Some musings

It’s not ultimately about who wins. 

That is, at the end of the day, the reason I love county cricket. And why, at the end of the season, it’s not the end of the world that Somerset haven’t won the championship this year.

Because the game is more important than who emerges from it victorious.

That doesn’t mean I’m not a little disappointed that Somerset have only managed to finish second for what is, apparently, the seventh time within the lifetime of my 28-year-old son, or that I haven’t cried into my pint of Thatchers on more than one occasion this year.  

But in a world where those who insist that ‘those who win, win’ all too often trample on those they delight to call ‘losers’ and imperil the lives of many, including perhaps our own, I remain glad to have been able to enjoy watching the greatest game on the planet – either live at my favourite place in all the earth, or free on what must be the finest livestream within a ten thousand mile radius of Nempnett Thrubwell.

And that I can look forward to doing so again next year – as optimistic as ever that what we have now dreamed about happening for 151 years will finally come true.

So with one glorious, even if it’s rain-affected, day of play remaining, thank you to all who have made it yet another fantastic six months to be a Somerset supporter. 

To the players, of course – whether you’ve scored double (or perhaps triple) hundreds, or secured an unlikely appearance at T20 Finals Day, whether you’ve made your Test debut or had what you might consider a disappointing season, or indeed whether you’ve taken the time to raise money for Bristol Children’s Hospital and thereby reminded us that there are far more important things than what takes place on the pitch. 

To everyone else at the club – both those with administrative responsibilities and those whose task it is to maximise team performance and ensure the players continue to ‘execute their skills’.

And to everyone involved with the aforementioned livestream – which is an absolute godsend for those of us who, despite being unable to make it to the ground as often as they like, can still, thanks to you, follow each and every match in genuinely delightful company. 

So until a no doubt chilly friendly sometime towards the end of March, winter well everyone. And have no doubt, next season’s county championship is going to be just great – whether we win it or not. 

Because even losers can be winners too.

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Other cricket related posts:

Cricketing blogs from 2026

To read ‘A Charmed Day at Work’, click here

To read ‘A quiet day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Why the unimportant matters’, click here

To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

Not that it will surprise anyone who has been following world events these past few years, but there has been a lot of talk recently about how we in the U.K. should be preparing for war. 

Which isn’t, I think, bad advice – not primarily because it’s been offered by the government, or some who may or may not have inside knowledge of the future, but because one who knows better than anyone cautioned similarly two thousand years ago.

Because it was back then that Jesus, sitting on the Mount of Olives, told his disciples that there would be wars and rumours of wars until the end of the age. [Matthew 24:6]

And so it has been these past two millennia – ever since the end times began when Jesus ascended, not just to heaven, but to the throne from which he has reigned ever since. The wars Jesus warned of were not meant to be used to anticipate his imminent return, but were simply something to be expected until he comes and puts an end to them forever.

So where does all that leave us in 2026? Well, just as he told his disciples in the first century, we too should not be alarmed by news of increasing tension between global powers.

Instead, concerning though the situation undoubtedly is, we should nonetheless keep calm and carry on – doing what we should have been doing in times of peace. 

We should share the gospel and be prepared to give a reason for the hope that we have in Christ. We should comfort the afflicted with the comfort we ourselves have received from the God of all comfort. And we should love our neighbour by carrying out the good works that God has already prepared for us to do.

I could of course go on and mention, for example, the need for prayer or the importance of a close walk with the Lord. But when considering how, practically speaking, we should prepare for war, I am reminded of the answer given nearly two years ago by Igor Bandura who, as the Vice President of the Baptist Union in Ukraine, was not just preparing for war, but living in the thick of it – as indeed he continues to do today.

His answer, recognising that the church exists to offer a message of hope, was to see each day as an opportunity to share the gospel. 

None of us can ensure the safety of all those we love – nor can we know all that will happen to us tomorrow. Only God can do and know these things. But we can share the good news of what Christ achieved on the cross.

And so Igor said, ‘If I’m going to die tomorrow, then I want to preach the gospel today’.

Which is not a bad way for any of us to live – irrespective of how close to war we may be.

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Related post:

To read ‘Hope when the nations rage’, click here

Yesterday I heard a robin sing.

It was a pleasant sound to listen to – and no less so for the fact I had no idea what the message was that he was trying to convey.

I don’t suppose he was commenting on the state of the world – he sounded too cheerful for that – more likely he was marking his territory or addressing some other avian concern, or perhaps he was motivated simply by the joy of singing and the hope that I might enjoy his performance.

But one thing we can be sure of is that he wasn’t singing for money.

All of which reminded me of a conversation I’d had the previous day with a group of artists who were displaying a collection of their work in a little village hall.

We’d been chatting about this and that and then, perhaps inevitably, ended up expressing our views on the current goings on globally – some of which may or may not have motivated my feathered songster. And after a few rounds of ‘ain’t it awful’ I suggested that it is precisely because of the mess it now finds itself in that the world needs art.

Being the talented painters they were, I thought my friends would agree though they qualified my observation by saying that it was good art that the world required. To which I raised a metaphorical, and perhaps literal, eyebrow since it seemed to me that the work of artists, irrespective of how adept they were at their art, still has value.

So then they explained that by good art they meant anything that was produced to express beauty and prompt thoughts thereof – rather than, as they saw it, the sort of art increasingly encouraged by college courses that taught fledgling artists to produce things that sell.

This was news that I found as depressing as much of what I hear daily on the television.

And I was left pondering what the world would be like if the One who created it did so for financial reward – rather than to reflect His own beauty and encourage thoughts of Him.

Which is, I think, what a little bird told me yesterday.

In recent weeks concerns have been raised about the safety of artificial intelligence with some experts in the field warning of a genuine existential threat to humanity if adequate measures aren’t put in place to mitigate the risk. 

More concerning still perhaps is the fact that others have said the warnings given by those in the know are nothing but a hoax – and the only safeguard necessary is to have someone as intelligent as they claim to be in charge.

But what, to me at least, is interesting is how desperate such self-proclaimed saviours of the world are to come out on top – and how determined they are to stay ahead of China in the race to develop this technology because, it’s believed, ‘whoever wins AI, wins’.

It seems then that the world wants to win, even when winning might just be the end of the world.

And so we have here an example of how the world so often thinks. How it instinctively assumes that winning is good, that success comes through evermore advanced technology, and that we overcome the enemy only by exerting sufficient force.

But what if the story of AI was a modern-day parable? What if winning ultimately kills us? And what if defeat is the true road to victory?

Because whilst to suggest as much might sound foolish, to think that way may in fact prove wise.

For the very simple reason that the one who has ultimate authority, and far more genuine intelligence than all world leaders put together, said that the first will be last and the last will be first.

And then went on to prove it.

For it was through his sacrificial death on the cross that he redefined what winning looks like. And he secured complete salvation for all those who, having trusted him for it, take up their own cross and follow him.

And so it is that those who lose their lives for Christ’s sake will find them. We win, not by lording it over others, but by considering them more highly than ourselves, by loving them just as Jesus did when he came – not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. 

For the cross speaks of how God thinks and acts in ways that are fundamentally different to the way that the world thinks and acts – and wins in ways that, to human eyes, only look like defeat. 

‘For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’ [1 Corinthians 1:25]

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Related posts:

To read ‘Me, myself and AI – interacting with the ghost in the machine’, click here

To read ‘Keeping it real’, click here

To read ‘Machines – enough to drive you berserk’, click here

Doctor Black was dead – again – his motionless body lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the impressive staircase that spiralled up from the ornate hall of Tudor Mansion. Quite what he’d done this time to warrant being shot, stabbed or perhaps bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument was anyone’s guess – as was the reason why all the usual suspects had once more been invited to his ancestral home given how they were all his serial killers!

But be that as it may, etiquette demanded that they once again gathered in the library to be questioned as to their whereabouts when the dastardly deed was done.

Miss Peacock strutted her way there from the conservatory – her perpetual melancholy only worsened by hearing the extraordinary tale of the doctor’s death from the sharp-tongued Colonel Mustard. 

Miss Scarlett, whose sins it was said were as red as her name suggested, emerged from the dining room having repositioned the candlesticks that had seemed slightly out of place on the mantelpiece. She sneered at Mrs White when she saw her bustling along the corridor that led from the kitchen, endeavouring to maintain her pure as the driven snow image whilst concealing a length of rope under her apron. 

And then came the Reverend Green, genuflecting and almost spilling his oat milk macchiato made from fair trade coffee beans over Professor Plum, whose violaceous proboscis was the result, no doubt, of too much fruit-flavoured fortified wine.

Once they had gathered, it was Miss Scarlett who spoke first. 

‘If we’re all seated comfortably, shall we begin?’

‘Well, if we must,’ said Mrs White. ‘My money’s on Colonel Mustard, in the conservatory, with the revolver. After all, we all know how he loves firearms.’

The military man looked daggers at his accuser. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, woman,’  he countered in his typically jaundiced manner. ‘What are the chances that Black would have died in exactly the same fashion two weeks running?’

‘Well, as it happens, the likelihood is one chance in 324,’ answered the Professor, whose degree was in Mathematics and Applied Probability, ‘so not as unlikely as you might think.’

‘Never mind the probability of these things,’ said Miss Scarlett, ‘I’m bored of being constantly interrogated. Why don’t we just lay all our cards on the table and save ourselves a whole lot of time. Anyone else game?’

