They've taken the cricket off the telly.

Pricks.

The last thing on earth I can think of that I'd rather be watching is a camera jammed up the arse of a cyclist doing the Tour de France. Put the bloody cricket back on. I mean this first test at Lords has been an absolute cracker.

The world's best cricket team playing the Old Enemy in one of sports longest rivalries in the history of sport, easily the longest by decades in the world of cricket - the world's most civilised sport.

We're the best. The Australian team I mean. No other team comes close to us but we're on a weeny bit of a form slump at the moment and the wicket at Lords is dodgy as hell.

Sorry for all you non-cricket types but if you get confused by the lingo here, it's because you're not civilised enough to have taken the time to become acquainted with this beautiful and elegant sport.

Indeed the batsmen have had the worst of this test in the first two days. As I type this 23 wickets have fallen, Glenn McGrath got his 500th test wicket yesterday, Ricky Ponting passed the 7000 test run mark today and Australia looks set to ensure the English team doesn't win a test at Lords for another 2 years, making this a losing streak seven and a half decades long at this ground. Sux to be a pom, huh.

The ball has been swinging like hangman's noose in a hurricane, deviating both ways after pitching and worst of all, grubbing and jumping. How the hell is a batsman supposed to think about playing shots on a wicket like that? Of course the bowlers think it's Christmas. This is where they get to improve their averages, strike rates and hero status.

The next test is at Headingley, not as happy a hunting ground for the world's best cricketing nation, but the poms don't have much in the tank. They just don't believe they can beat us in a series. A game maybe, but not a series. And I have this feeling we here in the Antipodes place a tad more value on The Ashes than do the English. We won them first way back in the 19th Century and we've had them since the 1980s. They're OUR fucking Ashes.

Truth is, the original urn has only been off Blighty once for a visit out here during the Centenary Series, what gets shipped abroad is just a replica of the original urn, but it's the thought that counts - plus knowing we're the best.

It would seem I'm over my bunge-ness from last week. Truth be known, I only poked my nose in there for about 3 days and it was just the surrealness of it that got me tetchy. Yes tetchy.
I'm happier now I bullied my former boss and won. Haven't heard yet whether or not he got shafted, the Hobbit hasn't emailed me and I haven't called him back. Good kid, the hobbit. Just short and well, hobbit-like.

Tour le Frog is still on as we travel downhill staring up 14 lycra covered arses wondering what's going through the minds of the camera operators. Pervy gits. If they were giving us wholesale panoramic views I'd be right in there glued to the screen because where they are on day 19 is Chatrat territory.

Yes!

Did you not know?

There's a tiny little spec on the map in the Puy-de-Dome area, near where the Tour is now and in the Puy-de-Dome area is the wonderfully picturesque little hamlet of Chatrat. Google it, it's fucking gorgeous. These mutants on wheels are travelling through this area and instead of giving us a look at the scenery, all we're getting is mass freckle. Nice if you're gay (or not, who knows) but terminally dull for me I'm afraid.

Speaking of Google, my bloggity blog got approved to carry their Ad-Sense jiggy boo. I'll bung under all the useful stuff over there ----> so it's out of the way and if you feel like making me spectacularly wealthy, click the links. Go on you hosers, I've given you a laugh or made you think, just pay me back by clicking a link. It's not like I'm asking for money.

I must admit to being rather surprised this sort of thing would be permitted by the hosts of this 'ere bit of melodrama but hey, if they're going to advertise it on their homepage, who the hell am I to knock back an offer of easy earnings? If they kill the blog, I'll be rather sad, because now that I've started putting a bit of time back into it, it'd be a shame to lose it - even if I'm not saying anything remotely useful or informative, but there's gotta be something in it if you're still reading it.

Must be hero worship. Don't worry, it's not a bad thing. I have my heroes too. But my heroes don't appear to be as good as your hero so for that I am most humbly grateful. lol

Have a howlong.

(Time to compose this entry: 30 mins)