Mighthy Ightham (cont. again)

Right who's next? Ahhh.

Andy Moodie AKA Moodos, Moods: (No need for explanation on this one. But I'm going to do it anyway. His real name has the" y" sound on the end already so we can't put another one on. We've tried.)

Over the years Moodos has probably been our most prolific run scorer. Many is the twelve year old, would-be England bowler who has had his little spirits crushed by Moodos smiting every ball into various parts of Kent, Surrey and Sussex (East and West) and, on one memorable occasion, France. ("Oi Monsieur Pantalon,voulez-vous donnez notre ballon back. Do not worryer. Vous are not being invaded - no need to run away encore.")
Oh yes. Moodos is a master practioner of what the Olympic Commitee now recognise as a martial art. It is entitled "Batting - Ightham style." It's a unique style, or tao if you will, that has evolved over the 200 odd years the club has existed. I'll try to summerise it here. It starts at 5:30PMish the day before the game with essential mental preparation:
1. Get royally arseholed with Benwell/Leggett until about 4AM on the day of the game.
2: Rest.
3: Roughly an hour and 10 mins before the game starts, set off on the hour and a half journey to the ground.
4: Stop at a garage for breakfast. Tuna sandwich (or whatever they have left), Peperami, Lucozade, fags, crisps are the essential food groups our Batting Master requires to operate at peak athleticism.
5: Arrive at ground. Apologise to skip.
6: Change into traditional robes (nylon trousers and two sizes too small shirt).
7: Traditional war cries from one's fellow warriors ring in the ears of our Master as he dons his armour, such as "Hurry up Moodos, you look like shit!"
8: Before long, take up the bat like a warhammer, emerge into the light blinking like a mole and to hoots of derision, bestride the sward, towards the field of battle.
9: If everything has gone according to plan, the nasty fast bowlers will have commenced their rest and the Master will be faced with an elderly spinner, a 12 year old spinner, a seamer with a dodgy back, a 16 year old fast bowler (all pace, testosterone, anger and no common sense), a guileful trundler or someone's mate who turned up at the last minute and said he used to bowl at school.

What am I talking about? It doesn't matter who bowls the first ball at him. It could be Richard III, Michael Holding, the Queen, Zeus, Dale Steyn or a mouse. Literally whatever, however and whoever bowls the first ball, the Master will aim to hit it so hard, it evaporates into ball vapour. Direction - irrelevant. Shot selection - irrelevant. Feet Placement - Laughably irrelevant. Balance - Unrequired. Altitude - Irrelevant. Sutting of the eyes - Essential. Might of swipe - Everything.
The innings will now take one of two directions.
Direction 1: Stumps shattered - The Master walks back to the pav to advise the novice monk/batsmen where they are going wrong.
Direction 2: The ball goes for a 6. The Master will then take 12 balls to score 147, go a shade of red unseen in the human species, achieve a temperature of 3000 degrees Kelvin and become, from that moment onwards, unable to bowl, field, catch or do anything more strenuous than eat cakes, stand, mock, sit, look at things (as long as they're not too bright) and breathe.
Moodos. Drinker. Bon Viveur. Masterbatter.

Where the hell have I been!?

It's the usual excuse. Work. When someone acquires the muddleheaded opinion that I might have a clue what I'm doing, they will occasionally offer me financially remunerated work. And so it behoves me to down blogging tools (a computer, cup of coffee, a furrowed brow, a look that tries to suggest cleverness to the casual onlooker) and just bloody well get on with it for fuck's sake.
My other excuse is tonsillitis. I have just suffered my first, and I hope last, dose of tonillitis. A disease, I previously thought of as the disease of sickly 14 year olds.
It goes like this.
Stage 1: Flu + Sweating
Stage 2: Flu gets better but you get a 'sore throat.'
Stage 3: The 'sore throat' becomes a 'seriously fucking painful. No really, I'm not joking. Seriously fucking painful' throat.
Stage 4: You can't sleep.
Stage 5: You see the doc who laughs at the size of your tonsil which is now a fat, bloated slug, covered in white slime, lying, not tucked away at the back of your throat, no, it's moved out, it's now just in your mouth. You can see it. You can see the veins in it.
Stage 6: You take penicillin.
Stage 7: Gradually it stops hurting, you stop sweating.
Stage 8: Health!

I am somewhere between 7 and 8. Sometime during Stage 5 it can develop into Glandular Fever which is exactly the same as Tonsillitis with the addition of liver problems. Turns out my liver's fucked anyway so it's not that worrying