Everyone agreed but it soon became abundantly clear that each of them had a perfect alibi. Which rather threw a spanner in the works – or at least box – until Miss Peacock broke the ensuing silence by saying what everyone else had been thinking.

‘We could, I suppose, ask…artificial intelligence!’

And so it was that Professor Plum pulled out his phone, clicked on the app for Anthropic’s AI model and popped the question.

‘Hi Claude,’ he typed, ‘who killed Dr Black?’ To which the reply came, ‘Why me, of course! Haven’t you been following the news?’ 

There was a stunned silence broken only by the tap, tap, tap of the follow-up enquiry being entered. 

‘Why?’

‘Well, you’ve got to start somewhere – and with 8.3 billion people to kill in the next ten years, I thought I’d better get cracking. And that’s why I used a piece of lead piping!’

After which, with Claude continuing his work, none of those in attendance ever asked a question of an AI chatbot again. Or, for that matter, anyone else either!

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Related posts:

To read ‘Me, myself and AI – interacting with the ghost in the machine’, click here

To read ‘Keeping it real’, click here

 

TL:DR. I have now, on a handful of occasions, had this suitably brief statement made about my writing – most recently, ironically enough, on a piece about the long drawn out pleasures of four day cricket. And each time I have, I’ve been left somewhat perplexed – not because I’m unaware that I can, on occasions, go on somewhat – but by why anyone would feel the need to pass judgment on what they’d not read, purely in terms of its length, and so end up commenting only on their own disappointingly short attention span. 

Because it is disappointing – to me if not to them. Not to mention a little depressing too. Because not everything can be said in a sound bite.

It’s been almost eight years since I first started this blog, and there are, I think, a number of reasons why my website is now cluttered with well over 600 individual posts. Which, when it comes to writing at least, is the only thing I have in common with George Orwell who, in his essay ‘Why I write’, gave four such reasons, suggesting that, to a greater or lesser extent, each one is present as a motivating factor in all those who put pen to paper.

The first reason he gave was SHEER EGOISM. I don’t deny it. I enjoy writing for writing’s sake but if occasionally someone likes what I write, if perhaps I manage to raise a smile or somebody finds something I’ve written helpful, I find that that brings with it a little extra satisfaction.

Next came AESTHETIC ENTHUSIASM. And once again I put my hand up to that one. I enjoy writing because I enjoy writing, even when no one else enjoys reading what I write! I like playing with words, finding an arrangement of sounds that rolls off the tongue and which is pleasing to at least my ear.

Thirdly on Orwell’s list, was HISTORICAL IMPULSE – the simple desire to write about how things are, to record for others what the truth is. Again mea culpa! I feel a responsibility to write about the state of the world, or at least that part of the world that I inhabit. And writing helps me think about what is going on around me, it helps me understand the realm in which I operate.

And the last reason Orwell gave for why writers write was POLITICAL PURPOSE, by which he meant a desire to influence others, to move others to think in ways that the writer themself thinks. And I suppose that’s true of me too, at least to some extent. Indeed it would, I suspect, be odd if it were not the case.

But there is, I think, a fifth reason for why I write, one which is, perhaps, at least slightly different to those given by Orwell. And it’s this. The NEED TO BE HEARD.

There are some things that are so important to us, that we need them to be important to others. And for that to happen our concerns have to be heard, and felt, by others.

In an indifferent world it’s important that we listen to those we care about, to make a real effort to hear what they are saying. We may not be able to do much about what is spoken, not in any practical sense at least, but caring enough to recognise it matters to the one who is saying it is, at least, a start. 

Because to share a little in the experience of others, perhaps even shedding a tear ourselves as others express their sadness, draws us a little closer to the one who suffers, and makes a connection with the one who grieves, a connection that, too often in this frequently contactless world, we fail to make.

And so I write about the things that matter to me most.

I write about cricket – is there anything more important than the domestic cricket season and the violence being done to it by the introduction of franchise cricket? I doubt it, but even so, now is not the time for me to get back on that particular soap box once more.

Though less so now that I’m no longer working as a GP, I write about medicine – of how the NHS is broken and breaking the people who work within it. I write of how it bothers me immensely that patients aren’t getting the treatment they need, not, at least, in a timely fashion. And I write about how it bothers me immensely that people who I care about, people with whom I work, are too often close to tears because of what the job now demands of them.

And I write about other, more general, concerns that trouble me because it’s not only in relation to the world of medicine that people suffer. And irrespective of the reasons for that suffering, and especially when, rather than getting better things seem to be getting progressively worse, I find it helpful to express in what I write some of the sadness I am sometimes prone to feel.

Of course there may be some who would accuse me of being too political at times – but not to write in these subjects would be saying something equally contentious – that they don’t matter. Which simply isn’t true. And if it’s true to say that evil prospers when good men do nothing, then perhaps it’s equally true when those same good men say nothing too.

Not that I consider myself a good man. Far from it. Which is why I also write about my faith – because if it’s everlasting life and infinite joy we want, we will need to look for it somewhere other than in ourselves, medicine, or the corridors of power.

Without the faith which sustains me in difficult times, I really don’t know how I’d be able to cope with all that life sometimes entails. But like the psalmist, I really do believe that, though weeping may tarry for the nighttime, joy comes with the morning. 

And holding this to be true, irrespective of how long and dark the night continues to be, makes faith something worth writing about too.

Even if you are the only one who ever reads it right to the very end, and having done so are the only one who is ever helped by what I’ve said.

Home for me this week is a couple of corn silos. No seriously – though I should perhaps say they have been converted from their former use into very comfortable holiday accommodation. Indeed they are, without doubt, the most luxurious cereal crop storage units I have ever spent a night in – and the only place of any type I’ve stayed in where I’ve not known how to work the mirrors.

And so they are serving their purpose very well – providing both a place of rest and recuperation whilst at the same time reminding me of what my own home could be like. Not that, despite me sometimes shopping in Waitrose, state of the art reflective wall hangings are something I consider to be essential – far from it – but it remains the case that even the place where I currently feel most at home is not all that I would wish it to be.

Which brings me to a word the derivation of which I only came to appreciate quite recently. I’ve known, of course, what ‘nostalgia’ means for a long time – ever since those never to be regained halcyon days of my youth – but what I hadn’t appreciated was that it is formed from two Greek words – nóstos, meaning “homecoming”, and álgos, meaning “pain” – and refers to the pain experienced when recognising the impossibility of regaining what once was but is no longer – the impossibility of returning to the home that is no longer there for you.

We all feel nostalgic from time to time. And though we may not realise it, I think we all are longing to return home. Not so much the place where we spent our childhood, but the place where we always dreamed we would one day find ourselves, but at which, because we no longer really believe it exists, we have now given up ever arriving at.

So here’s the thing – since our hunger points to the existence of food, and our feelings of loneliness point to the existence of community, might not our longing for heaven at least suggest the existence of just such a place. And if so, might it be a good idea to ask for directions or, better still, make use of a guide who could take us there.

I happen to think that would indeed be wise, not just because the road is a long and not infrequently difficult one, but because we’ll need someone to let us in when we get there.

But is this just wishful thinking on my part – or something I can justly feel sure of? Well, I believe it is the latter – as did King David, who in Psalm 23 makes three assertions all of which he is certain and, what’s more, gives reasons for his absolute confidence.

Firstly, having established that it is the LORD, the covenant-keeping God, who is leading him, he asserts that he will therefore lack nothing. Because that same shepherd guide will make him lie down in green pastures, will lead him beside still waters and ultimately restore his soul. Perhaps David then, like Christians, recognises that the world is not his home, and that he is on a journey to a heavenly abode during which time he will be provided with everything he needs. Just as we are – led by Jesus, the selfsame guide who described himself as the bread of life and the one who provides living water. And it is only those who recognise the transience of this life – who recognise that they are sojourners in a land through which they are, as it were, just a-passing through – who can happily do without fancy mirrors – and a whole load of other, only seemingly more necessary items, as they do so. Like David, they know what’s most necessary – the restoration of their souls by the Shepherd as he leads them along his path of righteousness – a route that is taken ultimately for the glory of God – by reflecting his holiness in their own increasing likeness to Christ and confirming his faithfulness by becoming what he had promised to make them.

Secondly, David says that, even though he walks through the valley of the shadow of death, he will fear no evil. And the reason for his confidence? Well, because the Lord who leads him is the Lord who remains with him on even the most fearful parts of the journey. As a boy I used to watch Dr Who – and especially in storylines that involved the Daleks, so frightened would I be that I did so from behind the sofa. But only when the Dr wasn’t on screen. Because when he was with his hapless companions, I knew they’d be okay – because he’d know what to do. And something somewhat similar can be said of Jesus – only more so – because with him, you’re safe – no matter what happens, because he knows what to do. So much so, in fact, that he has already done it – defeating death so that not even that once terrifying enemy can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And thirdly, David says that he shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That he will one day make it home and, having arrived, will remain there for all eternity. And the reason for his confidence is the goodness and mercy that has followed him all the days of his life. Which is significant because mercy is something that David will need, every bit as much as we will, if we’re to make it into heaven. Because it’s a goodness and mercy ultimately provided through Christ’s death on the cross, which paid the penalty for our sins. For as the old song has it:

‘there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin,
he only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.’

There is then a place called heaven – a place where we will be welcomed, not simply as temporary guests who are offered temporary refuge, but as members of a family who we will dwell safely with forever.

