A happy-go-lucky English rambler dude goes to New Zealand for a year. Here he interfaces with some of those he left behind and details his nefarious activities. Or summat.
Recently clicked on MP3s - 7th June 2005 The Lucksmiths - Warmer Corners
Jens Lekman - When i said i wanted to be your dog
The Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting
Teenage Fanclub - Man Made
Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacier
The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Eels - Blinking Lights
Just spent the last few hours scanning photos of Sanjay, the Cricket and Mount Edward, and uploading them onto my photos page. (Links to the left)
I should write something about the trip down to Dunedin for the final, decisive 1-dayer, but it's getting rather late, and Michael's just texted me to say he's cooked up a load of vegetarian minestrone, so i'm off. Fear not though, as Ted in NZ's guest reporter Sanjay Dhiman has prepared an in depth account of the whole day. Including some post match debauchery with the England team themselves! Over to Sanjay..... [Please note the following article contains bad words and views which do not necessarily represent those of Ted in NZ - Though I do definitely hate Chris Fucking Cairns ;o)]
NZ seal the Series
Tues 26 Feb, may have been a watershed for the future of the England cricket team. Our cricket correspondent, Sanjay Dhiman recounts events fom the final onedayer in Dunedin.
The morning of the game and Dunedin was coming to life, as a steady stream of England fans entered this sleepy city. The police had decided to take a zero tolerance stance and had deployed all 36 officers for this category A game. The Albert Arms, 11:00. England fans had agreed to congregate here following a heavy session the night before, sadly started by the alcoholic, overpaid English journalists. Again the beers started to flow freely, and before long the classic song that first reared its head in Auckland reappeared.
"Chrisy Cairns...are you listening?"
"to the song that we're singing"
"with a packet of sweets and a cheeky smile"
"Cairnsy is a f**king paedeophile"
At this point I left procedings with the Barmy Army, although agreeing to meet them later. Dave Rowcroft, photographer, and I headed to the Outback Inn, home of the NZ "hardcore" support. Embarking their bus to the ground, we heard that they were ready to face the Barmy Army. On request they produced one of their classics.... "the wheels on the bus go round and round". Unimpressed, we gave the whole bus a rendition of the Cairns song, which produced a silence on the bus.
Arriving at Carrisbrook ("the house of pain"), we entered the terrace to find that the England support had taken residence directly behind the NZ "hardcore". Excellent positioning lads. The numbers swelled to a healthy amount. Indeed people were still arriving after England had lost 2 early wickets. My own friend Mark Edward, NZ correspondent, and his merry contingent from Christchurch joined myself, Dave, the beautiful Dorien (my g/f) and her friend Ilse.
The match itself was an uninspiring affair. Had it not been for the terrace banter, we may as well not have bothered. David Llyod and Bob Willis were spotted having their lunch in the boxes directly behind the Barmy Army. Unfortunate restaurant to choose, as Willis endured some abuse, until a police line established itself. After the break, England gave their usual lame fielding performance, which has ultimately cost them the series. The highlight of the NZ innings wasn't Astle's superb 100, but Cairns' dismissal for a duck. From the second he started his walk from the pavillion to several minutes after, the Barmy Army bellowed the "Cairns chant". This, in no small way, led to his dismissal, of that I am certain. NZ fans countered with the "Haka", a lame attempt at singing songs and the strange tradition of burning sofa cushions on the terraces??? Strange backward people!
Although destined to lose, the superb array of chants continued unabated from the Barmy Army. Classics such as.....
"You're just a third world country"
"Your sister is your mother"
"Youve got got six fingers on each hand"
"Weve got three dollars to the pound"
You get the picture? The series over, and the England support continued to the Carrisbrook Arms, waiting there for 2 hours for a taxi to town. The Captain Cook was the first port of call. Two hours and several pints later we arrived at JayCee's. Alcohol again continued to flow, and a very relaxed atmosphere was enjoyed by all, as Kiwis and Brits mixed.
