Drinka Pinter Milka Day

Predictable perhaps, that the late, great Harold Pinter's death announced on Christmas Day this year should have been so milked by sections of the media. I've never been quite so enamoured of him as others have; his scripts (whether original or adapted from other people’s work) come across as rather cold and superficial. I can remember seeing his frankly pretentious short play The Room at a One-Act play festival in Ipswich a few years ago, and wondered what the heck it was all about. His screenplay for The Servant seems rather contrived and unconvincing, where Dirk Bogarde’s working class servant undermines and takes over James Fox’s snooty master, a bit of whimsy on the working class Pinter’s part.

His most famous attribute was his use of language, notably the use of pauses in many of his plays. But this rather stylised approach to theatre, I find, when it works, is mainly down to the strength of the actor, not the writing.

A highly influential writer nonetheless, strongly influenced himself by Samuel Beckett – for whom Pinter (also a reasonable actor and director) performed in many of his plays, including John Gielgud’s last short film, Catastrophe in 2000.

Horsing Around

Well, now I can say I've been to my first horse race meeting - of a kind - and I can also say that I've sat in the hospitality box at a sporting event for the first time. Do everything once in your life, so they say. The specific occasion was the GFM Christmas Dinner & Disco, and having been invited, and out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to go along.

The Great Leighs Racecourse is something of a revelation in the north of Essex (I'd never heard of it until a few days ago), the first new British racecourse in 80 years, and adaptable for races both day and night, as here. The floodlights used for the purpose are very attractively designed in the shape of champagne glasses - which perhaps suggests the sort of clientele they want to attract. Even the main bar for plebians advises "Smart Casual" as the mode of dress.

As far as the racing was concerned I felt a little more at home and in touch with the sport when I occasionally popped into the main bar next door. Back in the corporate hospitality area, the food was very nice, so much so that I didn't really have time to nip outside into the freezing cold to watch the races, for every time a finish came along, so did the next course.

As soon as the last race finished however (for which my horse came in second in the sweepstake on our table), the disco music kicked in almost instantaneously. Mentally I nodded off - and almost literally at some points - the music was too loud for me to fall asleep. At other times I decided to step out into the cold to take a proper look round the racecourse, armed with a glass of red wine to fortify me - the ideal tonic with all the colds going around at the moment.

The GFM coach brought most of us back to Colchester at 12am (with deepest thanks to the member of the Great Leighs staff who found my missing baseball cap.) On the way back I could see most of Essex frosting over that night, yet the racetrack remained unharmed; we had to step over it to access the main enclosure. I never expected to get sand on my shoes tonight instead of frost!

Good Things: 16

"Rover" bus tickets.

As little as £2.20 on any bus anywhere in the local area on Sundays, and £1.60 in the evenings, any day of the week.

Play On!

19th-22nd November 2008
West Cliff Theatre, Clacton-on-Sea.

Clacton Amateur Dramatic Society. Act I 42m. Act II (and III) 73m.

A company of local amateurs try desperately to rehearse a creaky murder mystery, in spite of the nagging interventions of its author.
Unnervingly realistic in its rehearsal scenes (clearly based on a few of the playwright's experiences), and come the third act turning into complete farce - as the play-within-the-play is performed - this slightly lazily written behind-the-scenes theatrical spoof is played quite straight for the most part, with performances that beautifully capture the essence of their recognisable characters, and suits this group well, making good use of the large West Cliff Theatre.

I almost found it too painful to laugh anymore - most amateur thespians will relate to many of the jokes.

w: Rick Abbot.

d: Bob Sangwell.
s: Brenda White-Robinson, Barbara Tyrrel, Kathryn Cavender, Fred Gregory, Bridget Gregory, Jane Parkinson, Gary Huggins, Graham Tippett, Tracy Lias, Charlotte White-Robinson.

Parental Wisdom

The dreadful case of Baby P is hopefully an extreme instance of such torrid abuse, but it does highlight the inexplicable way that some parents treat their children. On several occasions I have seen mothers (not fathers, although I don't include stepfathers here) threaten verbal or physical punishment on their young ones in the street, for seemingly the most innocuous of reasons. For the vast majority of these cases, the children grow up to be just as belligerent and ill-mannered as their parents.

The social services can only be responsible up to a point. I don't go as far as some people who are saying that the death penalty should be introduced for such offenders, although I can understand the strength of such feelings.

Reviewing One's Goals

I see an Ipswich player has received a wrap on the knuckles (deserved perhaps) for celebrating a goal scored in the 2-0 win at Blackpool on Saturday by giving a alleged "handcuffs" gesture in solidarity with a friend of his who has been sentenced to jail for killing a child in a drunk driving accident.

If you look at the clip, it could also just as easily be interpreted as an "X-Factor" gesture, which another (Brentford) footballer has also been seen to make recently.

Knowing Ipswich Town FC as well as I do, I'm trusting that they are a lot more sensible about things than the BBC are when it comes to meting out punishments. Besides all that, why can't footballers just celebrate a goal by acknowledging the congratulations and then going back to the centre spot?

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

(Headgate Theatre, Colchester.
Oct 29th-Nov 1st 2008)

Chameleon's Web. Act I 97m. Act II 55m.

Experiences of three hostages held in captivity in Lebanon during the 1980s.
Interesting and engrossing if rather long study of mental and physical hardship, very well crafted with only the occasional slip of theatrical convention into the realistic setting, and with some intense pauses, in between the exchanges of three very disparate characters.

w: Frank McGuinness.

d: Suzanne Bailey, Lindsay Nieuwenhuis.
s: Colin Downer, Will Parrick, Kevin Topple.
set design: Steve Peeling.

Branded

Another storm in a teacup over glib comments made on the lamentable Russell Brand Radio 2 show, with the collaboration of the equally dubious Jonathan Ross. In their case, for both Messrs. Brand and Ross, it's a fairly lucrative cup of tea they sip at the BBC.

Alas, there is a section of the public that seems to revel in such excess, until of course it gets out of hand.

Now the furore has even reached 10 Downing Street, and David Cameron has also raised the matter of this slightly overblown story in the House of Commons - I was horrified to see it get first headline on the BBC TV news.

I'm not too surprised that David Cameron spoke up on the matter though: it was Cameron after all, who was asked on the Jonathan Ross Show if (as a teenager) he ever played with himself in front of a poster of Margaret Thatcher in his bedroom!