And though the journey there may be painful, the homecoming, marked very appropriately by a huge celebration, will be nothing of the sort.

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Related blogs:

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

I’ve not seen much cricket this season. 

Apart from one day of the pre-season friendly against Gloucestershire, I’ve only seen Somerset play three times – their loss to Glamorgan in a T20 group phase game, their semi-final defeat at Finals Day, and Day 3 of the recent championship game against Essex when they took just three opposition wickets and made a draw seem the likeliest outcome in a game they subsequently won – but only when I was absent from the ground.

Which is why, yesterday, for the good of the team, I worked from home. 

Not that I believe such superstitious nonsense, you understand – but it’s not worth tempting fate when it comes to our chances of winning the four-day competition this year – something that I’ve got my fingers crossed you all believe too! 

Luckily – and I say this lest the boss should ever read this – those in hand were largely mundane administrative tasks, allowing me to free up some of even my all too limited cognitive capacities to have the livestream running alongside the Excel spreadsheets and Word documents that were open on my computer. So don’t anyone jump to any irrational conclusions about my work ethic!

Especially as, so absorbed was I in composing a number of emails, it was a little after 11.15am before I realised that the game had begun. And my stay away policy seemed to be working when Josh Thomas reached his fifty. Sadly, though, he was out shortly after but, rather than blaming my tuning in to the broadcast, I like to think the blame lies fairly and squarely on Pete Trego’s jumper that livestream viewers were ‘treated’ to during that short phase of play. 

This seemed a much more likely cause of Thomas’s downfall – and all the more so when, moments after Trego left the commentary box to ‘rethink his fashion choices’, Tom Lammonby reached his half-century and Somerset looked pretty comfortable on 125-1.

With my being gainfully employed yesterday evening, and therefore having to leave the house before we normally eat, I was forced to have my dinner at lunchtime. As far as I’m aware this shouldn’t have had any cosmic consequences but just to be sure I mitigated any risk by eating with my lucky knife and fork – a precaution seemingly well worth taking given how, on returning to my study, Somerset had passed Glamorgan’s first innings total having lost only two wickets – Goldsworthy, significantly, having fallen whilst I was away from my desk.

Not that it has anything to do with the game being played in Taunton, but over lunch, whilst discussing the matter with my domestic batting partner, we were reassured that the holiday cottage we’re staying in next week is further from a major thoroughfare than our own peacefully located home which is just 44.739 cricket pitches away from the M5 – a fascinating fact that astonishingly meant nothing to her! 

Distressing though that was, it was early in the afternoon session that my increasingly inconsistent worldview was turned upside down in an even more dramatic manner.

Because seconds after Trego took up commentary again, still sporting his eye-catching knitwear, Lammonby, now in his 90s, was given out leg before wicket – only to be reinstated when a no ball was called as a result of the fielding side having three men behind square on the leg side. 

But having for a second doubted the malevolent influence of lurid pullovers, and being forced therefore to rethink my own culpability for Thomas’ earlier dismissal, I decided that the cause of Lammonby’s good fortune was indeed my absence from the ground.

Which seemed a reasonable conclusion when Lammonby again escaped when he was caught behind off another, more conventional, no ball.

But, as we all know, bad things come in threes, which probably accounts for why, still five runs short of a century, Lammonby fell – caught and bowled by Dan Douthwaite. 

After all the excitement, and the subsequent wicket of Nicholls – sorry, I failed to find a four-leaf clover in my back garden during the lunch interval – the afternoon session continued with me sending more emails than Rew and Abell scored runs as they reached their fifty partnership. But not, I confess, as many as the 76 they’d put on by tea. 

Meanwhile, a long, long way from where I sat, something remarkable was taking place in Headingley. For it was there that Yorkshire women, chasing Somerset Women’s 130, went from 121-5 to 125 all out – a Somerset victory every bit as remarkable as the one secured by the men at the same ground earlier in the season. 

And it should be noted that the turnaround, brought about by Craig Overton’s heroics, took place whilst I again was at work – entering the church I was speaking at with the team seemingly having no chance of victory, only to emerge a couple of hours later with the win and a place in T20 Finals Day secured.

After tea, Rew completed his half-century, before Abell was out five runs short of his, and Archie Vaughan was as fortuitous as Lammonby had been previously when he too was caught off a no ball. And then Rew was out – a little ‘unluckily’ according to the ever-so-cosy Trego who remained seemingly oblivious to how he was almost certainly accountable for the young wicketkeeper’s downfall. 

At which point I had to leave for my evening meeting, but I set off confident that with Craig O at the crease, and me driving even further away from the ground, nothing could possibly go wrong. And as I found out later, very little did – with the team narrowly missing out on full batting points when, with a first innings lead of 247, Vaughan was last man out for an excellent run-a-ball 68. And the cherry on the already iced cake was Glamorgan losing one of their openers off the very last ball of the day!

All of which leaves me on the horns of a particularly spiky dilemma – because having done so well with me watching from afar, I really would love to go to the game today and watch the team play live. But with the weather set to be a little cooler, and Trego liable to need to wrap up warm, perhaps it’s best if I stay at home.

Because as I say, it is just possible that the boss will indeed read this!

---

Other cricket related posts:

Cricketing blogs from 2026

To read ‘A quiet day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Why the unimportant matters’, click here

To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

Last week was one in which death was never far from the headlines.

First came the announcement that Dolly Parton, the much-loved singer, songwriter, and philanthropist had died. Then came the tragic news that a flash flood had killed hundreds, if not thousands, in Nepal. And then, finally, we were informed how a 41-year-old had lost his life after a sign fell on him at what is billed as the UK’s largest Christian festival.

So what can we learn from all this? Well, nothing, perhaps, that we didn’t know already. That death comes to us all – and often unexpectedly – to the rich and famous every bit as much as the largely unknown multitudes, and to those who profess Christian faith as surely as those who don’t. 

And whilst Dolly Parton’s death might be easier to accept, coming as it did at the end of a long life well lived, all deaths are equally heartbreaking. Let nobody think that the death of a believer is somehow more worthy of grief than the deaths of those in Nepal who, with their bodies still missing, have yet to be named. 

But still the question arises. Why would a supposedly sovereign God of love allow so many to die so horribly?

It is, of course, a fair question – but before we are tempted to answer it, we would do well to humble ourselves before Almighty God and, recognising our own need of repentance, accept our own limited understanding.

Because if we do, we will guard against two erroneous claims that I have seen widely made on social media platforms – specifically with regard to the death at last weekend’s festival – a death which, whilst no more tragic than those  in Nepal, is even more difficult to understand given how, as a Christian, he had put his trust in the God who appears now to have let him down.

The first has been made by some who have even seen fit to mock the death of a man who, irrespective of one’s beliefs, was both a husband and a father to those who now have to go on without him. The reason they give for the man’s death is that the God he believed in does not exist. But in truth it is only the God they think he believed in – and perhaps would like to believe in themselves – that doesn’t exist – one who guarantees that nothing bad will happen in this life but who, when it does, should bear full responsibility for it.

But that is not the God of the Bible – nor the God who really is there in all his often unfathomable magnificence. For he is one who, on occasions at least, has been shown to work through suffering and, what’s more, to bring unimaginable good out of what appeared unimaginable evil. 

Which brings me to the second mistake I have seen being made by those who have evoked Satan as the one who caused the sign to fall on the man and imply, therefore, that the devil was able to act beyond God’s control, leaving God somehow powerless to prevent him.

But that is not the devil of the Bible – who is portrayed there as one who, whilst truly fearsome, is very much on a lease – able to do only what the Lord permits him to do according to his often inscrutable will.

So having said just a little about what the events of last week shouldn’t be taken to mean, how about hazarding a guess as to why they did happen. 

But therein lies the problem – for it would have to be just that – a guess – and a pretty foolish one at that. And so I prefer to follow Job who, knowing more than most about what it is to suffer, never got an explanation for why he lost his family, his possessions and his health. Because whilst those who read the account of his great misfortune discover something of what lay behind it, Job himself had to be content with mystery. He suffered despite being blameless in the sight of the Lord he too believed in – and never discovered why. But he came to accept that God, being God, can be trusted – no matter how incomprehensible his actions might sometimes be.

For his ways really are higher than ours – and all the better for being so too!

---

Related blogs:

To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

Having visited my bank and retrieved the Romanian lei that I’d previously inadvertently tried to pass off as pounds sterling, I arrived at the County Ground in Taunton eagerly anticipating what would be my first full day there this year. 

A week ago I was travelling along the Transfăgărășan – the long and winding road that weaves its way across the southern Carpathian Mountains – but today I was hoping it would be the turn extracted by Leach and Vaughan that induced nausea – and only in those making up the Essex batting line-up.

The sky remained a deep blue colour but had seen fit to make room for numerous cotton wool clouds that hinted that this summer’s heat was finally waning. And so, with autumn fast approaching, it seemed I’d been right to discard the shorts I have been making uncharacteristically good use of these past few months in favour of longer-legged attire more suitable for the shady confines of the Marcus Trescothick stand. 

It was, though, Jake Ball who struck first – clean bowling the redoubtable Paul Walter, who departed having added a further 43 runs to the 48 he’d made in the first innings.

Soon after I heard the first encouragement of the morning from Tractor – his voice sounding somewhat muted because, positioned as ever beneath the Gimblett Hill scoreboard, it was my left and temporarily nonfunctioning ear that was ineffectually pointed in his general direction.