At two o'clock the unexpected occurred. Flintoff entered the club. After crashing a cig from me and posing for photos, he was followed by Shah, Gough, Collingwood, Caddick, Trescothick and Vettori, Tuffey and McMillan from NZ. These lads started drinking, smoking and generally acting like the rest of us. Similar scenes to those involving Gazza and the England football team during the "dentists chair" incident. Shah was continually trying to crack onto my missus, until it became clear she was with me. As she was wearing my England shirt, Trescothick tried a different approach, and asked to buy the shirt. Then realising I wasnt Dutch (as Dorien is), apologised and carried on drinking. At 04:00 the lights came on, and bouncers were asking people to leave. It was then that Goughy decided he'd join in the antics. Jumping on the stage surround by English fans he started what can only be described as a Rugby song that the England fans mimiced). 04:30 and Goughy agreed to step down.
Our little party headed back to our hostel, but the chanting could be heard the other end of town. Im sure that the drinking continued long into the early hours. If this is what the England team are doing between matches, then I dont hold much hope for the test series.
Sanjay Dhiman. 10:22 am Monday, February 25, 2002 What a wonderful world :oD I've just had the kind of weekend that made me want to come to New Zealand in the first place.
Went to stay at Jo's on Saturday night, to prepare for a hard day's mountaineering down south on the Sunday. But the morning brought hangovers and shite weather, so we headed off to the Lake Tekapo area to hopefully get some better weather. Happily the skies were blue on the other side of the Mount Peel hills, and after buying a map of the area, there turned out to be only one mountain that we could go for that day - Mount Edward! (er, Edward is my surname for random passers by).
Lake Tekapo is one of the most beautiful areas i've passed through in New Zealand, and it just looked better and better the higher we got.
The route to the summit at 1916 metres, was a long ridge, which got steeper towards the top. It wasn't really tough going, but a lack of excercise recently, and a gale force wind did force me to break sweat on occasion ;o)
It's hard to do the views justice with my limited vocabulary, but it really was one of the most beautiful sights imaginable, with huge ranges of mountains in all directions, including 'The Daddy', Mount Cook, vast flat plains stretching off into the endless distance, as well as the incredible blues of Lake Tekapo and Pukaki glowing away below us.
As you'd expect, i took a couple of pictures, so hopefully when i get them back i'll be able to illustrate what i'm going on about slightly better, but for now i've included a picture of Tekapo i've pinched off the web, as well as the all important route details!
9:05 am Friday, February 22, 2002
Hmmm. What do knackered web developers do when they've finished a long day at work?
Go home? No don't be stupid, they help mad Greeks set up webcams all over the office :oD
Check out the hot action in the Zweb office right now. (Hopefully things will pick up on Monday a bit).
11:25 am
Ug-ug-ug. Just finished a 11 hour day at work, spent tangling with one of the twattiest websites in the world. Which has left me with a rather unpleasant dull, aching feeling behind my eyes - probably my brain about to seize up. If you want to test the website for me, and mail me any bugs you find - feel free! I will then feel free to ignore them, and delete the emails immedately :op
After watching 'From hell' at the cinema last night I felt like writing a little review of it today, however, as i want to leave this computer so desperately, the review will be mercifully short.
Heather Graham does not look anything like a Victorian prozzie. Johnny Depp can do a reasonable Cockney accent (Heather can't). If you're going to go OTT with your film, go the whole hog like in Sleepy Hollow. Not make up a mental plot (The Masons, Queen Victoria and the Elephant Man were all in on the Jack the Ripper conspiracy) and then try to take it seriously. Also the only sympathetic English characters were played by Americans - come on Hollywood, English people are not all evil, honest!
BUT - it was fairly stylishly done, the Victorian London portrayed was enjoyably grim and horrible. Also it was the first film in which i've seen Absinthe being drunk, so top marks for that. Even though i don't normally bother with the 4 drops of Laudanum that Johnny added to his ;o)
11:13 am Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Realised today that my last post was perhaps overlong. So i'll keep this one fairly snappy, which won't be hard as I yearn to leave work immediately and get down the pub to watch the Cricket.
Also i'll be able to link to some pics again now, courtesy of the hosting generously provided by work :oD
So here's some fairly amusing shots of Mum, Alison & I having just completed our super extreme wire slide crossing of the Buller gorge.
7:13 am Monday, February 18, 2002
Safely back in Christchurch after a very pleasant few days spent with the Sanj-meister cruising around the many delights that the central part of the South Island (Canterbury/Otago) has to offer. With gorgeous weather all the way!
