Happy Birthday AD

Yep..and also CT.

But yours is in a few, BD, yeah? You turn 21 I see.

skully wrote:But yours is in a few, BD, yeah? You turn 21 I see.

Unfortunately thats 21 stone.

Happy birthday Mr statman!

Happy Birthday Allan.

Best wishes for a great day and year - all three named!

Have a good one.

Many thanks for the good wishes from those above as well as my good wishes to everyone else in the forum whether they wish me well or ill. I notice that this time last year when my anniversary also coincided with the second day of a Test the Paksters had just rolled over the Aussies for 88 at Headingley before going on to win by 3 wickets which portended much for events to come when we here in chilly Pomgolia (as Skully likes to put it) were not disinterested spectators.

Of course, thanks to the now defunct NOTW most of that Pakster team has been banned from Test cricket whereas many Aussie supporters have remarked that many of their side should have been. I suppose punishing a Test side can take more than one form.

Sadly this anniversary will be a rather bitter-sweet one for me as it will be my first as an orphan as my mother passed away at the beginning of this year but I'm sure that like Skully & Co above she wishes me well from the ladies' pavilion in the sky.

I've got rather a sore head this morning from a late night but I suppose I shall indulge myself in my usual theatrical outing if I can get a half-price ticket but what to see? (No, neither Cabaret nor The Producers are playing in the West End currently as far as I know, before you ask).

Last year I treated myself to Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre in the company of some fairly demented middle-aged women in the audience who appeared to think they had come along to the sing-along version. It was nonetheless enjoyable, partially because of that.

I feel in an Andrew Lloyd Webber mode this year and may try and see Phantom of the Opera which has been running in the West End since Fat Gatt captained England and which I have never seen although I did buy the album when it first came out. I shall try and keep you posted on my eventual choice which may turn out to be Test Match Highlights and a cup of cocoa. I just hope we don't get the tropical downpours that have afflicted us on the last two evenings here in The Great Wen, one of which I was caught in, although the prospects appear brighter from my window as I write this.

So many thanks and good wishes to Skully and all who have contributed to this thread, which I am extremely touched by, as well to every FBer. Btw, Vik, I am a complete ignoramus as far as stats are concerned compared to the masters of the craft, Skully and Wide Wally, and usually get them wrong. Perhaps Wikiman or StatGuruMan might be appropriate soubriquets! Perhaps, like Autolycus in A Winter's Tale, I am merely

a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles

so I had best make my exit, pursued by bear, or hamster at least..

Invader Zim wrote:

My favourite song. How did you guess? Many thanks, Zim.

I'm supporting the Mormon, btw!

Allan D wrote:Btw, Vik, I am a complete ignoramus as far as stats are concerned compared to the masters of the craft, Skully and Wide Wally, and usually get them wrong. Perhaps Wikiman or StatGuruMan might be appropriate soubriquets! Perhaps, like Autolycus in A Winter's Tale, I am merely

Methinks you are being extremely modest there, ol' chap. Enjoy the celebrations. And yes, I'm sure your Mum is looking down fondly as well, bless her.

Sorry to hear about your ma Allan, didn't know.

Happy Birthday Allan! How many is it? Sorry, haven't read the thread if it's been mentioned.

Happy birthday AD, resident forum statistician.

Sorry to hear about your loss, Allan.

Happy birthday AD, my best wishes. Also, condolences for your loss.

Thanks for the condolences but my mum was an old lady in her 88th year who suffered badly from arthritis as well as the onset of Alzheimer's but above all from the loss of her batting partner of 43 years in 1990. Unlike me she didn't take welll to single-wicket competitions so in many ways it was a merciful release. Besides she had only recently gone into a Southern Cross home which may have hastened her end but at least I was relieved of the uncertainty caused by its recent bankruptcy.

I went to the half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square this afternoon and opted for a musical with a rather longer provenance than even Phantom and bought a ticket for The Beggar's Opera at The Open-Air Theatre in Regent's Park figuring that there could not possibly be three wet evenings in a row in London (woof!).

Rather than return home I decided to play the tourist and hang around central London before the play started. It always amazes me how many people there are, including myself, who, on any given day in the capital, have nothing better to do than wander around aimlessly. Of course many are actual tourists busily clicking their cameras and supplying us with the limited amount of foreign exchange we possess. Trafalgar Square was so full thatI thought there was a demonstration but no, it was just a casual inspection of what looked like the badminton court for the 2012 Olympics.

That, and the full house at Lord's put me in mind of Westmoreland's line in Henry V prior to the King's Crispin Day Speech:

O, that we had one ten thousand of those gentlemwen in England who do no work today

I decided to look around the National Portrait Gallery and take inspiration from the images of the great and good contained therein. Sadly I was rather disillusioned. I could not find Annigoni's portrait of H.M.The Queen, one of the most remarkable examples of the portrait painter's art in the last 50 years. There also appeared to be no representations of the late Princess of Wales. Has she been so quickly forgotten?