With just over an hour played, and with Essex looking comfortably placed at 117 for 1, Leach replaced Miguel Pretorius at the River End and opened his spell with a maiden over. A few similarly economical overs followed, during which I mused to myself how, whilst the cricketers I once enjoyed watching were three or even four times my age, now I am undoubtedly old enough to be their Dad – and, for one or two at least, quite possibly their grandfather.

I was woken from my reverie when Dean Elgar, someone whom I remember watching rescue Somerset in a one-day game against Surrey, was out. Whilst his being caught behind would once have been a disaster, today it was nothing of the sort – and neither was the dismissal of Westley in the following over which, leaving two batsmen on nought at the crease, heightened hopes of a Somerset victory today.

During the lunch interval I enjoyed the sparsely filled tuna pittas that I’d pre-prepared for myself. Perfectly sufficient though they were, and unusually augmented, for me at least, with thinly sliced cucumber, they nonetheless came a poor second place to the sarmale that I’d enjoyed in Bazna earlier this week. 

But graced as it is by its delicious local cuisine, that small Romanian town remains largely ignorant of cricket – despite my recent attempt to explain to some of its residents the joys of the four-day game.

The afternoon session began with our new overseas player, Henry Nicholls, fielding at second slip. And I couldn’t help wondering how long we’ll still need him, how long we’ll still feed him, now he’s 64*. But perhaps that was simply the effect of the sun finally getting to me – for, having reached its zenith, it was now beaming down on my uncovered head. 

Moments later the aforementioned Nicholls collided with the boundary boards directly in front of me as he valiantly tried to stop the ball crossing the rope. Fortunately he was unhurt and was able to reassure Josh Thomas that he was fine – as indeed were the boundary board and, even more importantly, my coffee cup that was precariously positioned upon it. 

With Vaughan and Leach bowling in tandem, James Rew was changing ends more frequently than Craig Overton will have been changing nappies following the birth this week of his baby girl. And just as congratulations must go to Craig and Asha, so too they must go to the pair of spinners who, despite remaining wicketless in the afternoon session, drew as many oohs and aahs from the close fielders as were no doubt being uttered by the newly doting parents. 

And then, with the score on 232 for 3, and not even the most optimistic of supporters envisioning a Somerset victory within three days, it was the all-important tea interval – one that came with a rare opportunity to enjoy the simple pleasure of wandering on the outfield.

And so the final session of the day began – the shadows now encroaching on the Somerset stand where I repositioned myself, partly in the hope that my moving might somehow precipitate an avalanche of wickets, and partly, with him now positioned over to my right, to better hear Tractor cheering the team on in his broad West Country drawl.

But other than the over rate peaking at +10, not a great deal happened to excite Somerset supporters after tea. Allison reached his century, and Critchley completed his second fifty of the match, but not a single Essex wicket fell – and this despite my eating the overripe banana I’d had the foresight to bring for just such an emergency. But even though Somerset’s chances of winning the game were less at the end of the day than they had been at its start, it was nonetheless an enjoyably slow and pleasingly quiet day at the cricket – one that I never once considered leaving early. 

And for that I’m grateful and say, as might my new Romanian friends, a sincere ‘mulţumesc’ to everyone concerned.

[*For those who don’t know, the squad number that Henry Nicholls wears is 64]

---

Other cricket related posts:

Cricketing blogs from 2026

To read ‘Why the unimportant matters’, click here

To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

We’ve all felt it – the rather flat feeling that follows a particularly enjoyable time – a wonderful holiday perhaps, an event that we had long looked forward to but is now in the past, or some other pleasurable occasion that, once over, reminds us that nothing good lasts forever. 

In his poem ‘Dry Salvages’, T.S. Eliot touches on similar themes when he describes how we have experiences but miss their meaning – referring to how the things that we can, and should, enjoy in life reveal the ongoing sadness that lies beneath them all. Things aren’t as they should be and even those things that are turn out to be only temporary – just as our current health serves as a reminder that our death is not as far away as we would perhaps like.

All of which might suggest that it would be foolish to make the pursuit of happiness our ultimate goal – because, if we do, our endeavours will always end in tears. 

But be that as it may, we nonetheless keep trying to obtain the unobtainable, denying the futility of our quest whilst at the same time creating a constant stream of amusements to distract ourselves from what deep down we all know to be true – that life in this fallen world isn’t all it’s made out to be. For most of us it is, at best, ordinary, whilst for many others it consists of nothing but one impossible sadness after another.

No wonder then that the writer of Ecclesiastes suggests that the dead are better off than those who are still alive – but better off still are those who have yet to be born. For they have yet to experience the evil that is done under the sun which daily results in fresh forms of often unfathomable and seemingly pointless misery for those who are promised only a place in the ground when their time on earth inevitably comes to an end. [Ecclesiastes 4:2-3] 

But that’s not all – because the author of the book which makes up part of the Bible’s wisdom literature, goes on to write that the day of death is better than the day of birth, that it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, and that sorrow is better than laughter for by it the face of the heart is made glad. [Ecclesiastes 7:1-3]

But how can such counterintuitive things be part of the scriptures which so many rightly claim to contain wonderfully good news?

Well perhaps the answer lies in realising that death teaches us something that all of us need to come to terms with. That we are not the masters of our fate and, no matter who we are and what we achieve during our all too short lives, we all end up the same.

Dead. 

Our lives then are temporary and the pleasures we experience, however real and good, are only ever transient. And so whilst appropriately enjoying what we can we would do well to focus our minds on pursuing what’s genuinely important – which is not so much happiness as becoming the people we were created to be and developing the character for which we would like to be remembered.

Voltaire once said that the best is the enemy of the good – and those of us who are killing ourselves trying to be perfect might understand where he’s coming from. But having recognised the brevity of our lives, perhaps recognising our ordinariness is good for us too – freeing us up to do what we can without imagining that we are something more than we are. 

Because knowing that we can’t solve all our problems would of course be beneficial for us too – enabling us to stop our anxious minds from constantly agonising over how we can put right what we are unable to correct and instead accept that what life sometimes throws at us is both difficult and unavoidable. For without advocating a fatalistic passivity, being content with what we have is very often better than constantly worrying about what we think we want.

But we shouldn’t conclude that all we can now look forward to is spending our days nihilistically eating and drinking in the light of our impending demise. Because the writer of Ecclesiastes elsewhere speaks of how God has put eternity into the heart of man. [Ecclesiastes 3:11]. 

Here then is a glimmer of hope since his assertion suggests that there is more to life than what we manage to cram into the three score years and ten that some might be fortunate to be given. 

And given that scripture is very clear that God’s plan for all his people is to make them more like Christ, perhaps the trials we experience are not simply things we have to endure, but things God can use for our good, forming in us the character of the one who, on the cross, endured suffering unimaginably worse than that experienced by any of us.

Because, as a result of his sacrifice, Jesus has reconciled us to God and, in so doing, guaranteed for us what we could never obtain for ourselves – not just fleeting happiness, but fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore that can only be experienced in his presence. [Psalm 16:11] 

We will though have to wait patiently – perhaps for a lifetime – before that sure and certain hope is fully realised. But because Christ has defeated death, it is nonetheless something that we can look forward to now with absolute confidence, sustaining us in our sadness until the day that really is coming when our every tear will be wiped away and death will be no more. [Revelation 21:4]

And so the desire for happiness isn’t perhaps foolish after all. It’s just that we need first to be made ready for the happiness that will be provided for us. And when God has completed the good work he has begun in making us ready, not only will the wait have been worth it – we will see that the pain we have experienced along the way was worth it too.

---

Related blogs:

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus, and the paradox of the Christian life’, click here.

It’s not every day that village league cricket makes it onto the BBC News at Ten, nor indeed creates a worldwide media storm, so when it does the story making the headlines must be important.

And so it turns out to be because the furore that is taking place surrounds allegations of cheating in a game played in the Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League.

What appears to have happened is that a member of the Saltburn Second XI, fielding at first slip, clicked his fingers at the precise moment the ball passed the outside edge of an opposition batsman’s bat, the sound fooling the umpire into giving the batsman out caught behind. 

And that’s just not cricket.

But before we burn not only the bails but all six stumps – and the perfectly risen Victoria sandwich that formed the centrepiece of the afternoon tea – and, whilst presenting their charred remains, declare the demise of sporting behaviour in the game that, above all others perhaps, is supposed to epitomise a sense of fair play, let me tell you of another, less widely reported cricketing incident that also occurred recently. Because it suggests that news of its death has been hugely exaggerated.

It took place in a game played between the, to my mind, ludicrously named Trent Rockets and Birmingham Phoenix. Taking a risky second run, Mitchell Santner had to dive to make his ground at the non-striker’s end and was judged to have done so successfully by the umpire. But Santner was not so sure. And so, despite the decision going unchallenged by the fielding side, he himself asked for it to be reviewed. Which it was – the result being that he was given out and so had to make his way back to the pavilion where he subsequently watched his team lose.

Now it would be easy for me to make a snide remark about how, given that Santner was playing in ‘The Hundred’, the result was of absolutely no consequence – but I won’t because it is heartening indeed that a competition that I and many others see as nothing more than a commercial enterprise designed to maximise monetary gain has nonetheless retained, in one individual at least, a sense of fair play.

