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Look, the hardest thing about not running for a while is that when I get back here and catch up on all the posts that I've missed, it's like I've been living in a hole and missed out on all the fun. You're a very motivating lot here you know.

Anyway I've just had lunch so I can't really go out and hit the tarmac just yet, and I promised somewhere else to have a beer in celebration of all the Almeria heroes who did so amazingly well in sunny Spain - well done all of you!

The wretched truth from down here is that I haven't run for weeks now. I've been having way too much fun otherwise and I've slipped into a kind of summer malaise. The good news though is that my diet is going really really well, so I'm still losing flab depsite the lack of exercise. However, the activity levels do have to increase soon. And now that the distractions of cricket and tennis are almost over, it shouldn't be quite so difficult to fire up the running shoes again.

First though, there's still the little matter of some cricket finals to be played against the old enemy. Better sharpen up the ol' sledging tongue, put on the war paint and see if we can't coax one more big score out of Adam Gilchrist.

Once more into the fray then...

Well done on the weight loss, MLCM. By contrast, my periods of inactivity tend to be rather fattening. I've had just a couple of outings since Almeria, but hope to get out tomorrow. We're sxpecting a few inches of snow overnight, which seems like an unmissable opportunity to get out there.

As for the cricket, England are on a roll, so I wouldn't be too cocky if I were you....

andy Wrote:As for the cricket, England are on a roll, so I wouldn't be too cocky if I were you....

That's the spirit! Good to see a bit of confidence back in the Ingerlund camp. Let's hope for some good cricket.

Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:That's the spirit! Good to see a bit of confidence back in the Ingerlund camp. Let's hope for some good cricket.

Yes, lets.
After all, they can't do any bloody worse than the football team.


Sorry, I'm having an Eeyore moment.

Had a nice surprise at work today. A workmate who is an ex-pat Englishman and fellow beer-brewer, had just returned from a trip back home and brought me back a can of Dogbolter to brew! Woo hoo! Today I also finished ten consecutive days of shift work and returned home in time for the sail past of 200 old sailing vessels coming into town for a wooden boat festival. This fleet included the Endeavour replica and what looked very much like a Spanish galleon. Great stuff.

My return home also coincided with the start of the first Australia -v- England final of the one day cricket series. In light of the gift of Dogbolter I felt inspired to stop off and get a couple of bottles of something English and be an honorary Englishman for a while ... but don't tell anyone or they'll send me to Guantanamo most likely.

So I spent a very pleasant afternoon watching the fleet sail past, whilst keeping half an eye on the cricket and enjoying a couple of England's finest. And the weathe was good, and i have a long weekend ahead of me. Life is good - tomorrow I might even get a run under my belt.

But first I have to brew that beer.

Happy days.

Good to hear from you MLCMan.
There's worse things to be than an honorary Englishman.
Especially today

Aye, it was a good and deserved win for the lads. It's nice to see some happy Englishmen

I'm glad that the real cricket has started at last. I know that all those extended warm-up games are loved by the anorak-wearing enthusiasts but I can do without them. Any match with more than one innings per side is illogical. Why two? Why not 3 or 5 or 9? It's arbitrary.

One day cricket. It's the real deal.

I'm tempted to go on a Norwegian-style victory rant - Rolf Harris, Mel Gibson, Rod Laver, Angus Young, Greg Norman, Kylie Minogue, Skippy the Kangaroo, Jason Donovan can you hear me? Jason Donovan can you here me? Your boys took one hell of a beating! - but that would be churlish and a bit rich considering I gave our lot rock-all chance in this series.

But I would like to say one thing to all those Aussie commentators and players who questioned Collingwood's MBE a couple of weeks ago;

Nah-nah na-nah nah! :p
He's getting an upgrade to a Knighthood.

So the Aussies didn't have any staying power. The earlier victories can now be seen for what they were -- a flash in the pan. We left it late to prove our superiority, but we got there in the end. A great day to be English.

Hurrah!!!

Sweder Wrote:I'm tempted to go on a Norwegian-style victory rant - Rolf Harris, Mel Gibson, Rod Laver, Angus Young, Greg Norman, Kylie Minogue, Skippy the Kangaroo, Jason Donovan can you hear me? Jason Donovan can you here me? Your boys took one hell of a beating! - but that would be churlish and a bit rich considering I gave our lot rock-all chance in this series.