We spent the first day travelling down to Wanaka, one of my favourite spots in NZ. Passing through Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook Village on the way. It was nice to get a view of Mount Cook / Aoraki for once, and from the foot of the Tasman glacier it looked surprisingly climbable, even at 3700ish metres, but I doubt i'll be attempting it in the near future as I, er, can't be bothered.
Irritatingly everywhere in Wanaka was booked up for the night, but after 1/2 hour of phoning around, we found a caravan site 6km out of town, down a dirt track, that had some spaces. So we bought a few 6-packs of Steinlager, and became trailer trash for the night! :o) This actually involved sitting on the steps of our caravan, getting pissed, counting shooting stars, reminiscing and making random phone calls home (On Sanjays company mobile! Thanks Ronald :op & Sorry to bemused friends & family)
Before setting off the next day, my car started to make some fairly alarming grinding noises, which turned out to be the brake pads disintegrating. Although it cost me $100 that i really couldn't afford to get them replaced, it was almost worth it, as Greg, the mechanic who did the biz, was a classic Kiwi character. While running around his garage organising 8 other jobs at once he explained where he got his energy from - not having drunk alcohol for 3 years, and drinking the local lake water, until he was sick, to clean out his liver, hmmm.
Then, when he started work on fitting my brake pads, bizarrely, he threw me the keys to his car, and asked me to drive off to the other side of town, to pick up a part for another job he had on the go!
Once i'd finished my errand, and he'd finished the job on my car, he displayed a level of trust never shown by British mechanics - arranging to meet me by the cash machine in town later that afternoon, allowing me to drive off in my now fully functional car! (And yes I did turn up to pay him by the way).
Queenstown lived up to it's reputation as the I-beef-er of New Zealand, but this was ideal for Sanjay's birthday, as he met a super foxy Dutch bird, who was clearly impressed by his silver tongued charm. Her mate was very nice, but i wimped out early to return to the hostel (Towny nightclubs not being my favourite places on earth). On return to the dorm a couple were shagging in the bunk below me - Now do you see why I prefer Wanaka to Queenstown?
Ambling around town on Sunday morning, when I least expected it, I had a close encounter with one of my and NZ's heroes - Edmund Hillary! He and his wife were having a quiet cup of tea outside a lakefront cafe, when i wandered by, gawping (I've just read his autbiography and he's on the NZ $5 note, so i'm sure it was him!). I bottled out of actually talking to him. Possibly just as well, as i've since been informed by Lyndon, that he's actually a bit of an ego-head, not surprising when your're on your own country's $5 note i suppose.
Before leaving Sanj & driving the 500k's back to Christchurch, we went up the Queenstown Gondola, and soaked in the view over the town & lake Wakatipu, as well as more gorgeous weather. Also followed my Mother's extreme footsteps had a quick go on the luge! The drive back was just as gorgeous & enjoyable as the drive down, and was enhanced still further by finding a tape i'd forgotten i had, featuring some Boards of Canada recorded from James while he was here - In a beautiful place out in the country indeed. Bliss....
Please Note: Regarding the 1st NZ vs England 1-day international. I have been asked to point out, by certain New Zealanders, that the Kiwi fans did in fact come up with one good song. This song was "You can't eat your bee-eef, You can't eat your bee-eef" * 100. Sadly I have forgotten the tune (As well as most of the second innings). I hope this satisfies any disgruntled Kiwi's, and will make them shut up about the 2nd 1-day international now.
11:10 am
Safely back in Christchurch after a very pleasant few days spent with the Sanj-meister cruising around the many delights that the central part of the South Island (Canterbury/Otago) has to offer. With gorgeous weather all the way!
We spent the first day travelling down to Wanaka, one of my favourite spots in NZ. Passing through Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook Village on the way. It was nice to get a view of Mount Cook / Aoraki for once, and from the foot of the Tasman glacier it looked surprisingly climbable, even at 3700ish metres, but I doubt i'll be attempting it in the near future as I, er, can't be bothered.
Irritatingly everywhere in Wanaka was booked up for the night, but after 1/2 hour of phoning around, we found a caravan site 6km out of town, down a dirt track, that had some spaces. So we bought a few 6-packs of Steinlager, and became trailer trash for the night! :o) This actually involved sitting on the steps of our caravan, getting pissed, counting shooting stars, reminiscing and making random phone calls home (On Sanjays company mobile! Thanks Ronald 11:09 am
Safely back in Christchurch after a very pleasant few days spent with the Sanj-meister cruising around the many delights that the central part of the South Island (Canterbury/Otago) has to offer. With gorgeous weather all the way!
