And that is it from us
Thank you all for your company throughout the series and to Geoff Lemon and Adam Collins for their work keeping the good ship OBO sailing along. It was tough and absorbing cricket throughout the five days of this Christchurch Test and Australia end it with exactly what they came for; a series win and the top spot in the ICC rankings.
Updated
Steve Smith has his say
“We want to win a lot more away from home and I think this was a great start for us,” he starts. “We had a lot of patience in the way we played.” He pays tribute to his bowlers for “getting the job done” but key in this series has been the application of he and the batsmen to occupy the crease for long periods of time.
“Brendon’s been an absolutely inspirational cricketer,” he adds in tribute to his opposite number. With that he accepts the Trans-Tasman from Sir Richard Hadlee and his men shuffle across for some photos and muted celebrations. With the win here they’ve hauled themselves to the top of the pile.
Updated
Brendon McCullum steps up for his farewell speech
“I’ll try and sum up 14 years in a couple of minutes,” he jokes. “You blew us off the park in both Test matches,” he adds in tribute to the Australians. The Kiwi star also says that the series was played in good spirit and that the teams got on well. He leaves his teammates until second last (“For the rest of my life I’ll remember the times we’ve had playing for New Zealand... Good luck to you all and we’ve got plenty of beers to drink.”) and then pays tribute to his family. “I’ll pay you back for the rest of my life,” he tells his wife and children. What a gent.
Player of the match
Goes to Joe Burns, who hit a gritty and patient 170 in the first innings to underpin Australia’s 505 and then unselfishly hit out late in his 65 today. 235 runs for the game is an accurate reflection of the way he applied himself. He’s now pushed his Test average above 50 and gets a giant novelty cheque for $500 and a bottle of champagne for his efforts.
That’s it for this trans-Tasman series
Though there are still some formalities to attend to; player of the match and series awards and such as well as a ceremonial farewell for Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum, who set this game alight on day one with the fastest century in Test history. I’ll have more on that in a minute, once Sir Richard Hadlee is done with his speech.
Updated
Australia win it and take the world No1 Test ranking!
54th over: Australia 201-3 (Smith 53, Voges 10) - Australia win by seven wickets!
Trent Boult does indeed appear but after four dot balls he’s creamed through cover by Voges and the Aussies are home! There were moments yesterday when it looked as though New Zealand might pull off the impossible but Australia’s batsmen have made short work of a tricky little chase and earned the side the world No1 Test ranking.
Brendon McCullum leads his men off for the final time in Test cricket and does so to warm applause from the crowd. The Australians gather at the boundary edge to shake hands and wish him well and we’re all done at Hagley Oval. Australia win the series 2-0 and now reach the rankings summit again.
Updated
53rd over: Australia 197-3 (Smith 53, Voges 6) - 4 runs to win
It’s all a bit anti-climactic but Smith drives square at the start of another Henry over to pick up three and edge close to the win. Next up is some real action when Voges dabs one straight to Williamson at gully and takes off for a run that simply isn’t there and only the inaccurate throw of the fieldsman saves Smith from a truly shambolic dismissal. Allan Border, meanwhile, is campaiging for Brendon McCullum to bowl the next over. “He knows it’ll be a bad look” counters the entirely correct Ian Smith. I’m tipping Trent Boult will be up next.
Steve Smith brings up his half-century
52nd over: Australia 193-3 (Smith 50, Voges 5) - 8 runs to win
Before all the noise about the LBW appeal, Smith nudged a single to bring up yet another half-century and I suppose it’s a bit of a shame that he won’t be able to go on with it and make it a pair of tons for the game. Voges finishes the over with a classic cover drive to the fence. The end is nigh.
NOT OUT! Voges survives
Close but no cigar for Boult.
REVIEW! Boult thinks he has Voges LBW
And we shall soon see if he’s right.
51st: Australia 188-3 (Smith 49, Voges 1) - 13 runs to win
This likely brief session starts with Steve Smith turning a single to fine leg off the bowling of Matt Henry, the unfortunate soul who wasn’t able to load up on lamingtons and pavlova during the lunch break. Adam Voges is out there too on a hiding to nothing but pushes wide of cover to get himself off the mark.