In Memoriam: Brian Moore

Although I only had a fairly recent acquaintance with Brian, since 2006, when he played the Colonel in Journey's End, he was just the sort of bubbly, bouncy character who makes any participation in a play worthwhile. He was an army veteran, a dedicated motorbike rider, and an enthusiastic amateur theatre player, both on the dramatic and the musical stage.

We shared some scenes for the first time in the film Witchfinder, where Brian was the Revd. John Eades of Lawford and I was John Stearne. For most of the shooting he was rigged up with a radio microphone for his sermons, which picked up every single inflection, including a hilarious series of outtakes for one particular scene entering an inn/restaurant, which brought the house down on premiere night.

We learned he had terminal cancer earlier this year, but when I saw him again at a Journey's End cast reunion in May, he still remained as bouncy and engaging as ever.

I'm reminded now of a scene in last year's Headgate Theatre production of King Lear, where I played Kent and Brian was the Fool - very much in the style of Max Miller. Andrew Hodgson came up with the idea of having the Fool die in the hovel rather than just disappear from the story as he traditionally does at this point. At the moment when Lear (David Knight) realises his old friend is gone, I had to wrench David away, with similar feelings of loss myself. I find it similarly hard to have lost Brian now.

Tolkien's World

By a combination of circumstances, I found myself visiting Northampton at the weekend. The original intention was to go to a Star Wars convention, which was later cancelled (see previous blog) and to combine it with a visit to a football match at the Sixfields Stadium.

I decided to carry on with my original remaining plans, and watched Northampton Town beat Yeovil Town 3-0 (whilst just down the road their Rugby Union compatriots also defeated Montpelier 51-7 later that evening), and Sixfields is a pleasant little new stadium nestled in a grassy valley. But the most visually striking sight when passing through West Northampton is a giant oddity of a tower, that to all intents and purposes reminded me of something out of J.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

My first impressions were that it was some sort of communications tower on the lines of Birmingham and London's GPO Towers, or some sort of huge factory chimney - with windows - but in actuality, I discover it to be Northampton's Express Lift Tower, used originally for testing lift shafts, and now a listed building.

Curiously also, as a listed building it is one of the youngest of its kind - having been built as late as 1980. Perhaps it's appropriate, that the region of country that was the basis for Tolkien's "Middle Earth" (the Midlands) should have so prominent a construction. I almost expected Christopher Lee as Saruman to step out from the top.

Good Things: 15

Autumn/Fall

There's bad news, and bad news

Noted BBC (and prior to that ITN) newsreader Martyn Lewis once famously made the remark that there should be more good news broadcast on television and in the media in general. As an example he cited the famines in Ethiopia and Rwanda - hot news at the time, but no-one since bothered to report about the subsequent aid packages and subsequent hopeful reparations in those countries years later. There's a lot of truth in what he says, I feel. The way such grim events are reported too, is so rammed down people's throats - just in case they didn't get the gist the first time. The newspapers likewise, would rather cover pages and pages of the main apocalyptic news event, rather than covering all the stories with anything like a fair representation.

This morning it was more credit crunches, banks spiralling out of control, railways overcrowding, unemployment rising, and of course the weather (wet).

Listening to it all (on Radio 3) was about as much bad news as I could bear for one morning.

Learn Your Blinking Pelican Signals!

From my minor knowledge of the Highway Code (as a non-motorist), I've learnt that cars are not allowed to proceed when pedestrians are crossing during the yellow "flashing light". But that's exactly what happened to me along the crossing from one end of Crouch Street to the other over Balkerne Hill this afternoon, where an impatient driver decided to start moving, and I had to dash at a slightly quicker pace to get across safely.

It's a flimsy excuse to provide a link to an old Dad's Army commercial from the 1970's, but a topical one nonetheless!

The Torch(wood) is passed on

Until last weekend I was preparing for a Star Wars convention at the Park Inn in Northampton in 2 weeks time (October 17th-19th), until I heard rumours that the event had been cancelled. Upon checking a sci-fi magazine in the shops today, I see that the same venue is now being used for a Torchwood convention.

Perhaps this is quite appropriate in a way. Anyone with a childhood memory of watching Star Wars would have to be in their 30s now at the very youngest, most likely with kids of their own. For the new generation the recent Doctor Who and its spin-offs are very much the in-thing now.

I was once backstage on a Colchester Theatre Group production, when Seth Dunt - an 8-year old connoisseur - and I discussed things Doctor Who-ish, and I mentioned that my last active memory of the series was the Christopher Eccleston episode with the return of the Daleks. He berated me for being so old hat!

So having Torchwood conventions instead of Star Wars conventions would seem to be the next logical step in the evolution of popular sci-fi: the guests are younger, and "hotter" as they say in showbiz parlance, and the audience is wide-ranging and enthusiastic.

But.....do not underestimate the power of the Force...its appeal has lasted for the last 30 years, and there's every chance of it lasting another thirty. And I just have to look at the enduring popularity of Laurel & Hardy (another film favourite of mine) as a yardstick, whose films are still being shown on DVD and at society film meetings (and occasional cinema re-releases) over 70 years later!

Ohhhh, Dr. Beeching...

I watched this man being interviewed on an old 1981 documentary this evening (BBC Four), who is still unrepentant in his views on how the network was (and should have been) changed. The British Railways answer to Himmler, he axed thousands of miles of railway line (some of which were mercifully saved) as an overzealous response to nationalisation. The trains were expensive to run, but imagine - as a motorist - having all your roads torn up with nowhere to go, which is in effect what Beeching did for the trains.

Could anyone more unsuitable have been chosen for the job? Quote:

"I didn't really want the job...I couldn't see why any normal person would want it."

As Ian Hislop points out in his accompanying documentary, Ian Hislop Goes Off the Rails, all the woes of the UK rail network - the failures, the fare rises, the privatisation, the delays, the accidents - can all be traced back to the fatally misguided Dr. Beeching.

In an era long before Thatcherite extremism, he is the epitome and the precursor of the ethos that if something isn't making money, then it has to be scrapped altogether.

Zapruder

Watching BBC Four's season on TV Arts programmes last night, they repeated an old edition of The Late Show, which dealt with the fascination and the aura that surrounds the brief 21 seconds of 8mm film shot by Abraham Zapruder along Deeley Plaza in Dallas on 22nd November 1963.

Various dramatic reconstructions have been made of Lincoln's assassination or the sinking of the Titanic, because of the public's demand (one might say insatiable need) to see such a momentous historical event for themselves. But in the case of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the unfortunate Mr. Zapruder had the dubious honour to have his camera pointed in the right place at the wrong time. He therefore gave the world a grandstand view of the moment when the President was blown apart by an assassin's (or should that be assassins?) bullet.

