English cricket is in a bit of disarray at the moment. Jonathan Trott is suffering from a stress related illness which forced him home from the Ashes tour, Graham Swann found the tour too tough and bailed out, England got thumped, and Kevin Pietersen was informed that his services were no longer required by the national side.
Last things first. The Pietersen business is taking up far too many column inches ( including these). Like a lot of South Africans he is first and foremost interested in himself. Yes he has played some magnificent innings for England, but very few have been played with his back to the wall, when the need to bat for 4 sessions or more was paramount. In the Ashes series just gone, he time and again gave away his wicket easily. Rule number one for all school boys is keep your wicket intact....I would have said keep your end up, but the pc police would have had a go at me.....Geoff Boycott would have batted all day for 6 runs if need be. So Paul Downton and his England selectors have done right by me and waved him goodbye. he can go off to India now and earn himself some money.
It is interesting that Eoin Morgan has decided to forego the riches on offer in the sub-continent to try to win a place in the England side. Interestingly Morgan has played more games in the IPL than any other English player.
What to make of Graham Swann though? As news filters out that Jimmy Anderson played most of the tour with an injury, Swann's decision to bail out was a really soft choice. The fact he has been offered a contract on Test Match Special by the BBC has also ruffled a few feathers amongst the traditionalist, and rightly so.
The scene is set, therefore, for the new cream of English cricket to rise to the top of the county game and force their way into captain Cook's side for the Sri Lankan tests to come. It should be straightforward as we play them in April and May when it will be bitterly cold and they will be forced to wear five or six sweaters!!
I wish Trott a speedy recovery, but sense his career may now be over. I also noticed Morgan's Irish colleagues beat West Indies yesterday in a T20 warm-up game in Trinidad. I do hope that does not inspire the Ireland rugger chaps when they play at Twickenham at the weekend.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Pretty Flamingo
So Valentine's Day has come and gone, and hopefully I got away with it again.
SWMBO and I visited Babylon, a Sir Richard Branson owned restaurant in the Roof Gardens in Kensington. I have not visited the Roof Gardens for many years, the last time being a work Christmas party hosted by our marketing organisation. I went with Steve McMillan, an old mucker of mine from our time together at IBM. Steve now lives over the pond, and co-incidentally its his birthday today, so have a good one matey!
The roof gardens were built on top of the Derry and Toms department store which was opened in Kensington in 1933. The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect They cost £25,000 to create and visitors were charged 1 shilling to enter. Money raised was donated to local hospitals and £120,000 was raised during the next 30 years.
The building housed the department store Derry and Toms until 1973, and then Biba until 1975, they have been listed as a Grade II site by the English Heritage since 1978.
The Roof Gardens have been rented from their owners by Sir Richard Branson since 1981 and as well as the restaurant, there is a nightclub on the garden level which is divided into three themed area's.
Still its a wonderful hidden gem, which cannot be seen from the road, and it is available to the public to visit whenever there is no private function booked. I commend it to you all if you are in the area.
SWMBO and I visited Babylon, a Sir Richard Branson owned restaurant in the Roof Gardens in Kensington. I have not visited the Roof Gardens for many years, the last time being a work Christmas party hosted by our marketing organisation. I went with Steve McMillan, an old mucker of mine from our time together at IBM. Steve now lives over the pond, and co-incidentally its his birthday today, so have a good one matey!
The roof gardens were built on top of the Derry and Toms department store which was opened in Kensington in 1933. The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect They cost £25,000 to create and visitors were charged 1 shilling to enter. Money raised was donated to local hospitals and £120,000 was raised during the next 30 years.
The building housed the department store Derry and Toms until 1973, and then Biba until 1975, they have been listed as a Grade II site by the English Heritage since 1978.
The Roof Gardens have been rented from their owners by Sir Richard Branson since 1981 and as well as the restaurant, there is a nightclub on the garden level which is divided into three themed area's.