The players enter the field
...and not a moment too soon. I’ve just watched Matty Johns driving around in a ute full of ex-rugby league players with various dubiously-sourced animals on their laps. Australia could lose 7-0 and it couldn’t possibly be worse.
Updated
Our first reader email of the lunch break
...and it’s a beauty from Peter Salmon. “Just to be a little more accurate, the game is actually 99.9886524822695% over, based on their being 16 left to score of the 1410 that make up the match. It’s late, and I’m drinking whiskey.” Bless you Pete.
Some people get all the luck
@rustyjacko on my stream, sky sports 2, they're showing McCullums 123 against Bangladesh in the 2012 WT20 - much better!
— Tim Craig (@SonOfGreenGenes) February 24, 2016
As we wait for this session to resume
I feel compelled to point out that in a Clockwork Orange style torture scenario, I’m currently being punished by Fox Sports’ airing of ‘The Best bits of Matty Johns’, perhaps the most misleadingly labelled TV show in broadcasting history. A little better: the Ryan Pierse image below.
Hello OBOers
Russell Jackson here to take you through the most ‘cricket’ thing ever after lunch on day five – Australia chasing down 16 runs. What other sport would contrive a scenario like this? The game is 99.9% over and yet the players have been called off for 40 minutes of tea and biscuits. Geoff Lemon’s last post concerns me. I’m off to do that scrolling that he alluded to...
Please feel free to email me in the time that remains in this match though. It’ll be brief, but perhaps it’ll be beautiful.
Lunch - Australia is about to win, at 185-3
We’ll be back for a tiny little stint after lunch to call the win, and Russell Jackson, that fine and excellent cricketer and writer-about-it-er will be back to write about it, and hopefully won’t scroll down.
Geoff Lemon out for who knows how long until Test cricket shall rise again. My undying love to you all.
50th over: Australia 185-3 (Smith 47, Voges 0)
“I hate to be pedantic,” writes Donald Barrett with a knowing textual smirk, “but the Ring Cycle is four nights of opera not three: Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung. I have sat through ten of them and have tickets for an eleventh in Melbourne at the end of the year.”
Unsurprisingly, Donald is emailing from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Library. Though if I can be even more pedantic, isn’t it three days and one fore-evening, according to the composer’s notes?
Either way, it’s amazing commitment from Donald to sit through it so many times. Almost like watching a Test match. Perhaps in the interests of efficiency we could combine the two activities?
Smith is being pedantic too, taking two runs from Boult’s first ball, a single from the last, and otherwise blocking him out. We end the session with Australia 16 short of victory, which Smith could surely have scored from that over if he’d really wanted to, but Smith will get the not-out that Burns didn’t get.
Joe Burns ends the match having faced 483 balls, 2nd most for Aus in last 10 years. Ponting faced 500 balls v Ind 2012. #AUSvNZ
— Gav_Joshi_Aus (@Gampa_cricket) February 23, 2016
Updated
49th over: Australia 182-3 (Smith 44, Voges 0)
Two overs until the delayed lunch break, but we won’t wrap this match up, because Smith can only take three runs from it. Which means that Burns gave up his wicket for nothing, though I would argue that finishing before lunch also effectively meant nothing.
This. Oh, the bad-cricketer contest is over. This hurts at every level of humanity.
@GeoffLemonSport I once won my team's batting award by default because the guy with the better batting average didn't pay his fees.
— Neil Zimmerman (@victoryinmelb) February 23, 2016
48th over: Australia 179-3 (Smith 41, Voges 0)
A great couple of shots from Burns before he got out, a cover drive and then a drop-kick over mid-off. Loving it. Then went one swing too many and just missed one.
Little red-ink 20 for Voges would help him chase that Bradman number again. He ends the over on nought though.
WICKET! Burns b Boult 65
No red ink for Joe! He finally got going with a couple of boundaries, but then Boult goes through him and he has to go.
47th over: Australia 171-2 (Burns 57, Smith 41)
We do have an extended session, but Burns makes a mockery of it by largely blocking out Henry’s over. He wants to be there at the end. Two singles from it.
Tilo Forbes backs up Paul with this tale.
“Played recently against a middle aged overweight dude. He bowled way faster than his three-step run up suggested. I stayed in line and got hit on the chest by a shorter one. Collapsed, saw stars, had to sit down for 10 minutes, got up again and saw stars, so sat down again. So pretty much a perfect Brian Close impersonation, just without the bravery and bloody determination. No idea how these guys do it, cricket balls hurt!”