Oliver Stone and others have made great headwork in saying that this piece of film evidence points toward the fatal bullet being fired from the grassy knoll (and not the Texas Schoolbook Depository) as is popularly conjectured.

Before and after I'd seen the film JFK I felt there was credence to this assertion, especially in view of the Warren Commission's farcical "magic bullet" theory. A documentary shown on the BBC more recently however, re-examined the original evidence (using the dubious method of computer analysis) and took the establishment view that Lee Harvey Oswald's gun pinpointed Kennedy's head at such an angle that it would scientifically allow for Kennedy falling "back and to the left" as shown in Zapruder's film.

I don't buy it really. The whole affair has tried to fit debatable theories round the facts. A key phrase mentioned by Zapruder during the assassination was "they're shooting him". Who were "they" one wonders? The system? The mob? The Communists? I least suspect the latter.

But when I reflect on recent nonsensical conspiracy theories about the September 11th terrorist attacks being the work of the US Government, I have to remind myself that, not being around in November 1963, I don't have the emotional perspective to be able to form my own opinion. That therefore might make me more gullible to the various wild conspiracy theories behind JFK's assassination.

Good Things No. 14

Land of My Fathers, especially when sung at Welsh rugby internationals at Cardiff.

A word to the wise

...and I'll say this before the event: is it really such a good idea to Bring Back 'Star Wars' (ITV1 Sunday, 9pm) as I hear the original cast members are to be reunited.

They've all moved on now - haven't we all (or shouldn't we have by now)?

Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and others have enjoyed the prestige, and grudgingly accepted the fame and the recognition, but if I hear they or Harrison Ford make one derogatory word about George Lucas or his saga, then I don't think I'll be bothering to watch too many Harrison Ford films in the future.

I'm programming my video with clenched teeth.

Anyway, if Star Wars is being "brought back", when exactly did it leave?

Ed Murrow meets...

During George Clooney's excellent black-and-white drama Goodnight, and Good Luck about the clash between Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy on live television, one aspect of Murrow's broadcasts that was briefly covered in the film was his occasional interviews with famous celebrities, which "pay the rent" as Murrow (David Straithairn) jokes.

Watching some of these original "Person to Person" interviews from the 1950's, I was struck at how down-to-earth Murrow tries to make them seem; although such a thing is impossible with someone as glamorous as Marilyn Monroe, she does nonetheless come across as someone who could just be a person in an ordinary job like anyone else, and a young Marlon Brando also comes across as a likeable sort of person who enjoyed his Hollywood lifestyle, before his colossal ego and even bigger waistline got the better of him years later.

This interviewing technique of making the subjects feel at home (which indeed they were) was hardly the most penetrating, but it's certainly much more interesting and "realistic" than Oprah or the like, and Michael Parkinson benefited by following a similar style in his celebrity interviews.

10 great credit sequences

Chatting with Craig Stevens and others recently, we discussed how Star Wars was the first film to have no opening credits - beyond a simple "Twentieth Century Fox/Lucasfilm presents" intro followed by the explosion of the title onto the screen.

George Lucas got into some trouble 3 years later with the Directors' Guild when he reprised this technique with The Empire Strikes Back (they weren't so bothered back in 1977 because Star Wars wasn't expected to be anything big), and as a result he pulled out.

I pointed out however that there had been some exceptions to this rule, before 1977. Steven Spielberg tried the trick that same year with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and another of that group of filmmakers (often referred to as "the Brat Pack"), Francis Ford Coppola, introduced The Godfather with no opening credits.

There were certain individual examples throughout the years of other notable films with no opening titles: Fantasia, Citizen Kane, Around the World in Eighty Days, West Side Story, and in later years The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now (with not even a title), Gandhi, The Abyss, and quite a few others.

My personal preference has always been for credits to be left for the end of the film, to transport the audience straight into the story, without unnecessarily reminding them that it's actually all been made with certain actors and technicians. But having said that, there are some great credit sequences to set the mood for films over the years, so here are some of my favourites:


Around the World in Eighty Days
End credits actually, but they're still great fun, by the legendary Saul Bass (see below).

Casino Royale (2006)
Although I thought this one slightly antiquated at the time, on reflection it's pretty punchy and gives the most accurate impression of the film of all the Bond title sequences I've ever seen.

Fahrenheit 451

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Naked Lunch

Psycho (and other Hitchcock/Saul Bass sequences such as North by Northwest and The Birds)

THX-1138 (scrolling downwards)

Walk on the Wild Side
The credits had very little to do with the film, if anything they upstaged it.



See also this.

Soccer, Shakespeare and Star Wars

What with one thing and another it's been a pretty intense week or so. Hard on the heels of the Colchester Cricket Week came the unexpected bonus of a local derby cup tie between Ipswich Town and Colchester United. Having missed the last four occurrences of this fixture for one reason or another (when - until this season - the two teams were in the same division), this time I made sure I wasn't going to miss out again.

The Carling Cup however, is not the sort of football competition nowadays to set alight the imagination of even the likes of comparatively humdrum clubs as Colchester or Ipswich, so it left me plenty of room to get in this time (with sister Catherine and her fiancee Michael - a Colchester fan), and I correctly guessed that the attendance was something in the region of 17,000.

Revenge was on my mind after Town's humiliating 2-0 defeat at the late, lamented Layer Road back in April, and honour was being restored a little hesitantly this evening, but Ipswich, as they have done so often before, complacently treated their nearby neighbours as "junior" opposition, and arrogantly substituted their two goalscorers. As a result they allowed Colchester back into the game with a goal, but hung on to win 2-1. It was the first time I'd been to Portman Road to see a match in nearly 5 years, and from the evidence of Tuesday evening, neither side I expect will be lighting the fires of promotion firmament this season.

Two days later came an evening of Shakespeare recitals at "The Love Bistro" in The Minories with myself and five friends, organised by local performing arts guru Dorian Kelly - a neighbour of mine. I confess I find reciting from a script occasionally annoying and frustrating, and tried to learn some of the lines (as too - contrary to his own instructions - did Dorian), but we all had fun doing some excerpts from the Bard's most famous - and not so famous - works, and I must say I didn't expect I'd be playing Romeo in my late thirties! Hamlet was fun to read too (with Jason Cattrell as the Ghost.) I fear I was enjoying it too much, as it's not a role I would necessarily like to essay in full, all five acts and four hours of it.