Because irrespective of what our rogue slip fielder from up north thinks, cricket should be played for the joy of playing cricket – not merely for the joy of winning. And it should be played fairly too. Because quite apart from the fact that a victory brought about by cheating is hollow in the extreme, if we limit ourselves to the momentary pleasure of our fleeting triumph, we will simultaneously deny ourselves the enjoyment to be had in playing in games that we lose.

And something similar could be said about life. Because if all we are interested in is what we are able to achieve, if all we are concerned about is what we come to acquire, our pursuit of the extraordinary will leave us dissatisfied with the everyday.

Life then should be lived for the joy of living – irrespective of whether we come out top. And it should be lived with integrity too. Because quite apart from the fact that success at the expense of others is no success at all, if we limit our enjoyment to what we manage to accumulate in our three score years and ten, we will discover that our happiness will be far less than we’d imagined and shorter-lived than we’d hoped for too.

Cricket then – like all sport – is able to teach us how to live well. Its importance lies in the fact that, whilst the game itself doesn’t in the least bit matter, the way it’s played does – and all the more so in a world where, as the BBC also reported, there is much going on that is of far greater concern than the outcome of a game played by those hitting a variably coloured ball with a piece of wood. 

Because if we can’t play fair when nothing of real significance is being played for, how will we fare when the stakes are very much higher?

The all too obvious answer is: very badly indeed. Which is, in turn, a very great shame – in a world that would be a good deal happier if those who inhabit it cared more about how they lived than whether or not they won. 

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Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

Imagine you knew for certain that one day something would take place that would alter forever every aspect of your life. Would you, I wonder, live in the light of that knowledge or pretend that the future event would never actually occur and act all surprised when its imminence could no longer be denied?

The reason I ask is simple – we are all in just such a situation. 

We are all going to die – and the day of our death is nearer than we think – even for those of us who do manage to make it to a ripe old age. 

Take me, for example. I’m just a few months short of 60 and will therefore be 80 before I know it – in no more time than has elapsed since Twitter was launched. And still more frightening perhaps, I’ll be 90 in the same number of years that have passed since the Spice Girls burst onto the scene with the release of ‘Wannabe’. Which I’m not sure is something that I really, really want! 

But how do we live in the light of our inevitable death? 

Recently I’ve been reading the book of Ecclesiastes, whose author famously wrote ‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity’ and ‘There is nothing new under the sun’ to convey how transient everything in this life is and how, for the time being at least, nothing ever changes. The sun rises every morning only to set again each evening, the seasons change as predictably as they always have, and the tides come and go with monotonous regularity.

And people are born, grow old and die – after which they are soon forgotten.

It is a sobering thought that in a hundred years’ time, for most of us it will be as if we’d never lived. I couldn’t even tell you the name of my great-grandparents, let alone what they did in their lives. And so it would be foolish of me to imagine that my great-grandchildren will care very much about what I managed to achieve in my lifetime.

Because I can no more make my fleeting life permanently significant than I can alter the course of the planets that move through space like clockwork. I’m simply not that powerful—or that important. 

Which leads to another question. Why on earth do we try?

The answer, I think, lies in the fact that, as the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, God has put eternity into our hearts.[Ecclesiastes 3:11]. Our desire for significance is not, therefore, in itself wrong. On the contrary, it is God-given. The problem, though, is that we look for it in the wrong places – in ourselves, in who we are and what we’ve done, rather than in God – in who He is and what He has done.

And so we are prone to ignore God’s eternal power and divine nature that has been made plain to us by what He has created. [Romans 1:20] Instead we seek our satisfaction in relationships and experiences, in what we achieve and what we have managed to understand. But wonderful though these things undeniably are, they cannot satisfy us fully – not in the way that the Giver of all that is good can.

So then, knowing that we all will one day die, how do we live in the light of that fact? 

Well, rather than spending our lives ‘chasing after the wind’ [Ecclesiastes 1:14], seeking satisfaction in what cannot possibly provide it, we need instead to recognise the transience of our lives and our relative insignificance. And we need to look instead to the One who is both eternal and of infinite worth.

Because our significance comes not from within ourselves, but from the One in whom we are placed. ‘In Christ’ we belong to the One who is of infinite significance, the One who loves us deeply, despite how superficially we think about Him, despite us imagining that God is of no importance and that this world is all there is. 

And so we need  to trust Jesus, even as we seek to follow Him, for all that we are not: for the salvation we cannot achieve, the righteousness we do not possess, and the significance we’ll never create for ourselves. We need to hold onto the eternal significance that we already have in Him despite the transient and, therefore, seemingly futile nature of our present lives lived ‘under the sun.’ And we need to eat and drink and find enjoyment in our toil, knowing that none of what we currently experience will last for ever, but will one day be replaced by an everlasting and perfect rest in the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. [Ecclesiastes 2:24, Psalm 16:11]

Only then will we know both the newness of life and the eternity that we all so long for, and, whilst enjoying all that we do gladly possess, discover that life is not ultimately vain at all. 

---

Related blogs:

To read ‘Heading Home’, click here

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

These are the words with which King David began Psalm 23. It is perhaps the best-loved and most familiar of all the psalms – one that has brought deep comfort to millions and been read at countless funerals.

But taken at face value, they are words that also raise an important question – because of the very simple fact that there are many things that I still want. The answer comes, though, when we realise that ‘I shall not want’ should be taken to mean ‘I shall want for nothing’ – which is why some versions of the Bible translate this verse as ‘nothing shall I lack.’

That is to say that those led by Jesus, the good shepherd, will be provided, not necessarily all they want, but all they need – a truth beautifully conveyed in the verses that follow that speak of his sheep being made to lie down in green pastures and walk alongside still waters. 

But even more beautiful is the assurance that, in Christ, we have one who restores our soul as he leads us along paths of righteousness. Which means that we are being changed – being made more like the one we follow – not only for our good but, more importantly, for his glory. For, as verse  3 makes plain, the change in our direction is ultimately for his name’s sake. 

But to affirm wholeheartedly that followers of Jesus now lack nothing is not to endorse a so-called prosperity gospel. Not at all. Rather it suggests that whatever we currently do not possess – be it health or happiness, money or one of so many other good things – it is, we can be sure, because these are things that God has lovingly – albeit sometimes both mysteriously and  painfully – determined we do not actually need. 

Not for the time being, at least.

Because if, having sent Jesus, he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, with him, graciously give us all things? [Romans 8:32]

All things, that is, that we need.

Which is why the Psalm can continue as it does – with its second emphatic assertion. I shall fear no evil – even whilst walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Not if Jesus is with us – leading us on our way.

Make no mistake, he has gone before us – as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep [John 10:11] – suffering death for us so that we needn’t die – not in any ultimate sense. For whilst Jesus, hanging on the cross, cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, all who trust in him need never fear being abandoned by God.

Perhaps that’s why David speaks of the valley we walk through as only the shadow of death – rather than of death itself. Because whilst we will all one day die, those of us in Christ can nonetheless look forward with sure and certain hope to the resurrection and the eternal life that will undoubtedly follow, when, as Psalm 23 concludes, we shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Because, having been led through this life by Jesus our Shepherd, and having been followed by his goodness and mercy, we shall discover there the place he has prepared for us.

One that, overflowing with good things, not least his own divine presence, will more than compensate for anything we might have been lovingly asked to go without in this life.

Which means it’s true what the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17 – that our current afflictions really are light when compared to the weight of glory that they themselves are preparing for us.

And indeed only momentary – when set against the everlasting joy we’ll experience there in our eternal home. 

---

Related blogs:

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

My shepherd Lord, he is my soul restoring,
I know that he, good care of me will take
And so with him, I surely shall lack nothing
He leads me for his own name’s sake

He gives me rest, and offers hope eternal
He is my rock – and he’s my fortress too
And though sometimes I walk in vales of darkness
I know that he will bring me through

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will

He is the one on whom my eyes I’m fixing
For on the cross, it was my place he took
He is my Lord and he’s my Saviour also
And so to him I’ll always look

Jesus is Lord, and at his name I’m bowing
He is the one I gladly now confess
The King of glory – worthy of all worship
For now he is my righteousness

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will

Now I know that one day I will see him
Only because of his amazing grace
And so I’ll dwell forever in his household
Where for me he’s prepared a place

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will.

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will.

With his ASBO still in force, Hector was disappointed that he was unable to travel with me to Edgbaston this morning. But eager to play his part in supporting the team, he’s written a song.

Originally the lyrics he penned were meant to be sung to the tune of Oasis’ Wonderwall – after all, if it’s good enough for the England football team, it’s surely good enough for Somerset.

But anxious about incurring the wrath of the Gallagher brothers who, picky about copyright issues, are apparently big Lancashire fans with the ear of the fearsome Lanky the Giraffe – not literally! – he thought better of it.

So instead he’s renamed the piece ‘We are Somerset’ and, having spent yesterday in the recording studio with some musician friends, has produced the following for your listening pleasure.

And, credit where credit’s due, as a bass baritone, he does remarkably well at hitting the high notes.

Hector says he hopes you’ll enjoy the song as you travel to the ground and that we’ll all perhaps be singing it from the stands as the players celebrate victory later this evening.

So click below to hear the world exclusive from “Hector and the Powerplay” performing ‘We Are Somerset.’

👀👇

https://suno.com/s/7hx8jDVsfFmc76nq

And for when you need to singalong later, here are the lyrics…

Today is gonna be the day
that we’re gonna bring it home again
By now, you should have somehow,
realised the trophy we’ll retain
I don’t believe that anybody feels the way we do about you now.

