Tsunami Benefit concert

This is not a rant, just a diary entry. A superb effort at the Millenium Stadium on Saturday for the Tsunami Benefit concert. Timed to perfection with a bill that was far better than it looked on paper - first time I've seen Kathryn Jenkins, Liberty X, Lulu, Eric Clapton, Badly Drawn Boy, Feeder and Embrace on one bill! And it all worked well. The only complaint was missing Snow Patrol and Goldie Lookin' Chain because the queue for the atrocious coffee was very long (about an hour in the queue).

Random Google search

EBay

I'm not sure if I'm spending far too much on EBay or not. I've been trying to replace my CD collection and am buying about 2 CDs a week for £3-4 each. All from a list I made of things I really wanted on CD and thus in my mp3 collection, so I can justify it to myself. Always dangerous - having to justify something to yourself...

And the mp3 collection is creeping up towards 15,000 songs (actually 14,493 at the moment). It would take 41 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes and 14 seconds to play the lot back to back, by which time I would have bought some more anyway.

My iPod only takes a quarter of the entire collection!

Sorry, I appear to be rambling.

Grove RFC

Feel free to be be scared some more.

Be Afraid

Please tell me that I'm not sleep-wrestling again. I hope this isn't my alter-ego.

Bad Day

You know you’re having a bad day when you can’t even open a packet of Post-it Notes.

Celebrity BB

Posted as a comment to Anna's blog

This morning, I saw something that should not have ever made it to my eyes. John McCririck (sp.) waking up in his oversize underpants, then combing a few very long strands of hair over the scalp. This will make it definite that I will not watch any more of Celebrity BB.

Handlebars

I'm not posting a photograph of my current facial hair, nor will it probably survive the cull imposed by Sam before her company's New Year party, but so far at work it has been compared to:

• Ringo Starr circa 1969
  
• Generic Seventies
  
• a seventies porn star
  
• David Crosby
  
• Lynryrd Skynyrd
  
• the construction worker out of the Village People
  
• a Victorian
  
• the people from the 118 adverts
  
• a biker
  
• Derek Smalls from Spinal Tap
  
• Lemmy
  
• James Hetfield in the "Enter Sandman" video
  
• The Edge circa "Achtung Baby" and "Discotheque"
  
• Bond villain in "Diamonds are Forever" with the exploding cake (c/o Mark)
  
• Fu Manchu
  
• Frankie Poullain (the bass player from The Darkness)
  
• some bloke from the Antiques Roadshow
  
• a Mexican (bandit/gringo)
  
• David Boon
  
• Merv Hughes
  
• Craig Stadler
  
• Kim Newman - movie critic from Empire
  
• Dirty Sanchez (c/o Dan)
  
• ex SAS person "Mac" who is apparantly on TV news a lot
  
• Emil Zapata (c/o Marlene)
  
• a walrus
  
• Marshal Strickland from "Back To The Future Part III", i.e., the (?) grandfather of the headmaster in Back to the Future Parts I and II
  
• Yosemite Sam
  

Everyone not at work with me will probably not see this at all - I leave things to your imagination.

This is what I'm aiming for.

Or possibly this. Or this, which is unsurprisingly German.

Mourning for a tree

Very sad news. The ancient lime tree in the outfield at the St. Lawrence cricket ground at Canterbury (home of Kent CCC) has finally succumbed to heartwood fungus and a severe westerly gale (from The Telegraph). The tree had been growing for at least 40 years before the ground was first used for cricket (in 1847) so was around 200 years old. There were even special rules for the ground - nobody could be caught off a rebound from the tree, and it only counted as 4 if you hit the tree. Only three people in 158 years had managed to hit a ball over the tree (although several others claimed the accolade).

It was one of the most eccentric sights in cricket. Kent have however been given permission by MCC to replace the tree, although the new sapling (planted elsewhere in 1999) has not grown sufficiently yet to be transplanted to the pitch.

England Captains as Cricket Commentators

What is the media's obsession with employing ex-England cricket captains? At the last count (i.e., the current Test series with South Africa), the following were involved:

Sky Sports

• Commentators: Ian Botham, David Gower and Bob Willis.
  
• Summariser (on commentary team): Nasser Hussain.
  
• Summarisers (in the UK studio): Graham Gooch and Alec Stewart.

Talk Sport Commentators: Chris Cowdrey and Mike Atherton.

BBC Five Live Summarisers for match reports (for last overseas series):* Mike Gatting and John Emburey (also appears from time to time on Sky).

Channel 9 (Australia) Commentator: Tony Greig.

BBC 5Live (for home matches only) Summariser: Geoff Boycott.

