Pink is the new white

On Monday evening my son and his fiance, and my brother-in-law and son
ventured to Lords for the 20/20 game Middlesex v Surrey.

It is the biggest closest derby in cricketing terms and was supported by a good size crowd......the Middlesex players and club are supporting Breast Cancer charities this season so the kit and surroundings were coloured to reflect the theme.

Surrey batted first, but it soon became clear that Middlesex have become a very professional 20/20 side, and after restricting Surrey to 141, there was never a doubt that the youngsters in the home side would knock the runs off....they duly obliged. They now stand top with 4 wins out of 4. Four of their squad are 21 or under, Malan, Godleman, Housego and Morgan, and Smith and Shah have been missing recently through injury and England duties respectively.

There then followed a bit of celebrity hunting, and Matthew was luck enough to be caught with Andrew Strauss, while Jack Rowell and Paul Allott were seen in the outfield at close of play.

Baby boomers

I have always been intrigued by the way my life has centred on West London, given the various detours it has taken.

I was born in West Middlesex Hospital,on the Isleworth/Brentford border, and first went to school close by. I then moved to Plymouth, returned to London for further education (some would say that was a waste of time). After living in North, South and West London, I finally ended up living not a mile from my place of birth. Full circle in fact.

Now I notice that my place of birth, the very maternity ward in which I popped out into the world, is being knocked down, presumably to allow the Primary Care Trust (PCT) to earn some money for new and better facilities. Some of my oldest childhood memories are also associated with the old Victorian blocks which are fast being transformed to a pile of rubble.

I had my adenoids and tonsils removed in the late '50s, and remember being positioned next to the fish tank. It was my job to switch its light out every night when I went to sleep. The few times I forgot, I was given a right telling off by the ward sister. I also remember being dressed in a cowboy outfit to go down to theatre, as part of a cunning plan to take the fear out of the procedure and make it seem like a good old adventure. The next few days I had nothing but ice cream and jelly, so it can't have been all bad.

Now where did I leave that pen I was just using, and what were the names of those people I was with last light? Funny thing that memory.

Uncle Tom Cobley and all.....

I spent the weekend in Devon, visiting my mum in Plymouth, and do a bit of other stuff. Some of that stuff involved meeting 'off the record' Dick and his wife Gill at the Leaping Salmon in Horrabridge. It was a very pleasant luncheon, and Dick was keen to point out his two page spread featuring his Mongolian adventure, that was prominent in the FT colour supplement of the day. If only the locals had realised they had a prominent feature writer and Jack Rowell in the same pub together, we might have had free drinks all afternoon!!

The trip to the pub wax precluded by a trip to Widdecombe, and that proved to be a bit more of an adventure than planned.

Last Saturday was the Dartmoor Discovery Ultra marathon, a 32, yes 32, mile road race through the country lanes between Princetown, Ashburton, Widdecombe and back to Princetown. The winner did the race at an average speed of 7 minutes per mile, in a time of 3 hours 45 minutes, amazing when you consider there were not too many flat bits of the course.

It was not possible to close the route to traffic, as it was really the only route around Dartmoor, so to avoid the runners and the vehicles coming in the opposite direction was a bit of a mission. There were no fatalities though I am pleased to report.

Will I be entering next year? No I don't think so, I am struggling to be fit for my September 10K.

A sting in the tail

I have just finished reading 'The Empty Chair' by Jeffrey Deaver. It is not in the 'Vanished man' class but not bad. It features a character referred to as the insect boy, who is at one with the small creatures of his environment. He uses references from insect based research books to theorise that if human life were to become extinct, the earth would survive quite happily without them, loose all the insects, however, the we would all be doomed.

With this in mind, I have been alarmed to read of the problems currently facing the world bee population. Bees matter. They make honey which I thoroughly enjoy, and the fertilise many of our garden flowers and fruits, but the bumblebee population is falling dramatically.

Some of the decline is due to insecticide usage in agriculture, but more worrying is that they are now under attack by parasites. Government assistance in isolating and eradicating the diseases which affect them has been cut to £1m, a reduction of 20%, just at the time it is most needed. researchers have been laid off and inspectors sacked.

There are 270,000 hives in Britain. Last Winter one in five colonies perished. Half of Italy's 50 billion honey bees died last year, and Colony Collapse Disorder has wiped out 2 million colonies across America and billions of bees worldwide.

We need bees, just as the insect boy said we do, and he is not alone. Einstein was said to have calculated that if bees disappear off the surface of the globe, mankind would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more life. I think the government need to reverse their funding policy soonest.

You've all done very well......

My cousin Mike retired on Friday, and not with early retirement or any other concessions. He is 65 and has done a life of work stretching back to early sixties. There are not too many people left like that, so all credit to him.

I remember he worked early on for Hoover, and whether with them or another firm, he used to visit us in Plymouth when he was called upon to work in HM Dockyard at Devonport. He then took a late degree at MARJON when it was in Chelsea, and then worked for Davy Engineering and other such companies as one got taken over or absorbed by another.

They gave him a good send-off although I think he would quite like to carry on with them, as the future must be a bit of a challenge when you have had the work ethic drilled into you for all those years.

People today are more fortunate to have 'work/life balance' programmes which mean you can work from home, do four day weeks, or even three if it suits, and take sabbaticals to explore some long lost hobby or interest you wish to resurrect.

He is mad about cars, and knowledgeable about most things so I am sure a niche will present itself to him, I did notice the Boy Scout organisation are looking for a volunteer successor for Peter Duncan the Chief Scout, when he steps down next year, otherwise he will just have to become a professional sports watcher and follow various teams around the World. I could get used to that.