We spent the first day travelling down to Wanaka, one of my favourite spots in NZ. Passing through Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook Village on the way. It was nice to get a view of Mount Cook / Aoraki for once, and from the foot of the Tasman glacier it looked surprisingly climbable, even at 3700ish metres, but I doubt i'll be attempting it in the near future as I, er, can't be bothered.
Irritatingly everywhere in Wanaka was booked up for the night, but after 1/2 hour of phoning around, we found a caravan site 6km out of town, down a dirt track, that had some spaces. So we bought a few 6-packs of Steinlager, and became trailer trash for the night! :o) This actually involved sitting on the steps of our caravan, getting pissed, counting shooting stars, reminiscing and making random phone calls home (On Sanjays company mobile! Thanks Ronald 11:08 am
Safely back in Christchurch after a very pleasant few days spent with the Sanj-meister cruising around the many delights that the central part of the South Island (Canterbury/Otago) has to offer. With gorgeous weather all the way!
We spent the first day travelling down to Wanaka, one of my favourite spots in NZ. Passing through Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook Village on the way. It was nice to get a view of Mount Cook / Aoraki for once, and from the foot of the Tasman glacier it looked surprisingly climbable, even at 3700ish metres, but I doubt i'll be attempting it in the near future as I, er, can't be bothered.
Irritatingly everywhere in Wanaka was booked up for the night, but after 1/2 hour of phoning around, we found a caravan site 6km out of town, down a dirt track, that had some spaces. So we bought a few 6-packs of Steinlager, and became trailer trash for the night! :o) This actually involved sitting on the steps of our caravan, getting pissed, counting shooting stars, reminiscing and making random phone calls home (On Sanjays company mobile! Thanks Ronald 11:07 am Thursday, February 14, 2002
Ug.
Not feeling too chirpy today, due to a combination of a rather twatty cold, and an extremely twatty hangover.
Can't really complain about the hangover, as drinking like a mad eejit at the cricket all day long, is only going to result in one thing. Despite England losing, a great day was had by all. We started off in a fairly quiet section of the ground (Sat next to a Cov fan! ARGH), but after the England innings, Sanjay, me and a bunch of my Kiwi work mates joined the 'Barmy Army' in the DB Stand, for the rest of the evening. We were all fairly hammered by that stage, and felt like having a bit of a sing song.
The atmos with the 'Barmy Army' was excellent, with plenty of "banter" between us and the rather crappy 'Mad-Caps', NZ's manufactured answer to the 'Barmy Army'. The 'Barmy Army' were coming up with some reasonably witty songs, taking the piss out various things from the Pound / NZ Dollar exchange rate, to er, some fat NZ fans ("Have you ever seen a Salad!", was a new variation on the theme) Some of the Kiwi fans attempted to fight back, but their songs lacked any subtlety, and were mainly based around sentiments such as "F**k off back home to England!", or "HAHAA, we're winning at the Cricket!" (A fact which didn't really bother many of the England fans present.)
Sanj & I are off to Queenstown / Wanaka for the weekend, speaking of which I really should be getting off to meet him, and start planning it all out (Thankfully he's too wussy to do a Bungee, so i won't have to deal with any peer pressure suggesting I should do one too ;o)
Also Happy birthday Dad! (And to Sanjay on Saturday).
7:14 am
As promised, here's episode 2 of JRR Reid's latest epic, "Bush = Bad", based around his real life experiences on Mounts Cloudsley and Enys.
