounds may look quite twee when you're enjoying a Glühwein at the Christmas market (ignoring the fact that your toes are so cold, they feel as if they could fall off at any second). But when you are trying to travel anywhere during the first major snowfall of the winter, it becomes a different story entirely. As we experienced yesterday. Fortunately for me, amid the hundreds of flight cancellations and complete chaos at the transfer desks, my flight finally got away at shortly after 1am - three hours late. This was after eventually solving an unnamed technical problem with the aircraft and waiting a further hour and a half in the queue for the de-icing machine. The joys of winter travel. Yet I really shouldn't whinge about long haul travel in the modern age. Imagine taking part in a cricket tour to Australia 50-60 years ago. This would have taken the best part of 7 months out of your life - 2 months on the boat to get there in the first place, 2-3 months of cricket (including extensive pan-continental travel within the vastness which is Australia), then another 2 months to while away on the boat back to Blighty. And to think today's England supporters call themselves barmy. That sort of time commitment really is the stuff of a bygone age of travel. (* Harry Williams and Jack Judge wrote It's a long way to Tipperary according to Wikipedia, so I imagine there is a 50:50 chance of this being right).

Hold the front page - a cricket match is drawn

Monday 29 November 2010

Brisbane Day 5: England 260 & 517-1 declared (is this right?), Australia 431 & 107-1

Match drawn This is where it gets really hard to explain cricket to, say, a German or an American reader. Why would two teams play for five whole days, then shake hands on a drawn game? And why, having witnessed this stalemate, will the Barmy Army be painting Brisbane red and white tonight? It's just not something you can explain objectively. The sense of pride at this result, and the manner in which it has been achieved, derives from somewhere deep in the soul of a cricket-loving Englishman. Maybe I will try harder to put this into words in the next few weeks.... After yesterday's great fightback by England, I was already hoping for a drawn game when I tuned in at 7am this morning. But my eyes stood out on their metaphorical stalks when I saw the score. Over 500 runs for the loss of only one wicket? England? Against Australia? That sort of thing just doesn't happen. Not in my lifetime anyway. Tonight I am flying out to bolster the ranks of the Barmy Army for the second Test in Adelaide. Weather permitting. According to the forecast, 10 centimetres (4 inches) of snow will be lying on Frankfurt airport by the time my plane is due to leave. This is doing nothing positive for my stress levels. However, maybe these would be relieved somewhat if I actually started my packing....

It's just not chess

Sunday 28 November 2010

Nothing of particular relevance to Day 4, but this morning I managed to relocate a gem from the brilliant Ben Dirs on the BBC's Test Match Special on-line coverage. Back on Day 1, he had been increasingly comparing the tense opening exchanges to a game of chess, with each side waiting patiently for a chance to out-manoeuvre the other.

Then, out of the blue, came Peter Siddle's fantastic hat-trick (note for Stefan: 3 wickets in 3 consecutive balls - a very unusual feat). This inspired the following commentary from Ben: If this match was a game of chess, Siddle has just done the equivalent of flip the board over, sweep aside the pieces and nut England in the face. Genius.