Al the Tog’s Trip Down Under

Miracle number 1

Since my brother pulled out of this trip with an ear infection just less than a week ago, I have been trying to field a substitute, and my preferred “12th man” is my 27-year old son, Alex (I’ll call him Big Al from now on, as he’s considerably taller than me). The effort so far has met with no success:

• Firstly, the phones at Barmy Army Travel were spasmodically out of action for a couple of days, the helpful Nicky Bowes no longer works for them and some of the other e-mail addresses on the contacts page were misspelled.
• Eventually I got through to the similarly helpful Nick Blyth, but he is very doubtful that Air China would simply replace my brother’s flight tickets with new ones for my son - normally when a seat is cancelled, it is re-issued to the next person on the waiting list.
• I’ve suggested that both Barmy Army Travel and Air China might benefit from some positive PR if they could find a way to let me take Big Al instead of Big Bro’ even at this late stage. I’ve sent the flight tickets back to Barmy Army Travel for cancellation and hope Nick can use his skills of persuasion to work some good magic.
• Lord, help him achieve the seemingly impossible!

Miracle number 2

The Perth test is in a parlous condition: the patient is very weak and his health seems to be declining by the hour; he is gasping for breath in the midday sun, and evening brings no relief at all; the Tasmanian devils (and Aussie ones, too) are working their evil magic. Something special is needed, Lord:

• For a start, let no more wickets fall in the first 2 sessions on Day 5. I’m not suggesting you immobilise Shane Warne’s wrist or freeze Brett Lee’s shoulder, but you get the general idea.
• Give Pietersen and Flintoff equal doses of patience, concentration and aggression so that each may make a century in a partnership of 250.
• Let Monty Panesar come in at no 11, get dropped by Gilchrist first ball and then score the winning runs off the last over of the day.
• Lord, can you do all this and also save me from having a heart attack?

Is this too much to ask, Lord?

Al the Tog

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 17th, 2006 at 9:13 pm and is filed under WACA, Cricket, Trip Down Under, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.