I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy an afternoon in a pub today. Eirene (my lovely, and very tolerant wife) took care of everything else whilst I tottered off to drink Guinness and watch The Ashes in HD.

We (my mate ‘Skip’ (so called thank’s to a seasons’ cricket team captaincy at The Blues Bar (center of the known universe) Harrogate) settled in on a couple of comfy as you like seats at the back of The Alex (pub) in Harrogate for the afternoon. Amy (who works there) was ace, because she nudged the volume up for us. For a huge waft of the afternoon, not a lot happened. We; Skip (cricket fan and part time writer, full time wanton left arm spin bowler) and I spent a while talking about the brilliance of this  article that we’d both read in The Times entitled “Doozra, dolly, snicko” and how the language and verbiage of cricket is second to none. Well worth a read, even if you don’t like the cricket. 

We watched the best part of England bullying Australia into defeat. At one point, Stuart Broad seemed to be aiming balls at the head for a while. One actually hit the badge on Clarke’s (the Australian Skipper’s)  helmet. The slow motion replay portrayed a physical, emotional and tactical deflation. That was the moment when the last of the wind left the tourists sails. The end proper, was nigh.

A mate of mine was at Headingly, watching Yorkshire loose to Nottinghamshire in the T20. Over twitter we bounced scores and comments off each other. As far as ‘my’ match went – the middle order damage – ‘the rot’ in the Australian innings was firmly set in by thoroughbred Yorkshire stock – in quick succession, Root got a couple of wickets (including captain Clarke) and Bresnan got another. The rest, is history.

Ex England captain Michael Vaughan did a funny on twitter regarding this Yorkshire prowess..

It’s lovely that Lancashire are helping Yorkshire win the test match… #Ashes

— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) July 21, 2013

At this point, taking stock of myself, I’d like to apologies to the readers have critisied me for banging on too much about the cricket at times. If this is you, sorry. It is the Ashes though, and England are doing really quite well. More to follow no doubt, in 10 days, when England play Australia in the potential series winning third test.