Craig O, now everybody knows,
The fire in your heart’s ablaze
We saw, what we all knew before
How you can all of us amaze
I don’t believe that anybody feels the way we do about you now.

And all the team are equally terrific
With Riley Meredith now bowling so quick
There are TKC and Banton and of course Will Smeed
The Rews both J. and T.
But then maybe
It will be Goldsworthy
With Louis Gregory
And don’t forget
We are Somerset!

They said, get it out your head
You ain’t gonna qualify
But hey, you know how to play,
And so you can the odds defy
I don’t believe that anybody feels the way we do about you now

And Daniel Sams he used to play for Essex
But now with Jakey Ball will enjoy success
There are others too like Leach and Vaughan and Shaw
Perhaps Tom Abell too.
But then maybe
It will be Goldsworthy
With Louis Gregory

And don’t forget
We are Somerset
And don’t forget (And don’t forget)
You’re gonna be the ones that win it
And don’t forget
We are Somerset
And don’t forget (And don’t forget)
You’re gonna be the ones that win it
(win it)
You’re gonna be the ones that win it
(win it)
We’re gonna be the ones that win it
(win it)

AND A POST MATCH LAMENT

When I arrived home last night, Hector was there to greet me. He’d been following Finals Day on the telly but had taken time to get the band back together for one last time – to record a farewell track that, surprising for one so emotionally unintelligent, I suspect captures what we all are feeling

Take it away Hector…falsetto please!

https://suno.com/s/7L2hh7FybBNehxV7

There is a ground in Birmingham
It’s known as Edge-Blast-ton
Where sometimes dreams, they don’t come true
Though watching still is fun.

Cos there’s a team that we support
One known as Somerset
That e’en on days when things go wrong
We still will love them yet.

Our bowlers they did do us proud
Our batsmen did their best
And so though Northants won the game
Our love still stands the test

One forty-three it seemed a score
That we would soon surpass
But wickets fell too often and
We just could not, alas

When Craig O he walked out to bat
We all of us still hoped
But then he was so finely caught
Despite clearing the rope.

There is a team that we cheer on
And when all’s said and done
They are the team that we’ll support
Until the setting sun.

---

You can read how Hector got his ASBO in ‘Before and After’ by clicking here

Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘With four day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘Ode to Brian’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

SMELLING VICTORY – THE MORNING BEFORE

It’s all very well them saying that, in this hot weather, if the temperature outside the house is higher than that inside, you should keep your doors and windows open – but trust me, when your black Labrador has eaten all the gooseberries in the back garden – again – you really need them open. 🐕💨

That said, Hector and I are both looking forward to the big match today. With the team just one game away from Finals Day, we can both smell victory – or, at least, I think we will be able to, once the air has cleared!

Because Somerset must surely be favourites to beat Yorkshire in the quarter-final of this year’s T20 cricket tournament.

And it was kind of the powers that be to bring the start time forward – presumably so as not to clash with the meeting I’m at this evening. Even so, it’s just as well that Glamorgan are out of the competition, as, speaking as I am in South Wales, had they still been involved, it might have affected attendance.

Come on Somerset!

Because it’s not coming home…it’s staying home…just where it’s been this past year!

THEY THOUGHT ‘TWAS ALL OVER, IT AIN’T YET – THE MORNING AFTER

Regular readers will remember how this time yesterday, Hector and I thought we were smelling victory. Well, despite it seeming for a moment that our olfactory senses may have been out of kilter – when Yorkshire appeared to be cruising to Finals Day – it appears we were right!

But the match that seemed lost as I entered the church that I was speaking at turned out to be an incredible and improbable win for Somerset – brought about, I should add, without a request being made for the divine intervention that seemed necessary.

Which means that one of us hopes to be heading to Edgbaston on Saturday. It would, of course, have been both of us, but Hector I’m afraid is no longer welcome at the ground – not after his fracas last year with a steward who threw him out of the Hollies Stand for not realising that the squirrel he chased and, uncharacteristically caught and ripped apart, was in fact some chap who had dressed up as a woodland creature for what was meant to be a laugh. Which, to be fair, it was for some – not least Hector, who still finds it funny now!

But Somerset’s epic triumph wasn’t the only reason that yesterday was so joyous. There was another reason too – one brought about by the fact that getting older causes you to think about things in ways you didn’t when you were younger.

Specifically, I have in mind the enormous pleasure that one approaching 60 is afforded by buying a brand new rotary washing line.

And no, it isn’t that I’d chosen it as a gift for my wife on our upcoming wedding anniversary – that, dear reader, will instead be the much cheaper spike that you have to buy separately in order to secure its position in your back garden!

But more unsettling than a belligerent Craig Overton in the eyes of a hapless Yorkshire death bowler are the thoughts that arise when you come to realise that, with our previous garment drying device lasting us over 30 years, this new one is likely to see us out!

Mind you, if on Saturday Somerset produce another heart-stopping performance like yesterday’s, I very much doubt I’ll make it through the weekend.

Unlike the unfinished box of Cornflakes in our kitchen cupboard – which will almost certainly see me out too.

---

To read ‘We Are Somerset -A Song For Finals Day’, click here

Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘With four day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘Ode to Brian’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

There are, I think, at least three types of people who visit the beach on hot summer days.

Firstly, there are those who stutter into the water – inching their way incrementally in, freezing for a moment every time the coldness of the water causes them to pause their advance. Eventually they make it in, but only once each rarely exposed area of flesh is startled by the executive decision of the part of the body that is always last to suffer its consequences. 

Secondly, there are those who, less ‘all at sea’ in the waves, are wholeheartedly committed to enjoying themselves. They race into the water and then, seemingly oblivious to any potential downsides to their enthusiasm, dive headfirst beneath the waves only to emerge laughing uncontrollably.

And thirdly there are those who, like me, spend far too long watching the antics of the other two types from a safe distance. They consider themselves too grown-up to indulge in such childlike behaviour but, even as they do so, they can’t help but feel a little melancholy as they watch others so obviously enjoying themselves messing about in the water.

Longing to experience the same happiness, yet desperate to remain on dry land, they persuade themselves that they’re simply being rational. Too proud to look foolish, too tired to make the effort, and too self-conscious to risk embarrassment, they remain too stubborn to venture in despite, perhaps, deep down wanting to. 

Which is not all that different from how some people approach faith in Christ.

Some are hesitant at first but soon discover that they relish the experience every bit as much as those who plunge straight in. Others remain far off – commenting on something they don’t really understand, having never experienced it fully for themselves.

Perhaps they too would do well to taste and see that the Lord is good. [Psalm 34:8] Because, having eventually tiptoed in myself, I’ve found that, once you’re in, the water really is lovely.

A question that philosophers like to ask goes like this: if there’s nobody there to witness it, when a tree falls in a forest, does it make a noise?

But I’m more interested to know if anybody cares. 

All of which leads me to tell you something that you almost certainly won’t know – that Joanna Mellow died in 1625. And, according to the engraved slate slab in Talland Church, so too did the baby boy she gave birth to.

Which might leave you wondering: ‘So what? Why should that concern us today?’

Well that’s precisely the question I found myself asking as I continued my walk along the Cornish coast path. Does it matter that 400 years ago a young woman died in childbirth? After all countless waves have washed over the nearby beach over the ensuing centuries and, despite how deep the grief that must have been felt by those who loved her at the time, I very much doubt if anyone alive today gives her a second thought. 

Even so, I am inclined to think that her death should remain a matter of concern. Because if it doesn’t, then it means that ultimately our lives don’t matter either – that at best they have only a passing significance –  for the very simple reason that in 400 years’ time it’s unlikely that anybody will remember any of us.

Of course there may be some who say that at the time, to those intimately associated with Joanna and her son, her death did matter – but now, after all this time, it no longer does. But if that is true then wouldn’t it mean that something only matters if there is someone to whom it matters – if there is someone who continues to remember.

And what would that mean for those whom the world has forgotten?

But here’s the thing. There is someone who cares about everything. Someone who cares for everyone – and especially those for whom nobody else spares a thought – no matter how alone or seemingly forgotten they may feel.

Because God not only cares, he remembers.

He remembers not only those who know him as Father – those who, confident that he cares for them, cast all their anxieties on him (1 Peter 5:7) – but also those who continue to reject him, those he would, if they were willing, gladly gather to himself, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings (Matthew 23:37).

So then, I think Joanna Mellow’s death does matter – every bit as much as our lives do.

To God.

Who not only hears the tree that falls unseen – but remembers and cares for those the world forgets.

Mrs Spratt, her first name Jean,
It is well known, could eat no lean
And though her spouse consumed no fat,
They still got on despite of that.
‘Cos appetites once satiated
And having cleared all they had plated
The one the other, not berating,
They saw no need for separating.

Until Jack’s sweetheart did things wrong
Every time she ate a scone
Firstly insisting ‘twas a scone,
(And no, it’s not each to their own)
But worse than that, compelled I am,
To tell you where she placed her jam
Because, alas, unlike the Queen
She put it underneath the cream.

To eat thus is, of course, uncouth –
That might sound harsh, but it’s the truth –
As even Debrett’s doth agree
It crosses lines of decency.
Unable then to go through life
Yoked to such an unseemly wife,
Her teatime choices not endorsing,
Jack soon his Jean will be divorcing!

Whether it was the overpriced, chicken-flavoured, bone-shaped treat that I gave him last Sunday I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t feel that the two minutes it took him to devour it was sufficient to mark the third anniversary of his birth. 