With defiance born of obstinance they plunged into the tangled
growth and were received in prickly embrace. before they knew it
their path of entry closed behind them, though in truth it was only
much later that they thought despairingly of returning the way they
had come. Their goal lay upwards, about 20 metres or so. A short
distance. By the light of their insipid torch small hints of openings
though the bush appeared. Some were real, others tricks cast by
shadows. Even the real openings tormented them - tiny spaces
less densely criss-crossed with branches than the surrounding
thicket - the spaces would appear before them in the direction they
wished to go, but would inevitably steer them away, forcing them to
traverse along the slope instead of up it. Worst of all though were
the spines. Every manner of thorn and spine existed in this thicket -
long tearing spines, small rasping thorns, spines that broke off the
branch to embed themselves into their flesh. Spiny bushes, spiny
weeds and thorn fringed vines. Every step was paid for in pain. To
progress they pushed each other forward, using each other as
battering rams, beating and stomping the bushes, but each slip
sent them backwards again and the thicket would close in again
before them. Then it began to rain................................. 6:55 am Monday, February 11, 2002
Well, Sunday's walk up Mount Cloudsley and Mount Enys did indeed turn out to be an epic. Mainly due to my inablility to get out of bed before 10am on a Sunday :o(
I'm still a little too mentally scarred to discuss it at length, but luckily Michael, who accompanied me, has written a Tolkien-esqe description part of the walk, which is included below.
Setting the scene.... We started off at 1pm, a little too late for a 20k walk involving 2000m+ of ascent, but the summits were bagged and all was going well. Until we were faced with the age old decision about how to get back to the car - Take the long, safe and Tedious route along the road. Or, the short cut over some seeminly innocuous, rolling grassland, with some harmless looking rivers meandering around in it. Needless to say we went for the short cut. Over to Michael "JRR" Reid.....
The darkness fell upon them with quiet foreboding as they trudged
through the long tussock swamp land that sat defiantly on the
hillslope. It crossed their minds that such boggy ground should lie
in a hollow rather than on a slope where water should drain away.
Foolishly, they ignored the paradox, just as they ignored the
sudden appearance of a second stream to their right, assuming it
was nothing more than their own oversight that meant that they
were now hemmed in by torrents of dark frigid water. The gorse
thickened as light diminished, spines stretching out towards them,
eager for the taste of soft flesh. They moved onward though, the
lights of the village ahead tempting them, the calming display of the
GPS assuring them that the end lay a mere 1000 metres away.
Finally they arrived at the top of the high bank of the river. Heedless
of danger, they charged down the precipitous slope, believing the
end was in sight, that only one barrier, the stream, lay between
them and the safety of the village and the car.
Hardly stopping to search for a suitable spot to ford the raging
depths, they charged across and made it safe, though wetter to the
other side. They did not know that this was exactly where the
forces arrayed against them wanted them to be - standing on this
side of the river, looking ahead, seeing only the 50 metres that
separated them from the village lights, blind to the dark mass that
stood ahead. Stepping into it, they did not hear the laughter which
swirled though the branches......................
Part Two "The Evil Spiky Ass bushes from hell" continues tomorrow
7:13 am
Humph, it appears that Tripod are, like Geocities, complete killjoys and won't allow me to display images on this blog that are stored on their servers, so i'll just have to link to them instead, ho hum. :o(
6:19 am Saturday, February 09, 2002
Despite some very nice weather outside, i've been sat in front of a pooter on a Saturday afternoon (yuk), scanning photos and tarting up my photography website a bit.
I'm going to be making up for this geekery though, as i'm going for another epic walk tomorrow, this time in the Craigieburn range (Near to Castle Hill peak). The two mountains i'm aiming for are both over 2000m in height, so I can break the 2k barrier without having to stand on anything! While planning this walk, I noticed the wonderfully named Mount Horrible and Mount Misery nearby, which will have to be visited at a later date. I suppose on a rainy day too, to really get into the grim spirit (Fancy a trip to NZ for these two, Pablo & Cat?)
7:43 am Friday, February 08, 2002
Went to see Amelie at the cinema last night. Joy. Joy Joy. What a wonderful film. I'd defy anyone to leave the cinema not feeling lucky to be alive, and wanting to go and tell everyone they know how much they love them, and give them all a big hug. Er, I didn't actually do this after watching the film, but I certainly wanted to, honest.
For a highly verbose description of the film, by a wannabe film critic and lovely person, click here.
e.g."marvelous sequences that delight the eye", "delicious jaunty humour" and "Jeunet has succeeded with aplomb here".;op
Not sure what this weekend holds for me yet, but the weather's looking up a bit and I need to get in training for the 'Molesworth Muster', an 80km mountain bike race I may be doing next saturday, depending on whether or not Adam from work can persuade someone to give us and some bikes a 4hour lift to Molesworth - fingers crossed. So, i suppose i should get my arse into gear and do something highly energetic. Though not Speed walking, as has been recently taken up by a certain daft bugger back in the UK.
