With nothing much to do on Sunday morning I was looking forward to catching an hour or so of the fourth day of the final test between England and India from somewhere in the mountains of what I believe they refer to as the sub continent.
The only problem with that was there was no cricket as England had completely capitulated to a heavy defeat after less than three of the scheduled five days of the match.
The definition of the term Bazball isn't easy to comprehend. Let's just say it's a style of aggressive cricket aimed at disarming the opposition. It partly worked against the Australians but we still lost the Ashes albeit more due to the weather than the cricket. In India it looked to be going well when we won the first test but then got annihilated in the next four.
India are virtually unbeatable at home. They might lose the occasional game but not a whole series and there were periods when England looked ragged and poor.
Which takes me onto a ridiculous dream I had. Somehow I was involved in organising a cricket test match inside Norwich Cathedral. It was all the more ridiculous because I wasn't at the match owing to being away on holiday.
I used to go into Norwich Cathedral a lot - six days a week in fact as we had a morning service there when I was at school. The ridiculous thing is I remember absolutely nothing about these services which usually only lasted about 20 minutes. I can't remember who took them or what we did.
I do remember being in the choral society for a while which I rather resented as it meant I sometimes had to go to school for practices on a Sunday and I couldn't sing anyway. No idea how I got dragged into that. Sundays were for playing cricket or football or tennis with mates or going to my grandparents for Sunday lunch. They weren't for warbling away in Norwich Cathedral. I vaguely remember some kind of performance or other. I also remember taking part in a medieval Miracle Play but nothing about the play itself.
The Miracle Play was organised by teacher Alwyn Partridge who I featured a few days ago and who I never knew was a sculptor. To me he was a PE teacher. I do remember he had a remarkably attractive daughter who also took part in the Miracle Play. I think she was the primary reason most of the boys took part (well it was an all boys' school at that time and you either went one way or the other if you will pardon the expression).
I'm not sure about writing the next bit but here goes. During my time at the school I was never aware of any what would then be termed homosexuality. As far as I can recall, everyone was what they term as straight. I and my friends all had girlfriends and these were always invited along when we had a social evenings in the crypt of the school chapel which during my time at the school was a six form club. It's now an art studio. I always wonder when it stopped being a sixth form club. I know nowadays the sixth form have another area in the historic Bishop's Palace which they use as a lounge and coffee bar. How times have changed - they even let girls in, did away with boarders and Saturday morning school!
Prices go up, service goes down. I have had so many examples of this recently and will discuss it in more detail in a future blog. The price of stamps is going up but the service is deteriorating. Our son's birthday card didn't arrive on time despite being posted four days before and Anne's Mothers' Day card didn't arrive despite being posted in plenty of time. Perhaps we should stop referring to first and second class post and rename them third and fourth class.
I'm wondering whether we should have a Best Mum in The World competition. There were so many messages left on social media yesterday entitled "to the best mum in the world." Perhaps we need a penalty shoot out to decide who wins but it could go on some time with all the contestants.
Felt a bit like slumming it yesterday morning and turned on the television to watch something mindless. Of what I refer to as the first five channels ie BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel Four and Channel Five, four had programmes featuring cooking and the fifth had a travel programme from five years ago. Some choice. Good job we have over a hundred channels or I might have been forced to watch Chris Packham talking about things that Chris Packham talks about.