The day after that, my old mate Bob Cole came down to Colchester with his Mum for the weekend, and among the delights he savoured was the chance for him (and me) to be shown around the sights of the town on an open top bus. I never realised that Colchester was such a WIIINDYYYYY town, if the Sightseer vehicle we were sat on top of was anything to go by - enough to rival Chicago! Bob found the ride akin to riding on a rollercoaster.

Sharing a joke with Bob on the bus.

Finally, to round off an always eventful August and usher in autumnal September, there was a nostalgic chance to look at the original Star Wars trilogy (see link), with some interesting feature-length Super 8 versions. I confess I sighed at the prospect of seeing all three films in one go once again - I've seen all three of them (Episodes 4, 5 and 6) on four occasions now, the first being in 1994 (a memorable day at The Venue in Elstree when all three original films were shown for the last time), and then two further occasions when the "Special Editions" came out in 1997 (on General Election day), and again in 2000 as part of the Barbican Centre's Elstree Studios season - coincidentally the day after Alec Guinness died.

Fourth time round therefore, I think I could be forgiven for watching the films on auto pilot, but I find the experience is still an invigorating one - especially with such surprises as seeing the opening title crawl for The Empire Strikes Back in German - Das Imperium Schlagt Zuruck(!) As I grow older I enjoy Return of the Jedi all the more (because of its maturity), and conversely I adore Star Wars every time I watch it, because it reminds me of when I was younger.

Presidential Vices

The selection of novice Senator Sarah Palin to be John McCain's running mate is a desperately cynical move by the Republicans, intending to capture the appeal of voters towards someone sexier looking than Barack Obama.

I can't say that I'm won over by the Obama whirlwind either; too much style (and a certain amount of opportunism) and not enough substance - very much in the Tony Blair mould. His official acceptance of candidacy for the Presidency (before 84,000 Democrats) was given "with great humility". Shameful.

Whoever does have the good fortune to step into the White House early next spring, the American people will at least have the consolation of knowing that the successor could only be an improvement on the present incumbent, one of the worst Presidents this side of the Vietnam War.

Castle Park - Day 4

The first properly sunny start to the day this week. The trouble is, I have to confess, I don't find excessive amounts of sunshine particularly agreeable (as Day 2 will testify). Still, another full or near-full day's play in prospect. As slightly expected, Essex declared on their overnight total of 322 for 8, a lead of 346, to set Worcestershire the reasonably imposing target of 347 to win.

A skeleton early crowd on the last day - a Saturday. Madness.

I sat down in the ground bright and early to see the start of play at 11.00, and as often happens with the last day of a 4-day match, I had plenty of room to choose my spot, especially when that last day is a Saturday. The cricket authorities in their infinite wisdom have regulated (over the last 10 years or so) that most 4-day games will start on Wednesday and continue through the rest of the week, because that's when the businesspeople will come over and lunch luxuriously in their complimentary hospitality boxes, while the poor old cricket fan has to lump it in the wind and the rain (and just occasionally the sun.) As usual it comes down to money. In the good old days of these things the match would start on the Saturday, for which a healthy crowd would bolster things up as the game continued through the rest of the week.

In the case of today the football fixtures taking place elsewhere were an added distraction for sports fans (West Ham, Colchester, Ipswich and Spurs among them), and depending on where I sat today, there was a regular update from people's radios of the latest football scores from 3pm onwards.

By that time Worcestershire had built on an excellent platform set up for them by Darryl Mitchell and Stephen Moore with an opening partnership of 102, and apart from two hiccups either side of lunch, when Moore was out to a bat-pad catch off James Middlebrook, and his captain Vikram Solanki likewise (out for a "pair" in this match), the ball seemed to be coming onto the bat much easier, and Essex were inevitably feeling the loss of their Pakistani leg spinner Danish Kaneria.

A lunchtime drink under the trees.

By teatime I said to a couple of visiting Worcestershire fans that they had this game sewn up with only 2 wickets down for 219, and Graeme Hick still waiting to bat. He duly got his chance shortly after teatime, after Mitchell was out for a match-winning 102.

21 years ago I first saw Graeme Hick bat at Castle Park in 1987, where he scored 156. Back in those days he was the great wonder boy who couldn't qualify to play for England (as a Zimbabwean) for another 4 years. When the great day finally came, it was a bit, like The Phantom Menace, a case of too much hype. Nevertheless, in time he went on to a reasonable Test career for England, and now at the age of 42, watching him still bashing and stroking fours to the boundary, it truly felt like the ghost of Cricket Past.

Worcester comfortably knocked off the seemingly difficult target of 347, with Hick hitting the winning four at 5.45pm. Soon afterwards a very boisterous celebration chant could be heard inside the small Visitors' dressing room, whilst I nipped off to London on the 6.00 express to see some friends in the Shakespeare's Head Wetherspoons in Holborn, after they had been to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars this afternoon - ah, more ghosts of younger days. By an interesting coincidence, this mirrored the previous Worcestershire-Essex fixture earlier this summer, when "the Groovy Gang" gathered to see another Lucasfilm in Birmingham (blog).


BBC Match Report

Castle Park - Day 3

Watched Hitchcock's Vertigo on DVD late last night, which nearly made me fall asleep. I never thought that vertigo could be a cure for insomnia. However, I stuck it through and settled down to bed properly sometime before 1.00am, but then woke again to hear the sound of the rain falling heavily during the middle of night.

By this morning therefore, things inevitably looked bleak for the prospects of a prompt start to the third day's play. Thanks however to the diligent efforts of the ground staff (and the helpful BBC on-line commentary), I was able to see the start of play shortly after midday, by which time another early Essex wicket had fallen.

More injuries to both line-ups today - Danish Kaneria's broken finger rules him out for the rest of the season, and now Kabir Ali's bad back deprived Worcetershire of their top bowler (and the country's leading wicket taker) in the final session, as Essex drew away to build a lead of 346 runs. James Foster reminded the England selectors that he's a reasonable batsman as well as an excellent wicketkeeper with a determined 111 not out.

I sat through all this however in a permanent state of drowsiness, induced not only by lack of sleep but by suncream, which gives me the urge to rub my eyes whenever applied near that area. The sun only made cameo appearances today, and after I returned the Vertigo DVD to Blockbuster, I came back to the ground at lunchtime accompanied by a rather large and ominous-looking black cloud coming in from the West, which thankfully did not discharge itself onto the cricket. For the first time for a few years, the annual Colchester 4-day game looks like having something resembling four full days.

