It's a full life, if a trifle banal

We were at the cricket at the Oval yesterday, my first ever time at a cricket match, and my first time at a sporting event since, um, the opening of the World Student Games sometime in the 90s. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and this despite England not doing terribly well yesterday. The weather was glorious, the seat was comfortable, the people behind were only intermittently irritating, and the sledging was hilarious. My favourite chants of the day were: "There's only two David Gowers" (sung to one of the men sitting behind us, he being a dead ringer), and "Cheerio! Cheerio! Cheerio!" (sung by hitherto silent Australians to Flintoff, departing very soon after a rapturous reception from the England supporters). The whole thing was very blokish, in a nice way.

I have a decent idea of how cricket works (if it doesn't get technical with concepts like "spin"): it took me a few balls to work out where the batsmen were standing (helped that England were in white and Australia in cream), a couple of overs to work out the score-board, and then perhaps a few more to unconfuse myself about who exactly batted when. After that I was thoroughly absorbed, and the books I'd taken along with me Just In Case remained in my bag. I'd happily go again; I'm only sorry we weren't there for today.