- a Spanish garden, in a Moorish style based upon the Alhambra in Spain, with fountains, vine-covered walkways and Chusan palms;
- a Tudor style garden, characterised by its archways, secret corners and hanging wisteria. Roses, lilies and lavender contribute the rich summer scent to the garden;
- an English woodland garden, with over 100 species of trees, a stream, and a garden pond that is the home to pintail ducks and four flamingos called Bill, Ben, Splosh and Pecks. There are over 30 different species of trees in the woodland garden, including trees from the original planting over sixty years ago, despite having only a metre of soil in which to grow. Although they are on a rooftop, the trees were made the subject of tree preservation orders in 1976.
Still its a wonderful hidden gem, which cannot be seen from the road, and it is available to the public to visit whenever there is no private function booked. I commend it to you all if you are in the area.
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Training squad
Mon dieu, England hit the bar again in Paris as they lose, win and then lose again in an excellent game of rugby. I did turn to SWMBO when coach Lancaster took off Danny Care and Dylan Hartley, and said I thought it was a mistake to unsettle the side at this crucial stage.
That said, England did make enough line breaks to have the game sewn up after 70 minutes but nobody got up with the breakaway player to take the scoring pass. A true openside flanker would maybe have made the difference. Fair to say though that the French try deserved to win any game and was a throw back to pre-professional days when the French could strike from anywhere on the pitch. Hopefully this will inspire them to try it more often.
Still we did not let an England defeat, or my bad back, ruin a jolly weekend in Paris. We had not been for about ten years, having favoured Rome more recently, but a change is as good as a rest, and Paris always comes up trumps. I dug out my old tourist maps and found six metro tickets amongst them, and after ten years they still worked, that saved us a few Euro's.
We went to a regular watering hole, Chez Paul, near Bastille, after the game and spent a merry few hours with some other Twickenhamites who had also made the trip South.
Sunday morning saw us stroll through the local market where a mixture of fruit, veg, fish and meat was available for the locals to buy for their Sunday lunch. Further down the street was a bit of a flea market but nothing caught the eye.
Our priority had by this time been to search out one of the hidden gems of the Paris culinary circuit, Le Train Bleu, which is basically the station buffet in Gare du Lyon. Beryl Cook painted one of her pictures here, its certainly some buffet.
Our journey home consisted of a two hour Eurostar into St Pancras, a short stroll to Euston and then another two hour into Liverpool. All remarkably easy and something which the introduction of HS2 would be pushed to better .
So it's the sweaties next week in Edinburgh and then Ireland two weeks later in Twickenham, lets hope by then the team has learnt the lessons of Saturday and we are nicely set up for another title decider against the Welsh. More snails anyone?
That said, England did make enough line breaks to have the game sewn up after 70 minutes but nobody got up with the breakaway player to take the scoring pass. A true openside flanker would maybe have made the difference. Fair to say though that the French try deserved to win any game and was a throw back to pre-professional days when the French could strike from anywhere on the pitch. Hopefully this will inspire them to try it more often.
Still we did not let an England defeat, or my bad back, ruin a jolly weekend in Paris. We had not been for about ten years, having favoured Rome more recently, but a change is as good as a rest, and Paris always comes up trumps. I dug out my old tourist maps and found six metro tickets amongst them, and after ten years they still worked, that saved us a few Euro's.
We went to a regular watering hole, Chez Paul, near Bastille, after the game and spent a merry few hours with some other Twickenhamites who had also made the trip South.
Our priority had by this time been to search out one of the hidden gems of the Paris culinary circuit, Le Train Bleu, which is basically the station buffet in Gare du Lyon. Beryl Cook painted one of her pictures here, its certainly some buffet.
Our journey home consisted of a two hour Eurostar into St Pancras, a short stroll to Euston and then another two hour into Liverpool. All remarkably easy and something which the introduction of HS2 would be pushed to better .
So it's the sweaties next week in Edinburgh and then Ireland two weeks later in Twickenham, lets hope by then the team has learnt the lessons of Saturday and we are nicely set up for another title decider against the Welsh. More snails anyone?
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