46th over: Australia 169-2 (Burns 56, Smith 40)
Anyone who has sat through a three-day performance of the Ring cycle would dispute that Wagner loves the short stuff. But he does bowl short to Smith, who pulls three runs streakily in the air.
Burns pulls a single, his first pull of the day just about? I think so. Then Smith plays another of those forehanders, or more an overhead smash, backing away outside leg, then hitting the ball with a vertical bat, but with the toe facing the sky. This time, “rhythmic gymnastics with a cricket bat” is the radio description.
32 runs to win, and it looks like we’re going to have an extended session. Now I can bag Russell Jackson, that appalling example of cricketing humanity.
Succinct, this entry from Stewart. Almost a haiku.
@geofflemonsport batting: made it to double figures once in 25 yrs. fielding: more injuries than catches; throw like an 18 mth old baby
— Stewart Bosier (@vinguard) February 23, 2016
45th over: Australia 160-2 (Burns 55, Smith 32)
Burns blocks out two Southee full balls, then finally is brought down by a sense of shame. He tries to club one over long-on, drags it high over midwicket, and despite three pounding Black Caps in pursuit, it apologises its way over the distant boundary.
“I will lay claim to worst bowler,” offers Craig Jeffery. “U13’s cricket, last game of the season and I hadn’t taken a single wicket. Most of the morning was gone and the opening batkiddies were set.
“The coach/umpire/captain threw the ball to me - the team rallied behind me with assorted groans. My Max Walkerish (I wish) torso-front-on bowling action featured two or three wind-up swings on the run-in and must have stunned said batkiddie - the ball hit a crack somewhere near the middle of the concrete pitch and bounced twice into his stumps.”
“My mother who had been patiently waiting for this very moment the entire season missed it entirely. That was my last actual game sadly but never regretted retiring on a high.”
A moving tale, a moral for the ages.
Updated
44th over: Australia 156-2 (Burns 51, Smith 32)
This is a very funny battle between Smith and Wagner. After a couple of singles from the over, Wagner knows Smith wants to back away and make room. So he keeps following him. The fifth of the over, Smith slogs it to midwicket for none.
The last, he’s almost falling over backwards in his haste to get away from the line, and Wagner bowls about four metres outside the leg stump to stop him. Somehow Smith is able to drag his bat down at the ball aimed at his chest, and gets it fine for four.
“Like a comedy barber chasing a wasp with a pair of scissors,” is how Jonathan Howcroft described it to perfection on the radio.
“Perhaps I should go first - reassure the group,” offers Robert Wilson belatedly re our terrible cricketers. Don’t worry Robert, people are embracing the chance to get this off their chests. Nonetheless, it’s your turn. Take the conch, Robert.
“A batting average of 3.87 - I used to lie but now I wear it. A surprising wicket tally with my so-called leggies (mostly gained while batsmen were actually doubled up with laughter) but, by far, the worst was the one game I played as keeper. It’s chilling how long forty overs can feel.”
43rd over: Australia 150-2 (Burns 50, Smith 27)
“Does Russell Jackson make your list of terrible OBO cricketers?” asks Raymond Reardon in scandalous style. “I heard that he was once tenth in the sausage roll queue behind Shane Warne.”
Raymond, I can’t sledge Russell because he’s coming on after lunch, which gives him an entrenched and unbeatable right of reply. My time in debating taught me there is no position of strength like the third speaker for the negative.
In fact, there was a mid-90s teenage league in Melbourne that featured a slew of future cricket writers, including Russell, Jarrod Kimber and Adam Collins.
Speaking of sausage rolls, Southee offers one up to Smith, and he pops some sauce on it before despatching it through point. Later in the over he drives three runs down the ground.
He has 27 from 19, a strike rate of 142, and Australia now need just 51.
42nd over: Australia 143-2 (Burns 50, Smith 20)
Smith wants to get this done, he’s not afraid to take on Wagner’s short ball and pulls it fine for four. Then he nearly runs out Burns going for a very short single, just bunted that ball a couple of metres from the bat.
