A Gentlemen's Game

As June begins, it signifies and end to the growth period of spring. The leaves are out, the grass has been freshly cut and leaves the aroma that hay fever sufferers hate, and the new series of Big Brother has begun. Everything is at its most beautiful. It sparkles in the radiant light, and a soft calm falls over everything. Especially at six o’clock at night when the sun is on it’s downhill, sprint finish. Its nights like these that you know your hero likes to partake in a gentle spot of cricket.

Once again I turned out for the Astrazeneca XI, this time pitting my guile against the strong side from KPMG. As they are a team of Auditors they are not the most charismatic of opposition. Most of them are still living with their mother’s, whilst diligently building a fifth track to the Euston Road recreation in the spare room. But they are still an opposition none the less.

This was our first adventure this season, and where the likes of KP would be in the nets all winter, keeping his eye in, I was watching cricket on the telly. So, this meant that at least I still knew the rules. I had a plan though, I would practice for ten minutes before the game and everything would fall back into place.

KPMG could be likened to the Germany of inter-company cricket. As I have mentioned, they are lacking any real bona fide personalities, but they are well turned out, very efficient, and well organised. They needed eleven people and they came with eleven people. They were there to play cricket and so they had their whites on, neatly pressed.

My team however looked like a real ramshackle bunch of misfits compared to this example. For one, we only had nine players. Two were somehow confused about dates, and although clever enough to hold down jobs, a cricket match was obviously one step too far. Secondly, Only five people had whites, and so the rest of us were attired in a mix of relatively light coloured football kits with tracksuit bottoms or shorts. We looked like the prisoners team in Mean Machine as we ran out to take on the guards.

From the beginning it looked bleak, but somewhere under the surface we had an energy waiting to be released. As we elected to bat first from the victorious toss, there was a sense that “Gosh, they couldn’t even win that!” Our Captain and gentleman, walked back to where we had congregated with a steely determination in his eyes, with a message that he knew and no one else did, and it was his job above all else in life to pass that message on. He did this extremely well, and told us that we were batting first.

Then to my surprise he continued by saying that, “Mike is the only recognised batsman here, so he will open.” Until this point I was mucking around at the back of the group doing keepy-ups with a cricket ball, but this put me completely off my stride and made me volley the ball thirty feet away.

It was true that last season I did have some success with the willow, and had retired with maximum score on several occasions. It is also true that near the end I was opening, but I still thought that sooner or later someone would come in that knew what they were doing. My whole philosophy on batting at this inferior level of cricket is to do what ever you are going to do… properly. None of this dangling the bat on the off stump, or hesitantly driving through mid-wicket. No. What you need to do is move your bat like you mean it, because even if you don’t connect with the middle of the bat at least you will put some speed on the ball and hopefully make it harder to be caught. This worked for me a treat last year, and so I eventually rode out to the square joking and laughing and in altogether high spirits. Actually looking forward to hitting the ball in anger and playing cricket.

After the masquerade of asking the umpire for your middle stump on the crease, which at my level is such a waste of time but it is the done thing, I then settled in to the first ball. A medium paced delivery coming down the leg side. I saw it all the way and thought to myself a quick knock through square and off we go.

I played the shot and the next sound I heard was the stumps falling over and the cheers coming from the saddo’s. I’d only gone and played on. I was gutted. First ball, and out. Walking back to the pavilion, I was the receiver of some predictable banter, mostly from my own team and that was it. A year I had been waiting to play cricket, and it lasted less than a minute.

After a reasonably successful innings in the end, of 105 off 20 overs, we then skittled them out for 58 for 9 and it came to the last wicket to end their torture. It ended up getting skied by their number 8 and it went up and up and up, and then it came down and down and down right over my head. This was my chance to redeem myself, and at least finish in style. I took the catch and the game was over. We had hammered them, and for all their whites and organisation we came through victorious with absolutely nothing to do with me.

Cricket is like that. It is an individual game played in a team. There are lots of individual battles that make up the match and if you have a stinker then you have to trust your teammates to do their bit. This time it worked out. Although I don’t know how many more chances I will get at opening if I continue in that form.

Birthday Blitz

I guess that sometimes life isn't always as easy as you think. Sometimes the easiest tasks can cause friction and conflict with others. I never mean to cause offence, or irritate other people but sometimes this happens and I can't then make it instantly better.

Maybe if I can eliminate the frustration in my world, then I will be more tolerant of other views and actions. I am very easily wound up, and I don't really think that I do anything wrong, but I obviously do. I am a peace loving man that spends most of his time at war.

Oh well, anyway. Never mind....

I wrote a blog last week but then I lost it through technical issues, so I will try to recap on the birthday week.

I had to bake a cake for the people at work, and the same recipe was made in the US and Sweden. It was a global celebration of my 31st birthday. The only time that something has happened on this global scale is Live Aid, but I think my birthday even topped that.

The cake was nice and everyone enjoyed it, including the CFO of Astrazeneca who was in our office for the very first time in eight years. Typical.

The rest of my birthday was pretty much uneventful, until at the weekend we went to the Bodyworks exhibition. The German autopsy doctor who is exhibiting his collection of dead people in the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester.

