Hanging Judge in bribery scandle?

For some reason it seemed right that the judge was called to the bar. I cannot say for certain, but Hanging Judge John Judge-Mental seems to me to be no stranger to the bars of Adelaide, and although I am sure that his presence could be only due to his diligent observation of the team during their leisure hours, it has clearly tired him out as the picture I have of him asleep on the team bus shows. It is one that will be published if anything untoward should happen at the fines ceremony on Saturday. By that I mean that a certain writer of a certain blog expects gentle treatment when appearing in court.

So then, off to play cricket (rather than play around in bars) yesterday morning. It was the final game for the Nidderdale Taverners against the Singapore Misfits at the Tregenza Oval.  Some unscheduled rain after an overnight storm changed expected batting conditions sufficiently to ensure that our captain, or in Australia skipper, Steve “skippy” Wilson, would change his mind about his decision to bat first.  He did not. When a further tropical shower spiced up the wicket for the bowlers half way through our innings, the effect was to ensure that our team batted in the most spiteful pitch conditions, rendering a large total completely beyond us. 132 was never going to be enough, especially as, directly after lunch, when it was the turn of our opponents to bat, the wicket had calmed to a feather-bed and the Singapore Misfits raced to victory in a flurry of 4’s and 6’s.  It is for the Hanging Judge to determine whether such an “interesting” decision should feature on Saturday evening’s sitting of the Teesside (kangaroo) Crown Court, but I expect The Crown v Wilson, Steve, to be high on the list of indictments.

If one is destined to lose a match, which the Taverners clearly were, then the best way to lose is to lose quickly and reduce the misery of fielding – an irksome duty on any circumstances – by as much as possible. Having to overcome a team fitter, younger, better at batting, bowling, and fielding whilst handing them a huge tactical advantage of winning the toss and then batting ourselves was always a tall ask, and as it turns out we were not up to the task. The fairly swift defeat ensured an early retreat to the bar, where I was able to spend some minutes talking to some of our Singaporean opponents about the benefits of opening an account with Currencies Direct for any foreign exchange transactions. A little later the Misfits began to live up to their name by showing us an interesting piece of Misfits culture. Some of the team took turns in ceremonially drinking beer from one of their rather obese teammates genital protectors. I did take a picture but has destroyed it as it was too ghastly an image for a family column such as this. Instead I have a picture from the venue of the first of the three matches earlier in the week, Tea Tree Gully.

Tea Tree Gully, scene of The first and last victory of The Nidderdale Taverners on tour.

The last day in Adelaide will culminate in the closing dinner at the Adelaide Convention Centre, handily placed just across the road from the outrageously expensive but quite ordinary Sebel Playford hotel where we are staying. There is talk that we should be wearing our cricketing colours for the dinner but I shall not be alone in rebelling. I have some outrageous shoes to wear which will compliment my silk smoking jacket and cravat, coupled with my properly waxed handlebar moustache. I sense that our Austrlaian hosts will like this look and be very supportive of me at the dinner.

Chris France @Valbonne_News