Castle Park - Day 2

This time it was Dad's turn to walk through Castle Park and put a potential hex on the proceedings, by saying we were going to have a prompt start to the day's play. This happily did not turn out to be the case, for the whole day in fact.

One thing though: I'd planned for the rain, but not the sun. Keeping in the shade wherever possible, and trying not to face the direct glare of the sunlight (although at a ground like Castle Park such a thing is unavoidable at some point), we sat and watched Ryan T-d-S and Essex carve out another 13 runs, before he unwisely exposed Danish Kaneria to the strike, and Essex were bowled out for 282, with T-d-S just 6 away from a century.

More bad news was to come for Danish (and Pakistan). Just before lunch things couldn't be better, taking a wicket with his first ball, but after the interval he dropped a sharp return catch and broke a finger on his left (non-spinning) hand. An attempt to return to the field and bowl again yielded only one delivery before he realised he couldn't continue, so both sides are now hampered in the bowling department. But Essex, with the slightly stronger starting line-up, bowled Worcestershire out for 258, a lead of 24. Things are pretty even steven at the moment, and it could go either way. If Worcester win this, they have a chance of clinching the County Championship Division Two title.

One other exciting prospect today was the announcement that the Olympic flag together with the Friends Provident trophy (that Essex won last Saturday against Kent at Lord's) is being paraded around the ground for this Sunday's one-day match against Glamorgan. A shame that the UK hasn't lobbied for an Olympic Cricket event at London in 2012. A new cricket ground in nearby Stratford would have been just the thing Essex CCC needed for a new stadium to deal with the growing influx of Twenty20 cricket. As it is, the County Ground at Chelmsford is being closed for redevelopment in two years time, with that season's fixtures being shared around at other grounds like Southend and Colchester - not that I'm complaining on that score.

The view from the bar at lunchtime.

What I did complain of today however, was a headache from my glass of Oranjeboom shandy just after lunch, of which the lager may have been a little too close to the end of the barrel. That together with my sunburn from the unexpected clear weather, which had me going to rehearsal for Murder in the Cathedral for Colchester Theatre Group later this evening resembling some sort of vestige of the French Tricolour, in my blue shirt, red burned skin and white unburned skin.



Young Essex bowler Chris Wright fields at deep fine leg, in view of the pavilion, Colchester Town Hall, and the guest marquees arranged like the Battle of Agincourt.

Essex v. Worcestershire at Castle Park - Day 1

Well, the weather seemed reasonable enough at 8.30 this morning: some cloud but not too dull, and a prompt start to the match at 11.00, I said to Dad as we proceeded through Castle Park.

Me and my big mouth.

As soon as we walked into the ground, paid our £15 admission and sat down, the players took the field, and the Essex batsmen were at the crease for the first ball of the day.

And then it rained.

At the first sign of a drop they were off the field, without even a ball bowled.

Had I been in the persona of Bruce Banner, I would have turned into the Incredible Hulk at that point.

Apoplectic with rage and despondency, it didn't look like the sort of weather that was going to move away either, and I braced myself for a day of watching covers coming on and going off, of umpires making inspections and further inspections, and of the whole day's play eventually being called off by teatime.

Happily however, I sought refuge (and a cup of tea) at my sister Catherine's flat, not too far away from the ground, and came back when - Hallelujah - there was a break in the weather this afternoon. Essex had already lost two quick wickets, soon to become a third when I strolled in to watch. But Worcestershire, already suffering from a weakened bowling attack with the knee injury of Simon Jones (see June 2nd blog), were further hampered when another bowler (in the starting line-up), Matthew Mason, injured a shoulder after just one over and was out for the rest of the match.

Come the late afternoon, when the fiery Kabir Ali inevitably had to be replaced, the junior bowlers weren't up to the challenge, and Mark Pettini and James Foster were able to capitalise with a stand of 114, followed later by a breeze of an innings by Ryan ten Doeschate (that's "ten Derr-Skar-ter") who notched up a fifty in no time, and with the help of the tail he had amassed 81 not out - 68 of them in boundaries.

Essex were 269-9 at the close (BBC report). All in all, a pretty good resolution to the day in view of how disastrous things appeared at first.

Catherine dropped in later on when the gates were open during the evening session (as too, she noticed, did David Elliott), but the highlight for me was Mum popping over to the outer perimeter of the ground (to give Dad his latest copy of Private Eye that came in the post), and getting a good look at what she described as the "bubble coach" for the Worcestershire team, and spending as much time at the game as cricket widows like her would want (or need) to.

Now There's Something You Don't See Too Often...

Lower Marsh, at the back of Waterloo station.

Good Things 13: Beethoven

Nothing unlucky about him, and even if there were, he'd make it into sublime music of the soul.

Technology: here today, gone....today

My lovely little MP3 walkman has packed up. After a busy three months or so using it to dabble in the wonders of MP3's and iPods, I found the other day that I had seemingly loaded too much music/audio onto the player (or that some of it was corrupted), so now I have to look around at other means of downloading music from computer. Well, it was at a cheap price, I must admit.

All the same, in bygone days such gadgets would have lasted rather longer than just 3 months. I still generally prefer creaky but more reliable cassettes over CDs. The music shops in their infinite wisdom decided to remove cassette music from their shelves, as well as the much lamented but still popular and reliable vinyl - why else would they be called record shops, after all?

Current technologies have their flaws, and may well be a "quick fix". I can see DVDs for example (which have supplanted good old video) themselves being supplanted by downloads or much smaller forms of entertainment storage.

Virtual arts facility

One of the biggest brouhaha's over the last year or so in Colchester has been the new Firstsite: Newsite, (aka. "Visual Arts Facility") intended as a massive extension to Colchester's existing art gallery, with many other potential facilities including conference rooms, screening rooms, galleries, new concourse and general pleasant ambiance.

To cut a very lengthy story short, the VAF was quickly proposed and pushed through by the Conservative-run local council in 2006. Almost overnight, the bus station was partly demolished to make way for the new building, which didn't endear it too much to the majority of the townspeople whose taxes are paying for it.

Now the original proposal to have the spanking new arts facility open by summer 2008 is gathering dust, the original budget has been spent, the builders have pulled out (with only the exterior finished), and has now fallen into the laps of the Liberal Democrat councillors to deal with.

