Royal Oak

A nice enough day at OT today. Cricket was mediocre, about 85% of the ground was unoccupied, and seats were hard. However, the atmosphere was pleasant, the sun shone bright until 1500, and the toilets were very clean. Lancashire have decided that spectators can now mill around on the field during the tea interval, so I had a walk about for ten minutes.

I thought we may sneak it until Wells was out. I may see you down there...

Imagine watching four full uninterrupted days play, without a result. No wonder non-cricketing nations think it a strange game.

He was before my time, although when I was browsing Cricinfo about him, I see he turned out for Lancs in a 1983 NatWest trophy game. I wondered if I saw him, but now on reflection, I realise I'd have been at school that day. 10 full test internationals on show that day - Ian Botham, Viv Richards, Joel Garner, Clive Lloyd, David Lloyd, Vic Marks, Graeme Fowler, Frank Hayes, Mike Watkinson and Peter Lever. Despite the quality on show, Lancs laboured to 163/6 off 60 overs, Somerset taking 53 overs to knock them off.

Well, the English Cricket season started today. It almost always starts under grey skies, in barely double-figure temperatures, with gloomy fielders wearing two jumpers. Pensioners, schoolchildren and the unemployed sit huddled in coats and hats in near empty stands. Today however, the weather is unseasonably glorious in the UK, and is forecast to remain so for a week or more yet. I shall be mooching to Old Trafford next weekend to use my first Lancashire CCC membership for 35 years.

Sad news, one of the few originals I got to see, in 1998. As has been said upthread, he was very popular in the UK. I know he played here as recently as 2022, at a middle-aged festival near where I live.

Wow, never knew he was "Buster Poindexter", whom I remember from that Disney film song LP in 1989. I'd only recently realised he had a cameo in "Oz", a show I watched religiously over 20 years ago.

That's probably enough "Carnival"

I have been re-reading my stash of Kurt Vonnegut novels which I last read as a young man. I've found that I've preferred his 1980s output (Deadeye Dick, Galapagos, Bluebeard and Hocus Pocus) to his earlier work. I can't really explain why, except to say the later novels just seem a bit more substantial maybe.

If you sort his inventory from lowest first, I counted 17 copies of Earl Klugh's "Finger Painting" and 11 copies of Stanley Jordan's "Magic Touch" in the first 100 listings. Anyway, I think those $1000+ listings are some pricing glitch, deliberate or otherwise.. There's no way he doesn't know the market prices of Japanese Blue Notes

Here in the UK we had Sacha Distel hawking Mandate after shave. I had no idea until a few years ago that Sacha Distel had jazz credentials. To 10 year me he was a funny Frenchman. "Is orat, she's ma waf" was a common refrain in school for a while. Andrew Preview hawking hi-fi. Again, I was ignorant of Previn at the time; he was a somewhat mannered man whom Morecambe and Wise took the piss out of on British TV.

Haha, I also return to it from time to time, including yesterday. It's quite a ride - I think it was discussed on here at the time - 2018 I think?

Pretty sure there is one there. Think of it as a "Where's Wally?" (or Waldo, depending on where you live) type of challenge

That's sad news, Benny was a big part of my early jazz listening 30 years ago, via the Moanin' and Groovin' with Golson albums in particular.

I see that Gap have come up with a Monk T-shirt. Alas, @Rabshakeh, it appears to be a US only release. https://southcentremall.com/shop/product/thelonious-monk-graphic-t-shirt-gap-362fa0

I bought a copy of Kaleidoscope a couple of weeks back, and inside was a nicely-preserved copy of the programme for the tour you mention. I took a pic but it's about 5Mb too large for me to upload here, unfortunately.

@Rabshakeh - you could buy this at Abercrombie & Fitch last year

Rinku Singh famously hit 30 off the last 5 balls to win an IPL match last year: And the infamous last over of the T20 World Cup final in 2016, when West Indies needed 19 off the final over:

Indeed. My other thought was that it could have been a little-known genre of music coming out of Bristol and Bath

I bought some records recently, and on the inner sleeve of a Harry Beckett LP is written the date and "LP in good shape but music clever avon garde?"

True enough

Well, to get even more confusing, in The Hundred, a bowler can bowl two "sets" (there are 5-ball sets in The Hundred, rather than 6-ball overs) consecutively, from the same end.

You get a similar mix in England. For bigger games, there are usually stands dedicated to certain groups. You get member's areas, "family" (alcohol-free) stands, and at Old Trafford, the "Party Stand". The latter, as you can imagine, gets quite raucous. It's usually good-natured (lots of singing and a beer snake or two), but perhaps not for the purist. I had good fun the twice I sat there.

Big win for TSK - match report please, including food and mid-innings entertainment, if any?

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