cricket season over for another year

it's over! the cricket season is completed (stop cheering mrs p!).

the final game last sunday against cavendish wanderers ended in defeat but was notable for two things. firstly i scored a personal best of 34 batting at number three. the other thing being one of our players managed to hit a towering six straight through a team mate's car window!

all in all a pretty good season for elmswell c.c. as we finished fifth out of nine teams. i think next season with a bit more luck and some better weather we could push for another promotion.

for a full run down of the league table click here.

for the record, this season i played 11 matches, batted in 10 innings, with 1 not out, scoring a total of 127 runs at an average of 14.11 with a top score of 34.

tony blair on the daily show

tony blair recently made a very interesting appearance on the daily show with jon stewart.

this show is more often than not the best place to get a realistic view of american (and often world) politics.

mr blair doesn't offer too many nuggets of wisdom (when did he ever?) as it seems more of an advert on his part to publicise his new course in faith and globalisation at yale university (weird hey?).

in my opinion the best point made during the interview was from jon stewart himself when he talked about the fact that in the end 19 people actually carried out the attacks on 11th september 2001. he asked is it possible to go to war enough, to make the world safe enough, that 19 people wouldn't want to attack "us" again.
(see 7min 50secs in on video part 2)

elmswell c.c. update

when i last updated you elmswell c.c. were on a 3 match unbeaten run in the league. unfortunately that came to an end in a fairly close game against earl stonham which we lost by 26 runs. we got back to winning ways the following week with a 5 wicket defeat of nowton.

in august the weather took its toll and we were unable to play any league games, losing 3 chances to gain more valuable points.

our first game after the rainy season that is the english summer came last sunday against tendring park. we had lost to them earlier in the season in a fairly close game that we really should have won. however this match turned out to be even closer.

we won the toss and decided to bat first. it all looked pretty bad when we collapsed to 72 for 7 after only 29 overs. but a stand of 57 for the 8th wicket brought us home with a very respectable 129 for 7 from our 40 overs.

tendring park started well but lost wickets at fairly regular intervals throughout their innings. they steadied the ship and with 12 balls left they were 127 for 8 - 3 runs for victory!

the penultimate over went for just a single - 2 runs to win! the final over started badly with a no-ball. this tied the scores, but if scores were level we would win as we had lost fewer wickets. no runs were added as we came to the last two delivers of the game. dan, our young bowler, then pulled it out of the bag. two wickets, both clean bowled, with the last two balls of the game! what a finish, and at 8pm (it was dark!).

we are now safely in mid-table of division 3 with only one game to go next week against cavendish wanderers. then the bat and gloves get a well earned rest until next season.

on the road again

yes it's official, i've started running again - and i have a new toy. it's called the nike+ and it turns my ipod nano into a kind of fancy pedometer that can measure my speed, distance, pace and calories burned as i run. i used it for the first time today and it worked really well.

also, you might have notice the little widget on the side of my blog page. this will keep you all updated on how well my runs are going and if i'm getting any quicker. if i start to flag or get lazy you have permission to get onto me.!

waterlog by roger deakin

i have just finished reading the excellent "waterlog- a swimmer's journey through britain" by roger deakin. it's an excellent travel book with a twist in that the author writes about his journey as he swims through britain.

his love of the natural world and his passion for it's conservation comes through strongly and if you are an east anglian (a person from east anglia) like me then you will be familiar with many of the places he visits in our region.

i'd highly recommend this excellent book as a great read that leaves you feeling that you've swum every stroke with the author and enjoyed all the sights, sounds and smells that he did.