By a complete coincidence (or is it?), the completion of Colchester United's new football stadium has overtaken the VAF, miles out of town, but with partial council (and private) funding. I personally suspect that, overlooking all the shenanigans with the builders, the VAF would probably have been up and running, if the fortunes of Colchester United had not improved in 2006.

As it stands, rotting away at the moment, the VAF is Colchester's Dome - and that remember, was a scheme which was only saved by Government money back in 2000.

Good Things No. 12

QI

A programme of genuine wit and intelligence, even if genitalia often creep into the discussion, and Alan Davies reminds me of the sort of annoying, eager for attention little schoolboy that would always sit at the front of the class and put his hand up.

The Sword in the Stone

(26th July)
Cambridge Touring Theatre/Cambridge Arts Theatre. Act I 60m. Act II 30m.

Merlin the wizard searches befriends a messenger boy named Wart who is destined to become King, in spite of of the spiteful jealousy of Morgan Le Fay.
Expecting some sort of historical performance, what I actually got in this exuberant youthful version is something more approaching a Summer Pantomime, quite carefully balanced between historical legend and tongue-in-cheek modern jokery (the "straight line" wrap was the only moment for me that seemed sluggish and unnecessary), and squarely aimed at the Harry Potter crowd.

My own reasons for seeing the show was to see fellow thesp Philip Young (who played Raleigh in Journey's End) in his first professional outing - not as Arthur, but in several other roles, with an excellent vocal range; a definitive requisite when dealing with the talkative children I shared a theatre with during the Saturday matinee.

w: Barry Evans, from the novel by T.H. White.
p: Milly Finch, Rosie Humphreys.
d: Emma Stroud.
s: Barry S. Evans, Lane Stewart, Lucy Lill, Milly Finch, Philip Young, Edwin Wright.
m: Simon Humphreys.





The Cambridge Arts Theatre, where the likes of The Goodies and Beyond the Fringe got their first break, and now also Philip Young.

Ten Great Running Gags

(in no particular order)

1. Alfred Hitchcock appearing briefly in his own films.

2. Beau Hunks: Oliver Hardy joins the Foreign Legion with Stan Laurel, in order to forget his jilted love, Jean Harlow. They arrive, and find that everyone else (including the enemy) have been jilted by: Jean Harlow.

3. To Be Or Not to Be (various characters): "So they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt!"

4. Bob Hope or Bing Crosby appearing uncredited in each of the other's "solo" films.

5. (from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue): "Would you please welcome [to the Builder's Ball], Mr and Mrs Bennett That's Twice The Estimate, and their son Gordon Bennett That's Twice the Estimate!!!... and many subsequent variations.

6. The letters page of Private Eye magazine, which often finds an excuse for a picture of Andrew Neill (in a string vest) standing arm in arm with a bikini-clad Pamela Bordes.

7. The "Wilhelm Scream" in loads of blockbusters and action films, particularly anything associated with Ben Burtt.

8. Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel: "Well, here's another nice mess you've got me into!"

9. A Have I Got News for You clip of Charles Kennedy playing skittles.

10. The very last joke, at the very end of the film Airplane!

Midsummer Madness

Priory Players. Act I 64m. Act II 64m.

Priory Players' latest outdoor version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (or "A Midsummer Night's Grease" as I preferred to call it) had everything I expected of it: a wonderful ensemble cast, a typically energetic and enthusiastic performance by Andrew Jeffers as Bottom, and plenty of camp, outrageous touches by director Ian Amos, not least of which the idea of making Oberon and the other fairies Teddy Boys and rock'n'roll dancers.

I'd heard over two years ago about Ian's idea to go 1950s for this play (apparently the Mercury Theatre in Colchester asked him to postpone in 2006 because they were putting on a rival production), and had my misgivings (and quietly opted out), not least the losing of Felix Mendelssohn's atmospheric music (composed for the ballet version and the 1933 film) which to me makes "The Dream" the magical experience that it is. Sadly, much of the magic and mysticism seems lost from this version, as well as some of the lovers' wistfulness - although having said that, Claire Warden makes for a beautifully forceful and vindictive Helena. What a loss she and Alex Fletcher (as Puck) are going to be to the local drama scene when they move across the pond to America next month.

The crassness of some of the later scenes put me off after a while, but never let it be said that audiences weren't wowed by it, many of whom had probably seen countless versions of this play before, so they were ready for something different. The energetic dance to the (1960's) hit "Nut Rocker" by the entire cast (and nothing at all to do with Shakespeare), is an abiding memory.

d: Ian Amos
s: Andrew Jeffers, Scott Sophos, Alex Fletcher, Chrissie Kettle, Claire Warden, Heidi Mussett, Will Parrick, David Elliott, Robin Warnes, Paul Reed, Martin Rayner, David Wenden, Nigel Worland, John Flint, Maggie Brush, Brian Butcher

Look who's...talking?

Yesterday I engaged in my first ever "chatroom" session with a friend (an actual person, not an assumed identity in case people are wondering) - a bizarre but curiously addictive experience, from which I couldn't tear myself away without trying to embellish the discussion, or end it with some sort of courteous wrap-up, as I would in a normal conversation - except that we weren't actually communicating by voice.

Then again today, on that fun but slightly meddlesome application Facebook, I find I have been "Superpoked" by a friend whom I haven't actually spoken to, or met in fact, for the last ten years!

What marvels the Internet can provide, without the seeming necessity for any human element.

Some Theatre

My "rest" from theatre seems to have amounted to a month at most - I must learn to take a total sabbatical from such things in future, perhaps.

Nice however to see some other people's shows instead, beginning with Global Warming: The Musical - now there's a title to conjure with. From what the director and others involved in the production were telling me, I was expecting quite cheesy fare, with everything thrown in to do with today's tacky society. What actually turned out was quite a touching and amusing musical satire of a girl band trying to sing their way to the top in a "Save the Planet" song contest (at the "CO2"!) by singing the decidedly unenvironmental song "Let's Heat It Up!" The girls themselves are engaging although a little underconfident in their opening number, and the whole thing has a nice touch of The Goodies-style satire to appeal to family audiences - even if the occasional coarse word slips in.

Whilst the girls are taking care of the music, the adults have some great guest appearances, from the likes of Kevin Topple as a cocky TV director, Scott Sophos as a Karaoke landlord, Val Taylor as the deaf landlady who confuses The Glo Chicks with "The Glue Sticks", and a showstopping number from Adrian Bolton as the "Conscience Cowboy" with his song, "Daddy or Chips".

