Eat Your Carrots

Silverware

Congratulations to Durham County Cricket Club who won their first piece of silverware as a first class county today. They should really have won it yesterday, I'm not really sure why the match was continued today when every other game that has rain interruptions doesn't have that benefit. All that it achieved was to deprive thousands of fans the privilege of actually seeing their team lift the cup, amongst those being my brother-in-law and nephew.
At least they were there to see their team set a record score for a Lord's final, and to see cult hero bowler Ottis Gibson take two wickets with the first two balls of Hampshire's innings and then remove Hampshire's big hope, Kevin Pieterson, for next to nothing. This is the same Ottis Gibson who bowled the entire Hampshire team out only last month and you can't help but feel that that gave him a great psychological advantage over them. It was a stunning all-round team performance, from the batsmen setting a record total to the bowlers (and fielders, of course) skittling out Hampshire and restricting their run-rate so that the outcome was never in question - hence the frustration of being told to come back today.
Hopefully this is just the first of many trophies for Durham. It's taken a little while to get there, but they're really up there with the established counties now - several home-grown players in the England setup, challenging in every competition (save for the dreaded 20-20 at which they're still truly hopeless) and now some silverware, something this region's football clubs can only dream about.
What's really nice about it for me is that Neil Killeen was in the team, the only survivor from Durham's first first-class season. He's been a great servant for the club and in some ways a link to their past. Well done to him, and to Durham CCC.

Side Bet

We were at the Billingham Ice Pantomime tonight - Snow White & The Seven Small Men. We really only go to see our friends kids in it, and this is the final year for them, so it's our final year too. To spice it up a bit this year we decided to place a side bet with each other on how many of the kids fell down during the performance. Wife, ever the optimist, plumped for two. Me, ever the realist, went for four. as it turned out it was five, so I wished I hadn't drawn wife's attention to the one that she missed. Still, moral victory to me.

So Shallow

I reported the other day how excited I was to be going to see one of my favourites Melanie Stace at the theatre. A respondant to this page said that she has "weird teeth".
How shallow! I was obviously raised right because I look deeper than that. I don't dismiss a girl simply on the basis that she has "weird teeth", at least not when she has t*ts and legs like Melanie!

Crazy For You

Wife & Sister-in-law had been plotting to go to the theatre and leave me at home. Not normally a problem; whereas at one time I'd have been gagging for a night out with two hot babes, my advancing years, decreasing libido and addiction to internet community sites has meant I'm happy to let them go.
Until that is I found out that what they're going to see (Crazy For You) stars one of my favourite fantasy-babes, Melanie Stace. Melanie is one of the most beautiful girls I've seen, so gorgeous I used to sit through the terrible Generation Game (and the even worse Jim Davidson) just to watch her. It's a wonder to me that she never makes the FHM 100 Sexiest Babes book, I guess she's not on TV enough to be in people's minds (I have a good memory).
It transpires that the last time we were at the theatre was almost two years ago and that was to see "Don't Dress For Dinner", also starring the lovely Melanie.
So, three front row seats please. (Show's not till August mind you).