7:19 am Tuesday, February 05, 2002
Actually while i'm talking web-bollox, i'd meant to mention my worries about the type of people visiting my website.
I'd assumed the content of the site was fairly tame, but i've getting hits from people searching google for things like "Alsation Hardcore", "Picture Pissing Girl" and even more worryingly "Home and Away pictures", AARGH!
Maybe i should stop being so fussy, and embrace this kind of visitor. So here's some more stuf for their searches to pick up:
"Pregnant Poodle Pics"
"Hot Cabbage Action"
"Camel on Camel Hardcore"
Now just watch those hits come flooding in.....
8:57 am
Rather than escape from my pooter on the stroke of 5pm, going home to have some of Michaels' super curry, and watching the Godfather which we've finally got out on video. I've been hanging around at work, trying to tart up my website a bit. Specifically, improving the photograph situation. Photoisland is all very nice, but the logging in aspect is a bit crap. So i thought i'd host the pics on my geocities account, and link to them from here. But, after an awful lot of ftp'ing, i found out that geocities won't allow external links to images hosted thereon - BASTARDS! So after an awful lot more ftp'ing, the photos are now stored on the much more friendly Tripod (20megs free space).
So to look at the ad hoc pages i've done for each gallery click the links down the left. I can now link some of them into this main blog page, to brighten it up a bit, so i'll do that right now, with a picture of my favourite bagpiper from next door.
8:19 am Monday, February 04, 2002
Shock horror - there's going to be a good gig in NZ! Sadly it's on the wrong island - bugger.
Looks like i'll be going to this gig instead then :o( All together now, "I've been through the desert on a horse with no name. It felt good to be out of the rain"..........................
8:57 am
Treated myself to a fairly expensive, but fun weekend, to make up for all the hours spent at work last week. (I finished the website at 11pm on Friday night, though stupidly stayed in the office to join the LAN party that was going on, playing Operation Flash point (Cor!), with numerous other people till 3am).
When I crawled out of bed on Saturday, I headed off to Map world, to splash out on a GPS, which i've been hankering after for some time. I went for the Garmin Legend - expensive, but packed full of useful features. People who go out for walks with me can now look forward to finding out information such as our average speed, ETA at the next pub and how many satellites are currently overhead. At least for as long as the batteries last anyway, as I soon discovered it has approximately the same energy requirements as a 5 bar electric fire.
Later in the afternoon I ended up crashed out in one of Christchurch's many little squares, next to the river. Where I texted a final goodbye to Alison before she boarded the plane to Sydney, and then promptly fell asleep in the sunshine.
Happily i felt fairly energised after my power nap, as a 'large-style' saturday night was planned. Jo had come up to to the bright lights of Ch'ch for the weekend, after getting rather bored of Garlic picking & her country yokel lifestyle (:op) We started off in the Excelsior sports bar, as per, with Gemma and the usual posse, and then Michael, Keith, Jo, Marie and I headed off for more tasty booze at Dux-de-Lux, although the promised band never appeared, and then on to an all night pool hall till 4am-ish for yet more booze as well as some incidental pool. [NOTE:Apologies to friends in the UK for any strange phone calls, or ansaphone messages you may have received around this time]
I would have happily stayed in bed for most of Sunday, but due to promises made the night before, and a certain punctuality freak hassling me to get up, Jo, Michael, three of his work mates & me went out for a coastal wander round Pigeon bay. It was beautiful spot, with weather to match, but involved a 1/2 hour drive over a rather steep and exposed pass, on a slippy, single track, dirt road - eek.
Sunday night involved a yet another goodbye to another of my long term Ch'ch mates - Keith (Or as he would say in his cockney barrow-bow accent, "Keef"). He's heading down to Dunedin, to try a career in fruit-picking, and hopefully meet up with his mysterious and foxy Swiss friend Miriam. Depsite 90% of my friends moving away in the last few weeks i'm not feeling too lonely yet. I've got to stay in Ch'ch to build up some cash anyway, and the "lad's" at work are a pretty good bunch (A mass work outing to the NZ vs England Cricket 1-dayer is currently being organised, which should be a "lottafun", so long as we thrash the Kiwis, and no-one laughs too hard at my Leicester city shirt)
8:22 am