“It is I... the worst OBO player,” says Matt Hine in stentorian tones. That’s actually what Lord Vader reveals in some mistranslations. “When I attempt the fast ball, there’s a 50/50 chance of doing a ‘John Howard’, so I slow it on down for an off spin tweaker, which is travelling so slow the batsman has time to clear the pitch, straighten his box and move the sightscreen before hitting my pie for a massive six. In fact, I only get the the wickets of batsmen as terrible as I am. Call me the reverse all-rounder, the bizarro Jacques Kallis.”
41st over: Australia 138-2 (Burns 50, Smith 15)
Burns gets a leg-stump plonker from Southee that he glances for four, then flicks a similar single to raise a half-century from 138 balls. A patient innings, and he’s made 220 for once out in the match. Secured his place for some time to come.
Some Twitter correspondents chiming in on worst players. Scott certainly sounds far too competent to qualify, although his avatar is a duck egg.
@GeoffLemonSport okay, good variation bowling with some swingand cut thrown in, three step run up and strong action .... Very average bat
— scottprobst (@scottp1964) February 23, 2016
The sensible Paul might be closer to the pin.
@geofflemonsport Worst player? I win this at a canter. I'm terrified of the ball, you see - avoid it at all costs. Those things are HARD.
— paul (@pfon73) February 23, 2016
40th over: Australia 131-2 (Burns 45, Smith 13)
Six! That didn’t take long. Smith takes on Wagner’s short ball and gets enough of the edge over fine leg. Then backs away to play the forehand smash, straight, for three. Burns adds two of his own to the off side.
More confessions, I feel like a cricketing priest in the booth right now. OBO correspondent Matt Harris responds to the public’s demand to know.
“Geoff, I’d be very high (or should that be low?) on the list. I was a right-arm slow-medium swing bowler, and a bona fide tail-ender. My high score is 35, and my average would be certainly in the single digits. My best bowling is 5-2 from 1.4 overs, although I should note that I was fined $2 in that match for bringing myself on and taking 5 after we’d already lost (in our league, you played out the innings even if the target had been reached).”
Now that, my friends, is a magnificent cricket story. Fastest hundred in your farewell Test, blah blah blah.
39th over: Australia 120-2 (Burns 43, Smith 4)
“I am so smug right now! Love being right!” writes Ruth, presumably of the Khawaja dismissal. No mention of where she sits in the batting order.
Interesting note: Steve Smith didn’t have the neck-protector panels on his helmet in the first innings, when he was hit on the back of the helmet just above that region. Now in the second dig he’s wearing a renovated helmet with that protection added.
He’s unfussed at the crease, taking a single to leg early, letting Burns drive square for three. Finally getting going. Smith pulls the second-last ball for one. They need 81 more to win.
38th over: Australia 115-2 (Burns 40, Smith 2)
Wagner is back, they must fancy him against Smith? Or they assume that he’s the key, and he’s a very durable bowler. Was it 10 in a row that he bowled on the second day?
He’s suddenly bowling full, though, attacking Burns’ fourth-stump line and looking for movement. A man of contrasts and paradoxes, Wagner: not especially tall, but determined. Broad of shoulder. A trotter in to the crease, an exploder once he reaches it. It’s a maiden.
There’s our man. “You were half right in your description of my bowling,” writes Phil Withall. “Standing six feet four tall I send down right arm, medium paced dross. It has the effect of confusing batsman, who tend to expect something faster from a man of my height. They do cotton on rather quickly...”
I am a bowler in very much the same mould, Phil. The trick is to play in a 25-over league where you only have to bowl two per match. And the opposition are sufficiently steeped in beer that they can’t remember what you bowl when you meet the next season.
Updated
37th over: Australia 115-2 (Burns 40, Smith 2)
Khawaja gone, fidgety Sniffer Smith taps a brace from his first ball. 86 to win, 8 wickets in hand.
“I agree with you that everything about cricket is frustrating,” says Matt Harris, grinding his teeth, “but like Ruth, my biggest frustration is often the bowling, particularly to tail-enders. Just bowl at the blooming stumps! Surely if you bowl six in a row at a Boult or Bird’s middle stump, they’ll miss one of them.”
Matt, where do you sit on Robert’s terrible-cricketer rankings? I’ll bet you bowl at the stumps.
Updated
WICKET! Khawaja c McCullum b Southee 45
A breakthrough, and the outbound skipper snares the take as Khawaja lashes outside his off stump and gets a thick top edge to slip.
