Hawker with a difference

After a couple of weeks in this country, you get used to people stopping you in the street. Usually, they're trying to sell you something, either a taxi ('Yes sir, taxi!' is probably the one phrase I've heard more than any other in the last fortnight), or something off their stall, be it clothes, books, computer games or tourist pap. Sometimes, however, they're just being friendly and saying hello, so you can't just ignore everyone. If someone says hello, you say hello back.

So it would have been rude to dismiss instantly the approach of a young man last night as i perused the book stalls along Coloba Causeway, looking for some reading matter for my journey home. After all, he started with a friendly 'Hello', and then commenced chatting.

It was only after a minute or so that I realised he was selling something after all: himself. What's more, he wouldn't take no for an answer, perhaps reasoning that a persistent approach might convince me that what I really wanted to go to bed with wasn't just a good book. And that I might be willing to unveil some of my good hard currency for the pleasure.

Now I didn't really mind as such - he has to earn a living somehow, I suppose. But the episode did trouble me a little.

Do I look like I have to resort to paying?


Thesaurus Insufficient

After three compelling days, we had six and a half hours of the most stultifyingly dull cricket today, as England played about eight million forward defensives to creep towards a winning position. The game is well-poised now for the final day, so the team will claim their tactics were justified; but you can't help feeling that a little more positive intent could have yielded a lead that would have made the game safe, and thus enabled Flintoff to set more attacking fields tomorrow.

But worst of all, it was just a truly horrible batting performance from England, and even thesaurus.com can't help me in my hour of need. Abject? Pathetic? Ignominious? Squalid? Odious? Pusillanimous? No, none of these will quite do. There's only one way I can really describe it: England's batting today was a bag of arse.

But with Jimmy looking lively, hope springs eternal. (Hint: try singing "Whoa, Jimmy Jimmy / Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Anderson" to the tune of 'Son of My Father' by Chicory Tip. Then get a thousand other mildly sunburnt English people to join you. It's immensely satisfying).