As far as I can tell, the only other people to have captained England in the last 30 years are as follows:

• Mike Brearley
  
• Mark Butcher**
  
• Michael Vaughan**
  
• Allan Lamb
  
• Adam Hollioake***
  
• Keith Fletcher

** still playing
*** only in ODIs, and still playing for Surrey

Oh, and as an aside, the following came from the BBC News web site - a quote from Alec Stewart talking about the domestic TV coverage of the cricket going to Sky:

Former England captain Alec Stewart, speaking on Tuesday, said: "Young girls and boys should be able to see cricket without having to pay for it.
"The ECB have to look at the whole picture. They may be getting a big cheque but, long-term, English cricket will suffer."

This morning, Alec Stewart was summarising for Sky.

As a second aside, there have been 75 captains of England, as follows:

• James Lillywhite jnr (1876/77)
  
• Lord Harris (1878/79 - 1884)
  
• A Shaw (1881/82)
  
• AN Hornby (1882 - 1884)
  
• Hon.IFW Bligh (1882/83)
  
• A Shrewsbury (1884/85 - 1886/87)
  
• AG Steel (1886 - 1888)
  
• WW Read (1887/88 - 1891/92)
  
• WG Grace (1888 - 1899)
  
• CA Smith (1888/89)
  
• MP Bowden (1888/89)
  
• AE Stoddart (1893 - 1897/98)
  
• Sir TC O’Brien (1895/96)
  
• Lord Hawke (1895/96 - 1898/99)
  
• AC MacLaren (1897/98 - 1909)
  
• PF Warner (1903/04 - 1905/06)
  
• Hon.FS Jackson (1905)
  
• RE Foster (1907)
  
• FL Fane (1907/08 - 1909/10)
  
• AO Jones (1907/08)
  
• HDG Leveson-Gower (1909/10)
  
• JWHT Douglas (1911/12 - 1924)
  
• CB Fry (1912)
  
• Hon.LH Tennyson (1921)
  
• FT Mann (1922/23)
  
• AER Gilligan (1924 - 1924/25)
  
• AW Carr (1926 - 1929)
  
• APF Chapman (1926 - 1930/31)
  
• RT Stanyforth (1927/28)
  
• GTS Stevens (1927/28)
  
• JC White (1928/29 - 1929)
  
• AHH Gilligan (1929/30)
  
• Hon.FSG Calthorpe (1929/30)
  
• RES Wyatt (1930 - 1935)
  
• DR Jardine (1931 - 1933/34)
  
• CF Walters (1934)
  
• GOB Allen (1936 - 1947/48)
  
• RWV Robins (1937)
  
• WR Hammond (1938 - 1946/47)
  
• NWD Yardley (1946/47 - 1950)
  
• K Cranston (1947/48)
  
• FG Mann (1948/49 - 1949)
  
• FR Brown (1949 - 1951)
  
• ND Howard (1951/52)
  
• DB Carr (1951/52)
  
• L Hutton (1952 - 1954/55)
  
• Rev.DS Sheppard (1954)
  
• PBH May (1955 - 1961)
  
• MC Cowdrey (1959 - 1968/69)
  
• ER Dexter (1961/62 - 1964)
  
• MJK Smith (1963/64 - 1966)
  
• DB Close (1966 - 1967)
  
• TW Graveney (1968)
  
• R Illingworth (1969 - 1973)
  
• AR Lewis (1972/73)
  
• MH Denness (1973/74 - 1975)
  
• JH Edrich (1974/75)
  
• AW Greig (1975 - 1976/77)
  
• JM Brearley (1977 - 1981)
  
• G Boycott (1977/78)
  
• IT Botham (1980 - 1981)
  
• KWR Fletcher (1981/82)
  
• RGD Willis (1982 - 1983/84)
  
• DI Gower (1982 - 1989)
  
• MW Gatting (1986 - 1988)
  
• JE Emburey (1988)
  
• CS Cowdrey (1988)
  
• GA Gooch (1988 - 1993)
  
• AJ Lamb (1989/90 - 1990/91)
  
• AJ Stewart (1992/93 - 2001)
  
• MA Atherton (1993 - 2001)
  
• N Hussain (1999 - 2003)
  
• MA Butcher (1999)
  
• MP Vaughan (2003 - 2004/05)
  
• ME Trescothick (2004)
  

Spinal Tap

I was talking to various assorted people in the changing rooms at rugby tonight about Spinal Tap. People hadn't heard of it. Am I getting old or have the youth of today got no culture?

Worry.

Have I just compared Grove RFC to Liquorish allsorts?

...And nothing like the truth

Distraction for a few minutes.

Cricket

I've finally got Sam starting to check the cricket score. Success at last. Its only taken me 10 years (and Sonya a good few beforehand)!

New Year Watchwords

The words by which I will live for the next year:

MOTIVATION

WILLPOWER

In other words, I need some of each of them...! Gym or squash or rugby or rugby practice or badminton 3 times a week, and lose two stone by the end of the year. I'm tired of being knackered when I walk up stairs.

Shower

Why is it, that when I am in the shower, I fail to note the difference between shower gel and shampoo. Almost wthout fail I use them the wrong way around, which means I now have beautifully conditioned underarm hair...