December 2008 Archives

On Remembrance Sunday I discovered that we had no garlic or anchovies in the house. Shock, horror. I mean how can one live without staples such as this? I went down town early for the War Memorial Service and mentioned our plight to one onlooker-wife who said that she too was out of garlic and if I was going to replenish stocks at the Spar which was open even on Remembrance Sunday then could I bring her a bulb too. Which I did. I got back just as the parade was shuffling to its position holding, as it were, a collective wreath of poppies. I had two small tins of anchovy fillets in the pocket of my smart Donegal tweed overcoat and two garlic bulbs one of which I presented to my friend.

Now, come on. The experienced blogger/columnist can surely make words out of such a credit-crunch predicament. Did hundreds of thousands of our ancestors die in order that we should have garlic and anchovies? Does it matter? Is this fair? Discuss.

And while in grumpy-old-man mode I had a note from Santander telling me that I had acquired an amazing two new shares for £6.31 a go. My holding is the tiny legacy of an involvement with Abbey National many years ago and I honestly haven't the foggiest how much it's all worth. Not a lot but I'm curious and so I phoned the number at the bottom of Santander's  note. Everyone was charm itself and handed me graciously on to other more relevant departments  until after about a quarter of an hour I found myself listening to a frightfully polite recorded message advising me to telephone the number I had initially dialed a quarter of an hour earlier.

When I mentioned this to people I bumped into while out shopping I was met with hollow laughter and the gradual realization that practically everyone had had a similar experience albeit with different organizations. My view is that it almost beggars belief. Almost, but not quite. And part of me believes that the current ridiculous crisis is just as much the result of this sort of incredible incompetence as it is to do with greed. Greed has something to do with it, of course, but it's beaten out by uselessness and the combination is lethal.

In a sense I suppose that what I seem to be saying is that historians, columnists and other important opinion-makers and shakers go on as if earthquake, wind and fire; birth, marriage and death; with a possible add-on for war, civil unrest, financial implosions and one or two other cosmic events are what really matter whereas the reality is that it's tins of anchovies, bulbs of garlic and a modest shareholding in a foreign bank of which none-one seems to know or care anything very much though that infinitessimal tiny bit more than nothing is done by machine, recorded for security purposes, in no language readily intelligible to man except for the politeness which borders on the unctuous.

By this token the most important matters of the last few weeks have had to do with cricket and at the end of the day I begin to wonder if being made president of the local cricket club wasn't the most significant, interesting and rewarding thing that ever happened. Maybe I exaggerate but not, I think, much. Forget real life whatever that may be. Anchovies, garlic and shares in Banco Santander loom much larger but not as large as cricket.

The month began with the cricket club's annual dinner at the Royal Fowey Yacht Club. One stalwart admitted that he was the oldest player and he was 33. Most were a great deal younger; several brought along wives, girl-friends and partners and the atmosphere was resolutely relaxed and informal although the evening ended with presentations and speeches. I felt more grand-paternal than I think I have ever felt and although the players have done a sterling job in keeping things going, notably on the field of play where they are responsible, I think, for making sure that the club consistently punches above its weight, I felt the need for more pensioners.

Nevertheless, if only in the interests of self-preservation and mutual camaraderie, I felt - and feel - the need for a few more of the gnarled and wrinkled. It has always seemed to me that the most successful societies are those which best manage to mix up differences of all kinds, not least those of age.

One way of doing this is to build up aspects of the club that have little to do with the leagues. The Leagues have been the saving of cricket but they are not perfect and there is a danger that they can create an imbalance. Last year we plotted a charity match in aid of Marie Curie and raised over £1100 even though not a ball was bowled. Next year we will do the same match, playing this time I hope, on Sunday August 16^th. This is the beginning of Fowey's great regatta week so there should be lots of people around to come and watch and give generously. Michael Williams has accepted our challenge to his inimitable Cornish Crusaders. Only the really sweaty wet-bobs will be on the high seas en-route to Falmouth and it should be a great day. The other charity game is inked in for Tuesday 28^th July and will be played in aid of the Cornwall Blind Association. That's between the Ashes Tests at Lord's and Edgbaston. I intend having a private bet to see which game raises the most but in any case please put them in your diary and try to come.

Quite apart from trying to introduce some entertaining, competitive non-league cricket into our season I hope that it will broaden the base of our support and membership. I'm also looking at re-instating some kind of youth scheme. I went up to the local community college for exploratory chats and had a ditto with Chris Biggs who is President of the increasingly successful Lankelly-Fowey Rugby Club which has now got a very strong youth section. I walked past the ground the other Saturday morning on my way to 4 Turnings Garage - the poor old Rover was declared a "write-off" after a risibly un-life-threatening shunt in Salisbury early one morning, but that's another silly story - and the place was heaving with little boys charging hither and yon, over-excited Dads shouting at them and Mothers talking happily to each other and looking mildly superior though pleased that their menfolk were so sweatily employed. It reminded me of the old days in Richmond at the Old Deer Park where I also found myself recently, watching London Welsh play the Pirates.

That too is another story and there has been lots more going on professionally and socially. Tristram, the younger son, came for a long weekend and we went for long walks on the coastal path; Penny and I went to Plymouth for a great Beryl Cook exhibition; I have blogged on the agents' web-site - see Peters Fraser Dunlop on Google and there is, naturally a web-site you can dial up directly.

But nothing quite matches the fun of being President of the Fowey Cricket Club and helping them become ever more broadly-based, part of the community and so on. I'd hate it all to sound goody-two-shoes because it really isn't like that. And, naturally, I am steaming on with the Richard Cobb letters; the Jardine tour of India; the resurrection of Simon Bognor and his brilliantly eclectic crime novels. And there have been other cricketing triumphs - a whole load of tickets for the Lord's Test against Australia next year to which I shall be taking Penny on the opening day and Saturday and my two sons on the Sunday. And at the very end of the month I was allowed on to Radio St. Austell Bay where I chose a whole lot of idiosyncratic music and showed off shamelessly.

But cricket, lovely cricket, is the best fun. Meanwhile we have Christmas and I hope everyone has a happy one after which I shall be back for my last blog of 2008. I have a strong feeling that England will lose the two impending tests in India but down here in the grass roots something is stirring. I can't wait for the summer of 2009 and for some proper Cornish cricket.