Updated
36th over: Australia 113-1 (Burns 40, Khawaja 45)
Ah, one slip, three gullies? Brendon McCullum is just having fun right now. Anderson to Burns. Is McCullum actually trying to draw designs for an aerial photo? Look, that’s a flower. That’s a child’s smiling face.
Burns plays a rank stinky wet dog of a pull shot that plops out towards an empty midwicket for a couple of runs.
There’s also cover, deep cover, mid-off, mid-on and a fine leg. Anderson drops short, and now Burns’ dog has been dried and groomed and is trailing a roll of toilet paper photogenically behind it, clasped in a canine smile. Pulled for four.
Drinks break
“Since we’re drenching ourselves in valedictory sentimentality,” writes the glorious sentimentalist Robert Wilson,” might I make a suggestion? Who do you imagine is the worst actual player who writes to you when you’re doing the OBO? In proper, formal cricket of a relative decent standard (22 players, not including mid-sized dogs or children under 10)? I am, I admit, the competitive type but I rather think it’s me. You would not believe my batting average...”
It’s an interesting question. I get the feeling that Phil Withall probably bowls some left-arm filth. Ruth Purdue would be a stubborn middle-order type. I’d have to be a contender too, I have a long-standing ambition at my club, yet to be realised, to make double figures.
Let’s solve this, dear readers? What do you bowl, how do you bat? Let’s name the worst OBO cricketer of all.
35th over: Australia 107-1 (Burns 34, Khawaja 45)
Finally Tim Southee gets a run. Or the chance to concede a run. He has a slip, a gully, two catching covers and a catching midwicket for Khawaja. He’s bowling right-arm over, using the angle, and Khawaja is troubling none of those fielsmen with a series of leaves. They need 94 to win, but they’re in no hurry.
34th over: Australia 107-1 (Burns 34, Khawaja 45)
McCullum wants the left-arm angle for Burns. Boult needs a rest, so Corey Anderson is on. Words that rhyme with Corey? Glory. He’s on his way.
Khawaja has a slew of catchers on the leg-side, then they basically stay in position to form an off-side cordon for Burns. Three slips, short cover, regulation cover and mid-off, with a deep point as well.
The switch-over happens via a short wide ball that Khawaja punches for three, then Burns comes across his stumps to pull two to leg. Then Anderson ignores his field and goes too straight, allowing Burns to work two more.
He’s added more from his last couple of balls than in the 13 prior overs today.
33rd over: Australia 100-1 (Burns 30, Khawaja 42)
“Hi Geoff, do you ever get frustrated with the bowling in a match?” asks Ruth Purdue. “Bowl for a drive on the up lads. Just tease them there, they will go for it.”
Ruth, I do get frustrated with bowling in a match. I get frustrating with batting, with catching, especially with umpiring, with fielding, with dress sense, with ground announcing, commentary, advertising, and venue catering.
Fortunately a writing career gives me the chance vent these things at length.
As for this attack, Wagner is being as disciplined as you suggest, but in a different way. His sustained short-ball attack is calculated to draw a mistake in the same way, with catchers in on the leg side. It’s another maiden, as Burns resists, and is discomfited several times on the fend and the leave.
32nd over: Australia 100-1 (Burns 30, Khawaja 42)
Khawaja raises the 50 partnership with a single off the pads. Of the 50, Joe Burns has contributed... 4.
He adds one more with a push to cover. That’s the spirit. The hundred comes up.
Updated
31st over: Australia 98-1 (Burns 29, Khawaja 41)
Aaaaand it’s a single first ball from Khawaja. Tucks Wagner off the hip. Burns ducks, Burns defends. Wagner slips in the surprise full ball but Burns is able to fall over on it effectively enough to dob a single towards leg. Khawaja? He flicks a pull shot fine of the leg slip, lovely touch, for one more.
30th over: Australia 95-1 (Burns 28, Khawaja 39)
The pattern repeats: Khawaja works a single from Boult’s first ball, then Burns soaks up the other five. He wants to be seen to be playing a proper Test innings, clearly. Khawaja has added 20, Burns has added 1.
29th over: Australia 94-1 (Burns 28, Khawaja 38)
Wagner continues, getting too wide to Khawaja, though I don’t need to tell you the length. Usman slaps it square for three. Burns finally gets going, but it’s with another uncomfortable skewed defensive fend that pops into the gully for one.
