Morning all

0700 Monday - up all night again - it's those two dropped catches at Thatcham on Saturday - been unable to sleep since. No, it's another overnight shift. It's been a busy one, but I tell you what, in those odd idle moments, when the guard drops and the mind wanders, there's nothing like a leisurely read of the Thames Valley League website.

0420 hours. Sunday July 8, 2007. It's been a long dark night of the soul ... dwelling on that preposterous dismissal against North Maids (rarely, I repeat, rarely have I been out ‘fair-and-square') ... or maybe it was that conversation with Tank (I never knew he keeps bees) that troubled my communion with Morpheus. Sadly, the real reason is much more mundane - my darling daughter having a little ‘accident'.

Anyway, it's good to be back.

Hello chums,

It’s your old mate 'Cuddles' here … no more the ‘Shoveller’ as my girth rapidly heads in the direction of Coyney/Wildthing-type proportions after a winter of sitting on my backside. Of wintering badly, Reaper.

Who cares? Not me. I’m cruising (not in your sense, Bidders) comfortably into middle age.

Finish your breakfasts up boys and girls - sorry Mr.Dobson, there's a cornflake attached to your jowls; Qureshi, that is fried egg on your tie - here's your latest cartload of dross from Bray's twilight zone. That place stalked by the talented young, the talentless old .... cricketing life's hard luck stories.

Wait a minute though, you don't have to be rubbish to be sad, do you? Come on, I think you know where I'm going on this one ....

The fools,

They've been naïve enough, misguided enough, reckless enough to be beguiled by the literary twitchings of Bray's answer to Shane McGowan/Les Patterson/a sort of Luke Dobson with big words.

May they see the error of their ways.

Gentlemen,

I must tender my apologies ahead of this Sunday. I am otherwise occupied, putting the finishing touches to ghostwriting "Me and other East Berkshire Cricketing Legends of the late 20th Century - The Lee Owens Story." It's a brief work.