But I would like to say one thing to all those Aussie commentators and players who questioned Collingwood's MBE a couple of weeks ago;

It wasn't the Aussie commentators who were questioning the MBE. It was your lot. We don't give a rip. What's a bloody MBE anyway? I had to look it up on Wikipedia to find it's just some poncy medal handed out by some out-dated imperalist nonsensical waste-of-space.

And let's remember who it was who from the outset said your guys could win - they had the talent, they just needed some belief. And I was bloody right. We learned long ago that your boys could play. They just need a bit of spine. Guys like Plunkett and Nixon gave them the attitude they needed at just the right moment. Well done those two particularly.

And Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue, Mel Gibson and Rolf Harris are NOT Australians. We disowned and banished them yonks ago.

As for Trescothick...

:mad:

Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:It wasn't the Aussie commentators who were questioning the MBE. It was your lot.

Far be it from me to question the accuracy of your retort . . . but it's bollocks During the test match series (now there's an antiquated form of sport for you) a number of your super-friendly sporting heroes took to greeting Collingwood to the middle with the suggestion that he got his gong on the back of one match in 2005. I'm looking forward to reading that Aussie post-match dinner menu in full - watch out for 'sour grapes' and 'lashings of humble pie'.

By the way, Mr Buchannan recently bemoaned the lack of decent opposition before the World Cup.
Fancy a game?

I have to say the whole honours system is generating quite a lot of interest over here. Not least because there's an outside chance that President Blair might finally be ousted following the cash for honours investigations. As for the validity of the poncy medal handed out by some out-dated imperalist nonsensical waste-of-space, I quite agree. Any system that recognises the contribution of highly-rewarded sporting icons win bugger-all for their country (are you listening Mr Beckham?) is surely a load of old toss.

Well I'll tell you one thing - I watched part of the South African demolition (too soft a word ... maybe annihilation is better) of Pakistan earlier today, and I reckon if that's typical of their standard of play, I strongly suggest that neither Australia nor England will stand a snowball's chance in Hades of winning the world cup.

South Africa were supremely impressive.

They bowled out Pakistan for 107, with the bowlers sharing the honours, and then de Villiers and Smith got the necessary runs in just 14 overs for SA.

Bloody good showing.

Yes, yes, yes . . . all very interesting
But they didn't hammer the World Champions in their own back yard, did they?







[SIZE="1"]Sorry, but like a prized truffle this is just too good, too delicious to pass up [/SIZE]

When Sweder is done gloating, he might like to explain to our non-cricket loving friends the signficance of this little trophy. :p

Of course the Aussies were delighted to finally regain the little urn, and they deserved it in spades. But surely even the most one-eyed Antipodean sports fan will concede that our trophy's bigger than your trophy?

Sweder Wrote:... surely even the most one-eyed Antipodean sports fan will concede that our trophy's bigger than your trophy?

Hmm, if it's size you're worried about, you might find this one is slightly bigger again... that's the current World Cup trophy there, by the way. What trophy was that you had*?



*Isn't this getting a but churlish? Tell you what, you take your crappy little Commonwealth Bank trinket home with you and we'll hang on to our Ashes trophy and our World Cup Champions trophy and we won't say anymore about it.

It only looks bigger coz it's being (just about) held by Ricky 'Pixie' Ponting*. Our pot took two giants of the game, Flintoff and the Mighty Collingwood, to lift it

I'm looking forward to the World Cup. I agree that SA look good, and obviously Australia will play tough as will NZ and Pakistan. But did you see the match between Sri Lanka and India? What's the story with this Malinga character? He's a chucker, pure and simple, right? It's like the emperor's new clothes - no-one seems to notice that he runs in and slings the ball like a baseball pitcher.



[SIZE="1"]* Without doubt the finest cricketer I've seen in the last thirty years :o [/SIZE]

Why are you always talking about cricket? I even do not know the rules, I even ask me if in Spain there is a criket team!

Ana Wrote:Why are you always talking about cricket? I even do not know the rules, I even ask me if in Spain there is a criket team!

We're not always talking about cricket Ana. Sometimes we talk about beer.

A quick search revealed this Spanish cricket website. Looks like you play quite a bit of cricket over there Ana. You should get along to a game - you can't say you've really lived until you've been to a cricket game. Just ask SP