Cricket at Normandy CC

Yes, I know that this photo is not cricket, but last Saturday I watched the whole of the Olympic mens cycle road race on tv.
I took this photo of the race as it appeared on my tv.

 

Team GB were running plan A that was intended to deliver Mark Cavendish to the front of the race with 1 Km to go. However when it became clear that plan A was not working there did not seem to be a plan B. That was such a shame as the team had made a massive effort to get the wanted result. In the end they were out of the medals.


On Sunday I watched the women's cycle road race. The weather was awful and it contributed to a number of crashes. However the girls of the team did a good job especially Emma Pooley who was often at the front at crucial points on the Box Hill circuit. After a long run into London with heavy rain all the way, Lizzie Armitstead fought out the final sprint for gold with Marianne Vos of Holland. Vos got the gold and Armitstead got the silver and the first medal of the games for team GB.

On Monday I went to the Normandy Cricket Club to watch the first day of a womens T20 county tournament. The counties taking part were Kent, Surrey (where I am residing at the moment), Middlesex and Sussex.

Normandy is only a few miles from where I live and I love to watch cricket where a large number of the top English International players are taking part.

Here are Surrey batting and Sussex fielding at the second oval at Normandy.

Oh dear, Surrey do not seem to be doing too well here. 37 for 7 and only a few overs left.

 

It was time to go and look at the match between Kent and Middx. Kent were batting and a certain C Edwards was out first ball of the match. I was going to ask her for her autograph but decided against it.

 

In the end, Kent managed to win the match fairly easily as Middx struggled to score.

 

Sussex had won the other match with Surrey only managing to get 41 runs in their twenty overs.
So lunch was a bit early and we had only had had one short spell of rain. Most of the time it had been sunny spells and a cool wind that kept the spectactors well covered up. Maybe I was the only only spectator that was not a friend or family member of a player.

Here, Middlesex are batting and Sussex are in the field.

 

There was a lot of verbal encouragement from one player. As expected this was Aaron Brindle. Middlesex only managed to 61 runs in their innings.

 

I went back to the Kent v Surrey match. Surrey had won the toss and chose to bat first. They managed 62 for 9 from their twenty overs.

Now it was time for Kent to bat. This time Charlotte Edwards was back in form. The red cricket ball dipping in from the far right of the photo is about to get crashed into the woods.

 

Rhiannon Dick at the other end gets this ball just above her pads. I am sure it hurt but at least it was from a slow delivery.

 

Charlotte connecting with a ball that was coming in my direction for another four.

 

Charlotte got 31 before being caught out. However Kent soon chased down the required total in just six overs.

So Kent and Sussex won two games, while Surrey and Middlesex lost both of theirs.

Tomorrow the remaining games and final will be played but as the weather does not look good I will not be attending. The British summer strikes again.

Peewit

2012 F1 tv coverage

Having been in Australia for five months and with another few weeks to go, I was keen to see if I could watch the new 2012 season races on local tv.
Obviously Bernie Ecclestone is doing a great job in monetising the sport so that in England in order to watch all the races live you have to take out a special f1 channel subscription at considerable expense. However this strategy could fail as previous viewers like myself are unwilling to accept the cost of watching what seems to be becoming a series of increasingly predictable races from increasingly boring circuits.
The new 2012F1 iPad app is also ridiculously priced at £19.99. This is way above the typical pricing of others apps so again it is one that I shall decline.

So my quest is to see if I can watch the F1 races and practice sessions free, both in England and Australia.
Being in Australia at the moment I have found that the ONE channel run by the Ten network are broadcasting all of the sessions of all of the races. That is great as this is a free terrestrial channel with the only snag being the adverts. However a HDD tv recorder with a 60 sec skip button overcomes this problem. ONE will be taking the Sky commentary with Martin Brundle for the Qualifying and the Race but using their own commentary for the practice sessions.
I have just watched P1 and P2 for the Australian GP coming from Melbourne.
Honestly, the commentary was crap. During the last 10 minutes of the sessions when the drivers and teams were going all out to complete their programs, there was a lot of action on the track and on the tv screen. Did Tom Clarkson comment on this action ? No. He just kept droning on about his thoughts on various driver's performance capability. Usually this was totally unrelated to anything on the screen. It was very frustrating. When asked by a co-commentator to explain the colour coding on tyres for 2012, Clarkson never did give the full answer.
So from now on for practice sessions I will watch the video but listen to the Radio 5Live audio on my iPad. OK I will not be able to skip the ads but at least I will not hear them.
Once I am back in the UK I just need to set up a suitable proxy server so that I can watch the streamed version of the ONE broadcast at http://tensport.com.au/motorsport-live-streaming.htm or if I have problems with that I can try the US coverage from http://www.speedtv.com/

I suspect that Bernie will eventually try to close these loopholes but by then I suspect that the whole circus will have got so boring with night races around desert circuits that it will not be worth watching anyway.

Peewit

Family re-union

It was great to have a couple of weeks with both my daughters over the Christmas break, and even better as we were all in Sydney.

The weather was good so we got to visit a few places.

The opera house

 

Street performer at Circular Quay

 

On the shoreline at McMahons Point

 

Kirribilli

 

A cycle around Bicentennial Park

 

Crowds building for NYE at McMahons Point

 

The fireboat checks out the equipment

 

Almost midnight

 

Fireworks as we enter 2012

 

Pelicans at Fisherman's Beach

 

We did a coastal walk from Collaroy to Manly via Curl Curl beach

 

Palm Beach

 

Jibbon Beach

 

Looking through the harbour entrance from Balmoral Beach

 

How can two weeks pass so quickly ?
My youngest daughter is already back in England.
I will follow in three months.
All the best for 2012

Peewit