Happily also, the show and the numbers never overstay their welcome, and Tony Franchi's brand new play makes for a nice, economical evening's entertainment, which, yes, does have something meaningful to say about the environment.

Joseph Andrews on the other hand, for me, rather dragged. Probably, I think, because the interval was chosen a little too late into the proceedings, when I would've liked to have seen the story through to the finish. Though comparable in length to Global Warming: The Musical, Henry Fielding's old warhorse of bawdy humour has been knocking about for centuries, and the Dedham Players decided to spruce it up with some tavern songs, amusing props, and a male narrator (Don Poar) instead of a female one as originally written. Newcomer Daniel Ellis brings the necessary physique and bashfulness to the title role, but his is a part lost amid a whole flurry of colourful characters.

Les Chisnall holds it together in meticulous straight-faced fashion as Parson Adams (whom I didn't realise until later was an older character than the way Les played him), and once again, there are some good cameos from Rachel Culley ("Lady Booby"), Sue Nicholson (her maid "Slipslop"), Paul Reed (too briefly seen at the beginning and belatedly reintroduced in Act II), Brian Butcher and Alan Stock as Laurel & Hardy-style police officers, and a cameo to savour by Annie Simcox as a flirty maid. Nice also to see Will Parrick in a small, comparatively gentler role of a robber, after his skinhead turn in Treatment(qv).

Reasonably fun on the whole, but by half time I felt it was the sort of Dedham play that I'd seen before.

Anyway, I'm off now to help out with Colchester Theatre Group's own summer extravaganza, We Love You Arthur - about that monumentally charismatic figure of romantic magnetism of the 1980s, Arthur Scargill(!?)

Truly, Madly, Cheaply

I went into this programme (shown on BBC Four last weekend) - about the bygone days of some truly STRANGE British films - with some nostalgia, but also a certain amount of trepidation, mainly because of the slightly patronising title. The suggestion seems to be the only films Britain could make were on minuscule budgets and even thinner plots, and grossly inferior to the glossier American product.

There is no mention at all of British Cinema's golden period - the 1940s - when we produced The Third Man, Brief Encounter, Fallen Idol, A Matter of Life and Death, The Thief of Bagdad, Odd Man Out, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and so many others (the name Humphrey Jennings ever so briefly creeps in.) I know it's about B-Movies, but some little reference would have helped, to put things in context.

Some of the fare on offer in Matthew Sweet's dissertation are films that would've been best forgotten, whereas other oddities such as Konga (with its climax on Croydon High Street standing in for Westminster) have to be seen to be believed! I confess I've sat through some of these films in my time - films like Beast in the Cellar, Deathline, Fire Maidens from Outer Space (yes - a British film), House of Whipcord, The Man Who Haunted Himself, Night Caller, and indeed, all the Carry On films, were all fairly cheap but cheerful, and with some respectable acting to keep them above water, usually of a much better standard than in American B-Movies.

Sweet's notion seems to be that the second features tell a truer picture of Britain than their more illustrious mainstream counterparts. One such example he refers to is Psychomania - but then, looking back to my old review, I've just realised, there was another film about that era of youthful thuggery: it was called A Clockwork Orange. Too often his assertion seems to be that Britain could only make very cheap B-movies about itself, when there are dozens of shining examples that are not mentioned at all. As an exercise in looking at an alternative British cinema it's all well and good, but then hang on a minute, I hear the name Hammer being mentioned later on - with stuff like The Reptile and Plague of the Zombies - yet no mention of their shining horror classics The Curse of Frankenstein or Dracula, or even such dark, sombre social dramas as The Damned. And The Wicker Man was hardly a B-Movie, just treated that way by its studio, British Lion, who hated it so much.

He also neglects to mention that, thanks to Lottery money, there have been some obscure B-Movie type British films rushed into production in recent years, such as the hideous Sex Lives of the Potato Men; only nowadays, it's next to impossible to get these films shown on British screens at all.

For better or worse.

Oh yes, and I spent much of the programme wondering where that lovely cinema was that he was sitting in, with a 1950s street outside. According to the credits, it's in the Glasgow Transport Museum.

In Memoriam

Colchester is currently awash with floral tributes at the moment. Outside the 2 Para barracks in Mersea Road is a whole garden full of wellwishes from friends and relatives of those lost in Afghanistan - the total from that regiment is now up to 6, making it the town's biggest loss since the Falklands War.

Then also, there is the case of young school leaver Dan Andrew, who was knocked off his bicycle and killed by a speeding driver, on a particularly dangerous stretch of road near the Tesco supermarket in Greenstead. The extent of floral tributes (including football flags and shirts) has even included graffiti written on the bus stop and road signs.

I'm becoming a little wary of such outpourings of emotion. In the latter case, pure and simple vandalism is involved, and as for the military loss, well, it's a very sad state of affairs, to be sure, and a sign that Afghanistan is still a problem far from solved. But soldiers go to work and put their lives on the line in active service, that's part of their job. A respectful Book of Remembrance would convey the grief and the heartache felt by so many people in a much more appropriate way. This after all, is why we have the Service of Remembrance every November.

Excessive amounts of flowers outside barrack fences seem after a while to feel like an anti-military sentiment. On that basis, I'm surprised that those in charge have allowed so many floral tributes to be laid outside their gates. The fashion started of course, with the death of Princess Diana in 1997 - a tragic event indeed, as was the death of Dan Andrew - but all these bereavements, whether soldier or civilian, have surely to be put into perspective.

Treatment

Headgate Theatre. 80m.

A Chelsea skinhead tries to discover his sensitive side.
A deliberately provocative entertainment, which looks annoyingly stylised at first, with opening speeches that seem to exist just for their own sake - but with these talents on display what is on stage is always interesting, if a little full of characters you would cross the street to avoid. It also seems a little puzzling how the heroine could be instantly attracted to such a thug in the first place. The attempt to make skinheads into sympathetic people only goes so far, as the play ends on pretty much the same note as it started.

What fascinated me about the play - uncomfortable as it was - was to wonder how much of the sensitive side of its main character was Will Parrick and how much of it was acting. Will is (if he will pardon me for saying so) an interesting, very non-thuggish young man, brought up in a working class environment, but with quite a well-to-do family (Grandfather promoted from private to officer in WWII), and it is this conflict between working class or a more affluent lifestyle that I sensed in his performance. At various times I was trying to be drawn in, and at other times I was repelled - as the play intends. Not surprisingly, alas, it has struggled to find an audience at the Headgate Theatre.

w: Jonathan Moore.

d: Andrew Hodgson
s: Will Parrick, Charlotte Cocks, Will Hooper, Adam Mumford

Whatever children do, it's always their parents' fault

Exchange I overheard this morning between mother and son going to school:

"MUM, I've lost my P.E. bag!"