I was expecting it to be quite gory and morbid, but instead it was beautiful. The way he had displayed them in different action poses, showing how the muscles, tendons, nerves and bones all worked together was fantastic. I learnt more in that museum than I ever did in Biology at school.

The strange thing was that the more muscle I looked at, the hungrier I became. It was like a load of meat laid out on a table before a barbecue, and I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into it.

I don't think I could actually become Hannibal Lector, but I may understand cannibalism a bit more. I think that is the test between a psychopath and a normal person, we all have urges but most of us can control them.

We then went to the nearest beach we could find which was Formby just north of Liverpool. It was a lovely beach full of sand dunes, and forests. Also, because it wasn't that sunny, it was nicely empty and you could appreciate the natural beauty more.

I was given a filter coffee machine for my birthday and so since then I have been wired on black coffee. I am sure I have had illegal substances in the past that give a similar feeling to this, but this is legal. Isn't it funny how in our society we have something’s that are legal and something’s that are illegal, and it just depends on a subjective view. Two of our biggest killers in the UK are Cigarettes and Alcohol, not the Oasis song, and both of these are legal. Strange.

The kids have been brilliant this week, with no dramas to speak of except a small incident with Dylan and a hot cup of tea. But this was a storm in a teacup, literally. (Comedy Gold)

I think sometimes happiness is in front of everyone, but for some reason we can't see it all of the time. Like a man in a dark room trying to find the light switch. Sometimes you just are happy, and sometimes you are searching for it. But it's always there, in front of you, you just need to look at it in a different way.

There's a lot mentioned in the media about happiness and what the secret to it is, as if it is the Holy Grail, and must involve a life’s study and exploration. Instead happiness is part of life. You have to be content with what you have, and not strive for the unattainable. You must challenge yourself, but do not punish yourself for failure. And accept that everything changes and things are not always perfect. Also, an argument is like a prison cell, and the longer you are in it so the walls get higher.

Peace.

Strange Days

Occasionally one finds themselves dropped in to some surreal situation, where they cannot really work out how they happened to be there or how exactly it would end. This happened to me last Friday when I found myself in one of the Executive Vice Presidents offices of AstraZeneca with my arm round them.

First of all may I just say that this was at their request not mine, and yours truly will not be having any charges made against him, or restraining orders slapped down.

The VP in question is leaving, after single handedly ruining our department and the morale of a reasonably professional team, and moving to a terrible posting as the President of the Portugal Marketing Company. Obviously everyone's hearts we're bleeding as they heard this news, and the sense that she would be sorely missed was present in everyone's minds. The fact that she had justified a collection of £16 amongst 60 people speaks louder than any way I could describe it.

So, we gathered on her last day to celebrate the passing of one of our times great leaders, and we stood there and listened to the drivel that was subjected at us, almost like a medieval collection of jesters that were gathered before their Queen.

After she had been presented with her gift of a build your own board game, and wait for it, a set of crystal wine glasses (how did these come out of £16) the surreal times started to begin. Either Harry Potter had just cast a money spell, or her PA had somehow robbed a jewellers. Either option is quite unbelievable, and I started to feel as though I was draped off of a tree in Salvador Dali's much celebrated "Time".

In the end, we tramped back to our desks like an army of ants going back to the hill, and put our noses back on the grindstone. Only to be interrupted again by her PA stating that the VP would like a picture in her office with the "Team".

Well, considering that 90% of us had never been her office before, the fact that she was going to compose a picture of her team all around her desk was most definitely conjuring up a slightly distorted view of reality. But we obeyed, as we can still hear the cries of those that haven't obeyed in the past, and we all walked into her office.

We all lined up on either side of her, and I was picturing the camera being an AK47 and we were in an execution party, but there was no room for the second in charge. Oh, no, what to do.

It was okay, he immediately dropped to his knees in a manner that gave away that he had probably done that before in this office, and we continued. A couple of shots were taken and we started to disperse.

"Everyone stay for one more, but this time lets put our arms round each other."

At this point, I was struggling to keep it together, and so it all happened in a blur. I was thinking of The Office and David Brent's unfortunate manner, while all around me people were putting their arms around the person next to them in a sign of solidarity. We all managed to grasp each other, and I even had my fingertips on the Queen Bee, but No. 2 was still on the floor with no one to clutch. So he ended up with his two hands aloft either side of him with the people nearest him holding a hand each.

We resulted in looking like the end of a West End musical, in the Vice Presidents office. I wonder if the market investors have any knowledge of this Carry On Corporate that goes on in the 8th largest company in the FTSE100. I doubt it.

Hopefully that photo will be framed somewhere in Lisbon, to remind her of the day that she had friends, even if it was for only a minute.

Also, I just want to mention another completely surreal news story this week, involving Ronaldo. For those of you that have been living in a cave at the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef all week, he has won the Premiership and the Champions League with Manchester United but could now move to Real Madrid.

It is stated that he currently earns a pittance of £100k a week, but now Real Madrid are rumoured to be offering £300k a week after tax. Obviously the loyalty that he should give Man United for nurturing him into the Best Player in the World is non existent, and who can blame anyone for not being able to live on £100k a week!!

At what point does the amount of money that you make become irrelevant. What more can Ronaldo do with £300k a week, that he cannot do now. I am baffled by the amounts that footballers earn. £75m over 3 years. He could be injured for them all. Strange days.