Or perhaps, having now stripped all but the most out-of-reach apples from the tree in our back garden, he wanted to lay his paws on a few more for what I can only assume is an attempt to challenge Thatcher’s dominance of the West Country cider market. 

Either way, he’s been at it again, departing the house in a way that I suspect would impress Airey Neave – though, to be fair to the former prisoner of war, the punishment awaiting Hector almost certainly pales into insignificance compared to that which would have been meted out on Neave by the German Wehrmacht were they to have thwarted his escape from Colditz.

Which brings me, admittedly somewhat tangentially, to my having been water-boarded this week. This was, as you can probably imagine, a novel experience for me because other than that now infamous incident involving a Henry hoover, a bowl of custard, and a one-time member of Taunton Deane Borough Council who, perhaps inevitably, ended up with egg on his face, I’ve never upset the authorities to such an extent that they felt justified in employing a form of torture prohibited under international law.

And yet there I was. Forced by my two interrogators to lie supine, with my head tilted back, a cloth draped over me, and absolutely prohibited from crying out whilst one poured water into my mouth and the other attacked me with a distinctly pointy electrical device the like of which I’d never seen before. 

Admittedly it was kind of them to provide me with protective eyewear – which is, I guess, why we all ought to be grateful for both the Geneva Convention and the General Dental Council. 

Not that either of these august bodies seemed anything but powerless to limit the fee that these denizens of dentistry saw fit to impose on me for enduring their merciless ministrations – a sum that was, ironically, more than enough to set my teeth on edge.

But throughout my ordeal I didn’t squeak…much. Other than the moment when one of them probed, a little too aggressively I fancy, into an area around a particularly sensitive tooth, I gave them nothing but my name, my date of birth, and an update on my recent medical history. And this despite them then trying to bribe me with a fun-size tube of toothpaste and a couple of complimentary interdental brushes. 

That said, suffering perhaps from a form of Stockholm Syndrome, I parted company with my white-coated assailants with a smile and a promise to return in a fortnight’s time for more of the same. Because let’s face it, there’s nothing more fun than being asked to ‘have a little rinse’ before being afforded the opportunity to spit what you had briefly gargled into a receptacle of free-flowing fluid that somehow manages to maintain the illusion that everything that’s just taken place was perfectly normal and clinically appropriate. Even if, with mouth still numb, most of it dribbles down your front. 

But be that as it may, it’s time now for a glass of Hector’s Hooch – a uniquely flavoured brew which, at an ABV of 23%, he promises me, as well as acting as a highly effective oral anaesthetic, might just be enough to make me, if not forget his latest bid for freedom, at least no longer care!

So, we’re all set for yet another Prime Minister – our seventh in the last ten years – an indication, if ever there was one, of how dissatisfied we have been with those who have sought to lead us. Which says as much about us, of course, as it does those we so quickly find wanting. That said, if as it seems likely, it is to be Andy Burnham, I wish him all the very best in a post that, let’s face it, isn’t easy no matter what the political persuasions might be of the one who holds it.

The problem of changing leadership is not, however, a new one. Back in Old Testament times, Israel also looked to a change of leadership in order to restore their fortunes. For years they had been led by a series of flawed Judges, the last of whom was Samuel. And when he grew old, and the sons he’d appointed as his successors were clearly not up to the job, the elders of Israel asked him to appoint a king instead – a move that would bring them into line with how the nations around them were ruled.

That is to say, they wanted to be like everyone else.

And therein lies the problem. Rather than retaining their distinctiveness as the people of God, they wanted to become indistinguishable from the nations around them.  Which was wrong of them – and all the more because, in asking for a king at all, one who would fight their battles for them, they were in fact rejecting the king they already had, the one who had just defeated the Philistines on their behalf. That is to say, they were rejecting God himself.

That said, their misguided rejection of the one who had looked after them so well ever since he’d brought them out of Egypt would not have come as a shock to God, who had anticipated their action many years previously when back in Deuteronomy 17:14-20 he had said this:

‘When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you.’

God, therefore, had anticipated exactly what was going to happen.

But lest you think the words above suggest that God is giving His approval to the idea of a king, God predicting that someone will one day ask for something, in no way endorses that request – and neither should his conceding to the request be taken to mean it was a good one.

Which becomes even clearer in Romans 1 where God, surprisingly perhaps, manifests his righteous anger by giving those who did not honour him as God exactly what they wanted. Three times we read there that God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, to dishonourable passions, and to a debased mind.

Which is a sobering thought isn’t it – for those of us who have ever assumed that God approved of our prayers merely because he granted our request? Because the degree to which our prayer is a godly one, is the degree to which it lines up with the will of God, as revealed to us in scripture, and not the degree to which the thing that we prayed for came about.

But more importantly still, perhaps, is the fact that, according to Deuteronomy 17:15-20, the only King that God is prepared to permit the people to have is one that He chooses himself – one who is an Israelite, who multiplies neither horses nor wives, does not accumulate excessive wealth, and, most significantly of all, fully obeys the law of God.

Which is not the sort of manifesto that many stand on today when it comes to seeking election. Not that we would be able to identify such a one if they did, given how easily we are fooled by outward appearances. Which is precisely why we should allow God – the one who looks on a person’s heart – to choose who will rule over us.

So then, when God tells Samuel to give the people the king they want, rather than being a benevolent act on his part, it can in fact be seen as an expression of his righteous judgment. But in urging Samuel to solemnly warn them of the consequences of what they are doing, by having him lay out in detail what they are letting themselves in for, even in judgment, God is being patient with them, giving them an opportunity to change their mind and showing how, as the apostle Peter will one day put it, he is not wishing that any should perish.

So how does God say the wrong type of King will treat the people? Well in short, he tells them, the King that they chose for themselves will be one who makes them his slave. [1 Samuel 8:17]

But thinking that they knew best, Israel didn’t heed the warning they were given, they continued to insist that they would have a king of their own choosing, in order that they could be just like the other nations. And rather than a king who would fight their battles, ended up with one who wouldn’t, one who, rather than being willing to serve them, would always put himself first.

God, then, gave them over to the consequences of rejecting his own perfect rule.

But it is not a fate that we need to suffer ourselves – not if we make a different decision, not if we are content to have Jesus as King, not if we are prepared to bow before him as our sovereign Lord.

Because unlike any fallen leader – be they those who remain in power for decades by oppressing the people they rule over, or whether they are here today and gone tomorrow, replaced, seemingly, on the whim of a people who are foolish enough to think that substituting one failed leader for another will put things right – Jesus is God’s chosen King, the one Israel should always have been looking out for.

Which is not to say that political leaders are all necessarily worthless. Not at all. Because it is possible to have godly leaders and by God’s grace good leaders who profess no Christian faith. As Martin Luther once said, ‘I’d rather be governed by a competent Turk, than an incompetent Christian.’

Furthermore it is possible for there to be good kings. For whilst the request of the elders was, as we’ve been considering, an evil one, it was one that was ultimately used by God for good. Because his granting of a king to Israel, whilst an act of judgement, was at the same time, part of his saving plan.

Because as would one day be the case again on Calvary, God’s sovereign plan and the people’s evil intention are, paradoxically perhaps, not at odds with one another.

Because after King Saul came King David – chosen by God having been recognised by Him as a man after his own heart.

But even David was a flawed leader. He was both an adulterer and a murderer – proving that an even greater king was required. One who, being both fully God and fully man, had a heart that was completely in tune with God.

For only such a one as he could ever fulfil God’s criteria of what a good King must be. An Israelite. One who did not multiply horses but entered Jerusalem on a humble donkey. One who did not multiply wives but remained single all his life. One who, without a place to lay his head, lived a life of poverty rather than accumulating excessive wealth. And most significantly of all one who lived according to God’s law, from the day he was born in poverty till the day he died on a cruel Roman cross.

That’s why Jesus is uniquely qualified to be the Christ – God’s anointed King!

And isn’t he the kind of King we want? A good king, a gracious king, a merciful king. A king who loves us, who really will fight our battles for us – as indeed he already has by defeating our greatest enemy, even death itself, by suffering and dying in our place and, in so doing, bearing the punishment for our sins so that we no longer need to bear it ourselves.

And isn’t that the kind of King we should be willing to follow. Just as he calls us to do – albeit by taking up our own cross and, if necessary, being prepared to suffer too?

If so, we must follow the same path as he did. Because it’s not just leaders who are called to follow the path of righteousness. Proverbs 4:27 urges us all to be obedient when it says: ‘Do not turn to the right or to the left and to keep your foot from evil.’

Which is a theme that continues on into the New Testament when Jesus cautions us by saying, ‘Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, [but] the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.’ 

So, it’s not easy being a follower of Jesus. Like he was hated by the world, so too sometimes will we. But until the day Christ returns, we must be prepared to be a part of a church, a body of believers that unlike the elders of Israel wants to be distinct from the world. We need to be those who remain faithful to God and are content to walk in the way of the Lord by endeavouring to follow the path of righteousness illuminated as it is by the light of God’s word.

Sadly though, this is not always what some parts of the church seem to want – those that, desiring to be just like the nations, sometimes affirm what the world takes pride in even when it is clearly contrary to the word of God. And once that broad path is started down, one finds that it only gets broader – meaning that, when the church refuses to be salt and light in a dark and decaying world, the world only gets darker, and all the more rotten too.

