A Trip To The North-East

Why aye man pet! And that is the last I will attempt of the lyric qualities of north-eastern dialect.

Just back from a trip with some of the usual suspects to play golf and to take in a day's test cricket at Chester-le-Street. A pleasure as always. We had a preliminary game of golf at Melton Mowbray (where AO is a member) which went passably well by my own dull standards until I collapsed as if spineless on the last two holes to hand the win to our host. In the smallness of those two holes I threw in three shots in a greenside bunker and a shanked chip when triumph still beckoned. Defeat was thus wondrously snatched from the jaws of victory.

Dunstanburgh Castle Golf Club

Most of Saturday was spent crawling up the A1(M) to our destination of Dunstanburgh Castle Golf Club. The long trek was worth it. I have an affection for Dunstanburgh dating back to 1975 when Brother and I played it during a family holiday. The Northumberland coast is a matchless piece of deific design. My golf was matchless rubbish but hey ho.

After the golf we journeyed back to Newcastle to our base at the Grand Station Hotel - a piece of faded glory with high ceilings, large rooms and coldish showers. A reliable base from which to strike out into the wonders of Newcastle night-life. Such life seems to be defined by a lack of adequate female clothing and a penchant for wearing what is available in a size too small. It is rather like our own Broad Street but somehow less self-conscious. This might be me romanticising the northern charm. Anyway I'm glad to say there are some proper drinking pubs where you don't have to shout over the music and climb over prone bodies.

great sliding banisters

Test cricket needs all the friends it can get in facing the tasteless international onslaught of franchise-based Twenty20 slogfests. In that context the spirit shown by Sri Lanka in a losing cause on Sunday was welcome. What is not, on balance, welcome is much of the mirthless humour of the pissed-up crowd in the cheap stands. I don't expect to sit in cathedral hush to watch my cricket and some of the badinage is even rather clever but the constant braying of the same inanities is tiresome and unfair on those in proximity to the noisome bunch. My particular loathing was reserved for a scouse tosser (this is a medical term) in front of me who was under the mistaken impression that his racist under-appreciation of Moeen Ali would be welcomed as humour. As I say, tosser.  It is a sobering thought that he will presumably get the same number of votes as all the rest of us in the forthcoming referendum. No wonder people become patrician eurocrats. In the end you can't let these bastards win.