On the other hand there seemed to be a large number of Labour politicians with misleading and rather tendentious captions, for example Hugh Gaitskell is credited with laying the groundwork for "Labour's return to power" in 1964 (Gaitskell, a very divisive leader unlike his immediate predecessor and successor, died in January 1963 of a mysterious illness after attending a party at the Soviet Embassy). Come back, Roy Strong, all is forgiven.

Eschewing the Gallery restaurant after glancing at the prices which might have secured me a few of the less important portraits I went to the crypt restaurant of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, one of rthe cheaper establishments in that part of London, mainly because it is not generally patronised by tourists and so does not impose the inevitable surcharge.

I enjoyed an extremely palatable bowl of potato and leek soup coupled with some bread-and-butter pudding, only marred by being drenched in custard. No main course as I had arrived too late for lunch and too early for dinner. Nevertheless it was filling enough.

I decided to repair to Regent's Park and spend what remained of the afternoon enjoying the sunshine whilst I finished my book on the relationship between Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia, Kaiser Bill and George V. However before I could do so I became temporarily trapped in one of the many secret places unknown to most Londoners but a spot in the middle of the city they pass by every day.

Coming out of Regent's Park Underground I started to walk past the cream-coloured Regency terrace of Park Avenue towards Regent's Park and being on the opposite side of the road next to a green area behind high iron railings I noticed a gate open and thinking it afforded me a shortcut to the Park I went inside and, mistakenly, clanged the gate shut behind me which then refused to open again. I then began to walk to find another exit.

Inside was a park within a park full of willow trees, mimosas. perfectly manicured lawns and even a tennis court with Regency-style bowers and even a paved underpass but no open exit. I discovered as far as I know the only statue of Edward, Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, staring at the traffic on the road outside behind iron railings, like a prisoner pleading for his freedom. It was obviously part of the Park that was cut off when the Outer Circle road was built.

It turns out that it belongs to an organisation called the Crown Estate Paving Commission and part of the real estate portfolio that belongs to Her Maj. It may also double as a back garden for the residents of the Georgian crescent across the road. Anyway after half-an-hour of walking round I could still not locate an exit and had visions of being dragged off to the Tower if I did not get a hernia shinning over the railings. However fortunately I came across the Warden's Lodge and the push-button main entrance where, like the NOTW reporter of old, I made my excuses and left.

The production of The Beggar's Opera which is neither an opera nor about beggars was interesting if a little too broad for my taste - more Albert Square than Covent Garden although the Captain MacHeath, played by an Ulsterman named David Caves, had a voice and a torso that amply matched the part. The rest of the cast employed their best stage Mockney - although it ought to have been pointed out that in 1729 when the piece was first performed Hackney was still a marsh and Bethnal was still green so Cockneys were unknown.

I treated myself to an over-priced glass of Pimm's before I went in and then made the mistake of remarking to a fellow-audience member in the interval how fortunate we were with the weather and how the play would be finished before any rain came (woof! wof!). As a result the actors had to compete with the wind rustling through the trees (as well as the Heathrow flight path) bringing the rain clouds nearer and the heavens duly opened about half-an-hour from the end.

Normally when rain stops the play the audience get a free ticket to the next performance (if they can manage it) but I think the refund (or resupply) rules are as complicated as ICC Test Match regulations and the cast ploughed on manfully (and womanfully) to the end whilst those in the audience who had had foresight (not yours truly though) providentially sheltered under umbrellas and mackintoshes.

And so, as Pepys would say, to bed, wet and bedraggled, or to the Test Match highlights at least another year pasted into the record books and another year closer to being carted off to the retirement home where I shall not have the option of watching plays in the rain or getting stranded in pieces of vernal real estate owned by H.M.The Queen after eating bread-and-butter pudding drenched in custard. Still at least it won't be a Southern Cross home, so we should be grateful for small mercies. I've always found that name deeply suspicious, can't think why.

Btw, Skully is the resident forum statistician. I couldn't possibly usurp that role. I like to think of myself as the resident forum stasi:

Cheers, tovarich.

:ale:

You may be a right wing swine Allan, but you're right wing swine with a lot of class.

That made for wonderful reading.`

Belated birthday wishes to you, Allan. I shall be thinking of bloody bread and butter pudding drenched in custard all day now!!! xx

Happy Birthday to AD and to biggie also, drink drink and be merry lol.

Belated best wishes Allan. It sounds like you had a wonderful day (soaking aside )

Same goes for me Allan