Jodhpur Jokes, Bully Boycs, 'balls or no balls' and a dodgy street omlette.

16:52 18/11/2012 Hill View Guest House, Jodhpur

(Bon Iver 2012 is in my ears)

In the weirdest room tonight basically a store room with what can only be fairly described as a sliver of mattress. Only paying a facking quid 20 tho in i. The room does have a bass drum though so might have a play with that. Right let me get this over and done with:

Jodhpur observational comedy.

‘They may call it Jodhpur but they should call it ‘no jodhpurs’ I haven’t seen a fucking pair anywhere. Am I right?’

While I’m at it

More Indian City observational comedy.

‘Udaipur, more like ruddy Rude-aipur. Locals aren’t very helpful.’ (locals were in fact lovely and very accommodating particularly those with guest houses)

‘Chittorgarh?!! should name the place shittorgarh, it’s fair to say I did not enjoy my time there.’

‘Ahmedabad is a bit harsh, Ahmeda-average more like. It’s a satisfactory Gujarati city.’

Right sorry about that. 

RIGHT… Let’s talk CRICKET. (TV talk show, a concept created and devised by Charles Crich.)

Hosted by Boycott, Regular Pundits include Beefy, Gower, Mascarenhas, Harmison and Rob key.

 Matthew Hoggard as the Roving reporter [I imagine him as a Chris Kamara for cricket. ‘Unbelievable Geoff’ could be his catch phrase too, when reporting back to Boycs in the studio. He would do lighthearted cricket stories as well as hard hitting journalism about bribes and stuff, eventually he will be the first cricketer to win a Pulitzer.]

 Beefy will bully Boycott like the old days, perhaps one episode stripping him naked on air for a laugh. Gower is like his little sidekick giggling and goading ‘slap him beefy, slap his bottom’.

Regular features include: Bully Boycott- as described,

Hoggard’s hog challenge, Opening montage shows Hoggard cooking and tucking into a Hog roast, spliced with footage of his best wickets. It then ends with him bowling a hogs head sending stumps cartwheeling. Cutting to a close up shot of Matthew’s face, smiling with hog juice dripping down his chin, title at the top in comic sans.

Matthew invites current and former international players to attempt to eat an entire hog roast whilst wearing batting/wicketkeeping gloves (player’s choice) and a helmet with grill. Pundits in the studio judge: giving scores in the form of runs, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 6 resulting in an innings total. ROB KEY MUST NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE HOG CHALLENGE ARENA AT ANY TIME.

Balls or no ball. Mascarenhas’ idea, Viewers to be shown videos of a bowlers run up and release of the ball. A member of the studio audience then has to guess whether the ball hits the batsmen in the testes or is called a no ball. Prize is a coaching session with any of the presenters, as well as prime hog roast prepared and delivered personally by Matthew Hoggard. No matter what the participant doesn’t go away empty handed depending on the outcome of the video, they receive a ‘Balls’ box or a ‘no ball’ bowling run up marker. Post final series these items will be worth upwards of £50 each on eBay.)

About enough there for a pilot.

Now to the test.

Firstly watching the first day of a test series in India was incredible. As I was walking to the gate, having got my ticket within about 2 minutes of arriving I had the broadest smile on my face. Excitement doesn’t describe it; nervous is a bit one dimensional; anticipation is a bit dry. Nervouslyexcitedanticipation is a bit wordy despite not being an actual word. It was good. 300 rupees for the best ticket about £3.50 in English. Right behind the 3^rd slip at just above ground level. Going in to the stadium I got checked by security 4 times, no cameras allowed along with water and food, some claimed that there scoring book and pen were taken as well.

 A group of England fans started singing Jerusalem as the players came out, now I am not a particularly patriotic man, but in the right context that song always manages to tickle the neck hairs. Overall it was not a good day for England, which in a way was good as I got to see India fans go crazy quite a lot and celebrate the odd wicket from England. Sehwag’s innings was brilliant to watch ‘VIRU VIRU’ and Pujara played some lovely shots. Swann though was the only England player who looked dangerous, could have got 5 on the first day if it weren’t for Trott dropping. Think I cheered Trott up by telling him I loved him when he was on the boundary he gave me a little show of his palm as a thank you. I like to think of him as a manlier Jason Statham.

When Tendulkar came out to bat the roar was amazing as fans ran to get as close to the players entrance as possible. It’s a shame he only managed 15, there was a beautiful 4 through the extra cover in there though. Even when he went off the crowd still screamed their approval. 

Overall despite the poor day for England it was a brilliant day for me. I then got the train to Jodhpur that night, 2 AC sleeper, you get a small wash towel its pretty nice. I ate a whole pack of cookies on the way. Had a good day when I arrived went to the market got some amla, then I walked to the fort found a nice quiet spot over looking the blue city in the fort and read for a 30 minutes. In the evening I went to dinner at a local family’s restaurant in their house and had a  thali with a large bottle of Haywards 5000 an 8% ale. Having finished I was rather well lubricated and went for a coffee on the roof of my hotel and met a couple of German ladies and talked with them for the rest of the night, then  we agreed to watch the sunrise together from the fort in the morning. .

Sunrise was as good as it was anyway else in the world (well done India).  It’s probably the first time I’ve been awake for dawn since Glastonbury 2008.

 In other news I have had the shits, rehydration sachets taste horrid and tesco’s own version of Imodium is not up to the job. I think I got it from a dodgy street omelette yesterday. I wanted to be sure so I had another street omelette today from same vender (Feel like radiolab doing a little experiment. Results so far are inconclusive which is nice). In fairness they are only 30p and you get four slices of bread as well. The fella claims he gets through 1600 eggs a day. Assuming usually it’s a two egg omelettes that’s 800 omelettes. Not even using a Tefal coated pan either.

LOVE YOU BYE