"Well I told you to put it in your bag."

"Well I had it in my bag and I TOOK IT OUT and now IT'S NOT THERE!!!"

"Come to the circus!"

Last Sunday week my sister Catherine drove us back home, and following her came a whole convoy of circus vehicles and caravans for the Moscow State Circus, which performed last weekend at our nearby Recreation Ground in Colchester. Sad to say, three days later - yesterday in fact - I watched the vehicles going the other way out of town at the end of the show's run, before I had a chance to go and see it.

Family reunions and other commitments were my excuses for not attending (as well as the cost), but if I'm honest I suppose the reason I never went is the same reason I might have liked to have gone - there aren't any animals doing tricks anymore.

The very valid and truthful argument is that it's cruel to the animals keeping them caged and taught to do tricks outside of their natural environment. But on the other hand, when I think about it, some of those creatures have a greater life expectancy in circuses (or zoos) than they ever would out in the wild.

It harks back to an age when families and children who had never seen such creatures in their life before could see them at close perspective, live in performance. Now we have David Attenborough and Bill Oddie on TV to show us the outdoor wonders of the animal kingdom.

The circus has left town now. I'm sorry I missed it.

Good Things XI

The Lord's Cricket Ground Museum

A bargain £3 admission on match days, and among its many fascinating exhibits is THE Ashes (although in truth from what I saw of them they look in good enough condition to be kept in Australia at the moment.)

Paul Merton's Impro Chums

June 3rd 2008
Corn Exchange, Ipswich

Mick Perrin/Just for Laughs Live. Two Acts (both 60m approx)

The marvellous Mr. Merton, though noted for his satirical appearances on TV's Have I Got News for You, has actually been knocking out improv sketches with his unsung Comedy Store colleagues for over 20 years, long before his sparring days with Angus Deayton and Ian Hislop - the latter was impersonated during the evening by Paul Merton with relish, although only at the instigation of the audience; it's not generally the Comedy Store Players' style to do impersonations, with this notable exception.

The evening's entertainment was, as ever, completely unscripted, although the performers were all clearly very familiar with the overall format of the exercises.

There are some funny moments of spontaneity, although some of the sketches go on for too long, but this is in the nature of the improvisation, and all the performers know how to put it across with humour and pace. All the suggestions for material came from the audience, for the players to work on as best they could. At half-time for instance, we filled in pieces of paper with suggestions for possible scenarios, and one of mine came out of the hat: "Nurses - in Iceland".

Special mention also for Dave King's suggestion of "an icing piping bag", which gave Mr. Merton a particular handful to try and guess what his character's occupation was: a Fishnet-Trenchcoated man who puts Methane into Bubble-wrap using an Icing Piping Bag!

JS

s: Paul Merton, Mike McShane, Lee Simpson, Suki Webster, Richard Vranch.



The "team bus", on a warm evening inside the Corn Exchange.

The Joneses keeping up

Just back this weekend with Dad from a welcome return to Worcester to see some County Championship cricket between Worcestershire and Essex. Along the way it was also an opportunity to meet up with my old friend Bob Cole, and also meet some more friends, who coincidentally happened to be in Birmingham on the Saturday.

Worcester is such a beautiful cricket venue. Looking out over the ground from the main members pavilion is a glorious view of Worcester Cathedral overlooking the River Severn. The place not only is a pleasant venue, one of the best on the county circuit (its Ladies Pavilion cakes are legion), but has become almost near-legendary for its tendency to flood - the groundsman is the only one in Britain that has to keep a rowing boat in his shed! Thankfully this was not necessary on this occasion.

The cricket itself was quite tense and see-saw, with Worcestershire skittled out for 176 on the first day, only to sting Essex back by bowling them out for 116 in their first innings. That they went on to win the game by 74 runs, was due in no small measure to one Simon Jones (MBE), whom 2 years ago was one of the victorious Ashes winning side against Australia (ah, how it empowers me to write those words), and was also the secret weapon in England's arsenal - less celebrated than the likes of Andrew Flintoff or Kevin Pietersen, but no less vital. For those technically minded in the ways of the game, he has the ability to swing the ball both ways unpredictably, and works up a match faster speed than his short bowling action suggests.

Cruelly, for both Jones and England, injury ruled him out a year later from travelling to Australia in defence of the Ashes, where England were thrashed 5-0. But now, Simon Jones is back, and Essex were among the first to be on the receiving end.

After the pulsating pleasure of the cricket, I travelled up the line to the Electric Cinema just outside Birmingham New Street with Bob, where another Jones was making something of a comeback, in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. My own enthusiasm for this film was at best lukewarm, although I did manage to catch what would probably have been my favourite part - the end title music by John Williams (well, they did open the doors at the end, didn't they!)

It was also a nice opportunity to briefly catch up with some old friends - some of whom I hadn't seen in over 5 years - who were all predictably buoyant and happy having just enjoyed the film.

I returned to Worcester that evening and rejoined Dad at a pleasant guesthouse, "The Gables" on Bromyard Road, so that we were fresh in the morning to watch the conclusion of the cricket on the Sunday. In the morning before breakfast we had a little walk down the road towards the birthplace of Sir Edward Elgar, in the village of Lower Broadheath. Sadly we didn't have enough time to see Elgar's house itself (as time and our breakfast called!), but walking through country that surely was inspiration for Nimrod (which I found myself humming all the way there and back) and others, we got a flavour for "Elgar's country", especially a great view from Crown Lane East looking over the hazy landscape of Worcester that morning.

A Lancaster and Hurricane fly past New Road, whilst Simon Jones (No. 9) bowls to Ravi Bopara

Back at the cricket, and speaking as an Essex follower it was pleasing to see Ravinder Bopara (another England prospect) flying the flag of resistance, but Essex's target of 340 soon became insurmountable once Bopara was dismissed lbw for 84, which we witnessed just before we left at 5.00 to get our train back to London Paddington.

By the time we were out of Worcester and on our way back to Essex, the victory for Worcestershire was sealed, thanks to the wrapping up of the tail-end once again, by that man Simon Jones.

I hope other, more illustrious teams than Essex, are on the further receiving end of his formidable skills in the future.