The first day of the Ashes was the day we chose to go and bugger me it was hot. Bugger me it was dull as well, even for relatively keen cricket watchers. Despite seeing 12 wickets fall, (one of which is in the picture here if you look hard enough) we all agreed watching test cricket live is akin to watching paint grow. The Barmy Army failed to impress with anything close to resembling clever repartee. Chanting Barmy Army and clapping incessantly for 30 minutes at the start of play seemed a little inane to me, although the trumpet player to his credit trumpeted up a storm. The Aussie fans had nothing but beer an swearing, but that was to be expected.Matt Cleary, freelance journalist and purveyor of strange feet odours also joined us in Perth and even he struggled to find a story at the cricket. In fact the most news worthy story appeared on the English Telegraph website in relation to a junket that we were kind of sort of involved in. We were sitting next to the chopper pilot after the 9th hole, we didn't see any snakes though. So word of advice on test cricket, watch it on Telly and keep your fluids up. But not White Russians, they can cause night terrors in crabs.
Speaking of crustaceans and I kind of was, the reason I was in mourning was that Pinchie died the previous week. I think he died peacefully in his sleep, at least he looked peaceful while a fish was trying to eat his eye. Reidy and I thought he might of wanted us to smother him in butter and garlic, but we popped him down the garbage chute instead. It was very sad day indeed and the condolence messages are still flowing in.Singapoo has become very wet since we got back, floods, landslides, toppling trees and all sorts of carnage. I guess not surprising seeing as the majority of the island is reclaimed land, and considering that a 9 metre rise in sea level will drown Portsmouth in the UK (Elliott told me this after what was obviously a busy day in the office nursing a long held hatred of all things Portsmouth), then Singapore is destined to become the Venice of South East Asia.
The good news with the rain is they actually stopped work on the building site behind our condo, which means I didn't have to yell at them to stop pouring concrete at 11 O'clock at night and they didn't have to tell me to stop using offensive language. Win Win.
Finally and this is finally for the year, there was a great testimony to the Singaporean dedication to shopping last Sunday. The roof of Tangs department store on Orchard Road caught fire and to their credit no one was evacuated and the shoppers only found out when they were tripping over fire hoses on the way out. Great stuff and I thought was perhaps a bit of good old fashioned smoting from God, it seemed to coincide with the appearance of a particularly tacky recreation of a mini Bethlehem on Orchard Rd complete with life size and angry looking wise men with camels. Maybe it was, I don't really care; have a sensational Christmas and a mighty fine New Year.
