Still behind on everything - in case anyone's wondering why I'm ignoring them, I've about four weeks' backlog of LJ and DW which I do hope to catch up with soon...

But quickly, to complete Sunday's report, here are a few pics of Lancashire's victory over Nottinghamshire in their opening Championship match of 2016. As Lancashire needed only 86 to ( Read more... )

Today is my father's 112th birthday.

As many of you know, I've posted some of his writing or portraits in previous years.

This short story was published in the November 1925 edition of the Oxford Outlook. It's about cricket, and set five years in Paddy's future; when 1930 actually came round, it was Bradman's first tour of England; the Fourth ( Read more... )

I saw my first live cricket* of the season this afternoon, after a morning's campaigning for the local elections. Nottinghamshire had chosen to bat in bright sunshine, though it was very cold, and were 68 for four by lunch. A fifth wicket fell as I arrived, and a sixth shortly afterwards, which left them on 98 for six, but the next two ( Read more... )

It's a fortnight since Mancunicon so if I'm ever to get anything down about it I'd better do it now. But I haven't a lot of time, so I'm not sure that I'll manage much more than brief comments on the things I remembered to photograph.

Of course, the big thing about Mancunicon was that it was here in Manchester, and as it was four weeks after we'd ( Read more... )

I find it's World Poetry Day again, but I've struggled to think of something I want to post. I've just been swimming, and have been trying to think of poetry about swimming, but most of what comes to mind is about drowning. I got as far as typing up Betjeman's A Russell Flint - because of the last two verses - but then found I'd posted it in 2007 ( Read more... )

A very happy birthday to mraltariel! Hope you're having a relaxing but stimulating day! And a happy Valentine's Day to those of you who do that sort of thing ( Read more... )

Judging by the Happy Birthday tune he's just played at the Centurion Test, even Billy Cooper knows that this is the busiest day in my birthday book - half a dozen entries, some of whom I haven't met for years. Anyway, the only ones who might see this are steepholm and ginbitch. So Happy Birthday from Abby and me! (Sorry it's a bit blurry - trying to take a photo ( Read more... )

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Sad news; I've just had a phone call from one of my mother's former students to say that Maria has died. I didn't see her again after that chance encounter, more than a year and a half ago - she never took up my invitation to call round for a cup of tea - but I'm very glad that I did see her then, and that she was in such good form; apparently she ( Read more... )

This year, in a complete break with tradition, or perhaps the start of a new one, I spent Christmas in Ely, seeing fengirl88, gwendraith and, on a brief trip to Cambridge, altariel and family.

( Christmas in Ely )