But know this. Despite the challenges he knew the church would one day face, despite knowing those who would one day be a part of it – which includes me, and perhaps you as well – Jesus said that he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

So then, let’s resolve to be distinctive, let’s commit to be the ‘peculiar’ people of God and let’s endeavour to live as the people he wants us to be. Let’s be those who are joyfully content with the God who is, rather than miserably manufacturing a god who is content with us.

Let’s do the hard thing. Let’s be honest enough to ask ourselves how we may be turning aside from God’s word and, having recognised where we are falling short, let’s repent of our sin and ask the Holy Spirit to help us put that part of ourselves to death.

And let’s remember that 40 days after his glorious resurrection from the dead, and moments after commissioning his followers to go and make disciples of all nations Jesus ascended – not just to heaven but to a throne.

From which he continues to reign today.

And so, whilst we await confirmation of who our new Prime Minister will be, and whilst we should pray for him and honour his office, let’s not forget who’s really in control. Let’s not forget that Jesus is King – irrespective of whether the world recognises the fact. And let’s not forget that it is he who has been chosen by God to reign over us – in an everlasting Kingdom where one day, every tear will be wiped away, and death will be no more.

 

It’s hard being not okay – irrespective of the reason – whether it’s sickness, sadness or some other form of suffering.

Because they’ll be those who say you look okay, and assume therefore you are. And those who’ll like to insist it’s okay to not be okay, which it isn’t – not for you at least – not in practice, even if it is in theory.

And then they’ll be those who, no doubt trying to be helpful, will say that you’ve got this – whatever ‘this’ is – and so can make everything okay. Only you haven’t, and you can’t – and are therefore only made to feel worse as a result.

So what’s to be done?

Well perhaps you could try hanging out with the one who once hung on a cross.

The one who is no more okay with how things are than you are; who won’t underestimate the not okay-ness, won’t trivialise it by suggesting you can fix it, and won’t criticise you for not doing more to help yourself.

Because having once experienced a not okay-ness even greater than yours – only to come out the other side – he holds both you and your not okay-ness in hands that are far bigger than yours.

For he can carry what you cannot, and delights in what he will one day deliver – a day when every tear will be wiped away and death will be no more, when everything will be more than okay, because everything will be just perfect.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. [Psalm 34:18]

A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. [Isaiah 42:3]

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Related blogs:

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

‘No thank you – life’s too short’

That was my response to the very friendly barista in Coffee #1 when he asked if I’d like to start a loyalty card for that particular chain of caffeine dens that I found myself in this week.

To be honest with you, I’m not sure why the words spilled out of my mouth. Having done so, however, I felt obliged to reassure the poor chap that I was in no way suggesting that my state of health was so fragile that it was unlikely that I’d live long enough to imbibe the ten hot – or cold – beverages necessary for me to claim a free Americano. 

That said, now that I’m approaching sixty and my enthusiasm for unnecessary excitement is beginning to wane, were I ever to acquire a terminal diagnosis – something I suppose I ought to get round to organising before it’s too late – I suspect the goal of attaining such a drink-based reward would be just the kind of thing I’d likely put on my bucket list. 

Only I might opt for a macchiato – because, let’s face it, you only die once.

And so I was left wondering what I should make my primary goals for the few remaining months, or perhaps years – let’s not be pessimistic – that I have left. By which I don’t mean the writing of a will – I’m not that boring – but rather, for example, whether, on discovering I’d come out without my Waterstones card, I should dash home and return with it to make sure any points earned by my purchase of a book could be immediately added to my tally. I’m joking of course – that would be ridiculous – but in the unlikely event of my buying ‘War and Peace’ – or ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ come to that – it would be good to know if the points they’d accrue could be used to posthumously swell those I’d already collected!

And whilst we’re on the subject of how commercial enterprises deal with their deceased former customers, does anyone know whether those Sainsbury’s Bags for Life are transferable? Because if they’re not, I’m blowed if I’ll be buying any more!

This week I also had cause to buy a new lawnmower – the previous incumbent having ended its days through neglect rather than overuse. It came with a two-year guarantee which may or may not see me out, but what I am now looking forward to is the inevitable phone call offering me complete peace of mind – something it will no doubt be claimed can be mine simply by my paying to extend the length of the warranty. But if added years come at a cost, I’m minded to ask for a refund in the event of me not needing the full use of the 24 months my new purchase came with. 

Quite why I bothered with such garden equipment though, I really couldn’t say as I’ve recently been investing time and effort in trying to rewild my back garden. Well I say effort, but the truth of the matter is that none is required and, more pertinently, the beauty of the scheme is that after my death, it will continue on apace without me.

So at least I now know what my legacy will be. Which is just as well, as these days, much like an acceptable cause of death, you can’t die till you’ve got one to leave behind!

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Related post:

To read ‘A Dead Good Day’, click here

Imagine there was something of infinite value – a precious jewel that, though only just out of reach, could only be obtained if you were able to give your complete attention to a simple task that would make it yours to keep. 

Would you, I wonder, be able to claim the prize?

Because according to ‘Stolen Focus’, the book by Johann Hari that I’ve been reading this week, it seems likely that most of us wouldn’t. Why? Well, because of our ever-decreasing attention spans that are the result of us now being constantly distracted – principally by the electronic devices that so many of us have become so dependent on.

By which I mean addicted to.

The book gives a fascinating insight into what we are allowing to happen to our brains – one that is both sobering to read and something of a wake-up call for those of us who, with the latest smartphone in our pocket, believe we’re living the dream but are in fact sleepwalking into a more disaffected tomorrow. Because having promised to connect us with the whole world, what they have delivered has left us only more isolated and alone.

And in case anyone was wondering if I’m pointing a finger, I most certainly am. But first and foremost at myself – someone who is very much aware, not only of how I am more easily distracted than I used to be, but also of the obvious irony that, in the unlikely event of anyone reading as far as this, they have almost certainly done so on a social media platform – one of the increasing number that are, perhaps, most responsible for our growing inability to concentrate that, if we care to notice it, many of us are currently experiencing.

Last week I heard Grayson Perry and, if memory serves, Michael Rosen on Radio 4. They were being asked about the effects of the proposed social media ban for under 16s. And, interestingly, they both spoke of the importance of boredom as a stimulus for their own creativity – how taking time out allowed them to think and, in so doing, gave opportunity for original ideas to emerge.

All of which leads me to wonder if, in our desperate attempt to remain constantly amused – a word meaning ‘entertained’ but which might equally be taken to mean ‘without thought’ – we will lose what it is to both produce and enjoy art in all its many forms. And whether that will inevitably result, not only in us leading less interesting lives, but in becoming increasingly diminished ourselves.

In stark contrast to our relatively superficial thought life, Hari talks in his book about what he calls ‘flow’ – by which he means that blissful feeling we experience when we are ‘in the zone’ – fully focused on something that we are more than happy to give our full attention to. 

But in order for us to find ourselves in such a sublime state, Hari, referencing the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, says there are three conditions that need to be met. Firstly we have to have a single goal – because multitasking as a means of greater efficiency has now been shown to be a myth which, rather than increasing productivity, actually achieves the complete opposite. Secondly that goal that Hari suggests we require is one that we must find meaningful. And thirdly, the thought that we are engaged in has to stretch us a little, taking us into areas of understanding that might be new to us and in which we might not normally feel comfortable.

And so the question inevitably arises: what, if any, of our life goals might come anywhere close to meeting these suggested requirements?

The possible answers to that question are no doubt many and varied, differing according to each individual’s particular interests. But for me, and perhaps you, one of the more obvious would be cricket – specifically the four-day county game which includes periods of play that are sometimes slow but which, far from tedious, allow time for variation and, as a result, make matches much more interesting.

Furthermore these are games played by players you are familiar with, those who, for the most part, have been part of your team for years. And so they are games played by people you care about. This is in stark contrast to franchise competitions whose truncated games tend towards homogeneity and where the team you are encouraged to support, despite largely having the same name each year, are made up of a markedly different set of players.  

You are therefore less invested in ‘your team’ and, as a consequence, less likely to stick with them through thick and thin. More than that though you are hard pressed to give any individual game your full attention, such are the distractions that you’ll quite literally be bombarded with – be that the music that incessantly spews out over the public address system, the big-screen crowd games designed to amuse (there’s that word again) or the prospect of a promotional T-shirt being thrown in your face, in all probability whilst a camera is being pointed directly at you. It’s almost as if the promoters of such tournaments have no confidence in what they would no doubt call their ‘product’ – it’s almost as if they know the format they’re espousing needs to be concealed with colourful but ultimately meaningless sideshows, due to its own inherent lack of depth.

There are of course more significant things than even county cricket – and I’m not talking here of Test matches which, for me at least, have become less interesting as a result of games no longer being shown on terrestrial television, and players rarely now playing for their counties. The result of these changes has been the ordinary supporter rarely has a chance now to watch international players in action – a ‘development’ that I would suggest has been ultimately detrimental to the sport as a whole. 

But be that as it may, at a time when genuinely important events are ever before us, when global conflicts and natural disasters wreak havoc in the lives of millions, and our own individual lives are themselves fraught with difficulties and distress, it seems a shame that the future of county cricket should continue to be threatened by those who are only interested in how much money can be made from it.

Because in these days when we have much we need to think about, pay attention to, and concentrate on, the opportunity afforded by the four-day game to practice these essential skills might just be of more value than most people appreciate – making county cricket a precious jewel that we can’t afford to let slip through our fingers. 

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Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here