That said, he looked terrible for a long time in the first innings before making 170.
Khawaja shows him an easier way to score one, by jabbing a ball square. A bit easier for the left-hander facing Wagner.
28th over: Australia 89-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 34)
Boult gets a bit straight to Khawaja who works a single. Once again Boult slants across and across Burns, who hangs tight. Maybe he just really likes 27?
27th over: Australia 88-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 33)
Wagner’s leg theory: short leg, backward square leg, square leg, mid-on, deep midwicket, fine leg. Khawaja backs away, arches his spine and flays through the off side for four. Then pulls fine for one.
Burns is snorted once again, a sharp short one that he drags his head away from, manages to just drop his gloves enough, and it flies from his shoulder to McCullum on the bounce at slip. Wholehearted stuff from The Composer. Burns hasn’t scored today.
26th over: Australia 83-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 28)
Two short midwickets for Khawaja against Boult, so he taps a single between them just to show he can.
That leaves the lefty Boult to the righty Burns, angling across him for five balls that Burns ignores.
Matthew Churchill is getting in on the misty-eyed end-of-term bonhomie. “At the start of the summer I couldn’t have thought of anything more boring than following the cricket via a ball-by-ball blog. My eyes have been opened. You and your mates’ witty wordsmithery has got me through many a long day at work. Now I only have Dennis Cometti’s final year in the commentary box to look forward to.”
Thanks Matthew, and God forbid we shall ever have to live in a world without Cometti.
25th over: Australia 82-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 27)
Burns is hit! He’s been ducking Wagner’s bouncers, but that one was a little fuller and skidded through. Burns tried to evade but took his eye off it, and it clipped the helmet to fly away for four leg byes.
119 to win.
24th over: Australia 78-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 27)
Khawaja doesn’t want to do anything risky, taking the responsible approach. Boult is bang on the off-stump, nice tight line and the batsman just gets behind it.
23rd over: Australia 78-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 27)
Wagner, bouncer. Wagner, bouncer. He’s bowling left-arm over to the left-handed Khawaja. Usman is happy to duck and duck. Let’s hope they don’t do this all day, we have homes to go to.
Lovely shot as Khawaja forces off the back foot into the covers, the ball wasn’t quite short enough to stop that shot, and here’s a rare sight, as Wagner fields his own bowling... at deep cover.
The field was so far up that he had to chase it himself, and while he wears himself out, the batsman takes three.
22nd over: Australia 75-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 24)
Edged and missed! Boult’s third ball, it moved, Khawaja pushed, and the edge went between BJ Watling behind the stumps and McCullum at slip. The two men only achieved a tangled embrace on the grass, as the ball flew for four. A single into the off-side to finish the over.
21st over: Australia 70-1 (Burns 27, Khawaja 19)
So here is the deal. Australia needs 131 runs. New Zealand needs nine wickets.
Wagner, unsurprisingly begins with a short-pitched attack, and continues with a short-pitched attack for the entire over. Got him six wickets in the first innings, so why not? No run is scored by the evading Burns.
Updated
Send me a final missive, do. A little moment between us on the Twitter thing, or even an old fashioned email on perfumed paper with the closing imprint of a kiss.
Good morning everyone, for the final time from this Test match series, and the final time in Test cricket for some long months ahead. It’s real, it’s emotional, it’s deep. I feel like we’ve grown together, learned as a group, and therein have discovered both the nature of Test cricket and our true selves. Hold me.
Geoff Lemon in this tear-stained embrace, as the strains of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’ ring out around the sunlit Hagley Oval. The ground DJ here certainly has had a wicked game.
But now it’s time for the wicket game, or the run game, as Brendon McCullum leads New Zealand out onto the field for the final time. Highest score by an NZ player, fastest Test century, first captain to score a hundred in his last Test, most sixes in Test cricket, and the longest consecutive streak of Test matches. Thanks for the memories, Barrie.
Oh god, now the DJ is playing ‘The Boxer’. Trying to reduce me to a mess of damp paper towel before a ball is bowled.
“... seeking out the lonely quarters where the ragged people go...”
Geoff will be here shortly. In the meantime, things got a little heated yesterday:
.jpg?w=600)
