22:10 NZT Sun 19th

Let’s do this backwards.

Sunday: Woke up with what must have been hypoglycemia at 4.45am. I was having an ordinarily horrible dream about sit-ups. I’d been out on the fitness trail in Hagley Park that morning and done 25 of the dratted things. In the dream I was unable to do one, but somehow I was experiencing up-and-down head jerks.

As I jolted awake this movement seemed to be continuing. I thought it would go away but as I stared at the red digits of the alarm clock which were streaking down in my blurred vision (like several lines of identical text I was scanning down, if that makes sense) it didn’t. In fact it got quite a bit worse.

I felt god-awful – nauseous, feverish. Covered in sweat and butt naked I staggered to the loo and was unable to vomit, since my stomach was empty. I hadn’t really eaten the day before – only a falafel pita for lunch and some fruit. On top of which I drank about six cups of strong coffee whilst trading the ODI, which was relatively stressful, before having a hot bath and going to bed with the fan on.

There are drinks and sweeties in the minibar in Reception. It was a struggle to put on some trunks and a T shirt but I fretted about passing out alone in the room and not being found. Flopping downstairs I broke all dieting rules by laying waste to half a can of Coke and a Mars bar.

I still felt dire and spread myself out in the recovery position on the floor by the lift. No receptionist around. A couple coming back late stepped over me. After 10 mins I had to dash outside to be violently and liquidly ill, attracting whoops of derision from four local lads going home after the night. Back into the recovery position and I was well enough to drag the corpse back upstairs after another 20 mins.

That’ll teach me to stay in my room and go to bed early and hungry because I don’t fancy eating alone in restaurants.

I woke up again at eleven and wandered out to conquer this particular demon by having a high protein, high carb brunch and an ice-cream. This last treat was to reward Mummy’s little soldier for being brave and not dying of a mystery illness in the night. I spoil myself rotten. Still feel awkward eating out alone.

Then off to the QEII Stadium in suburban Christchurch to see an international soccer friendly between the All-Whites and Malaysia. It was $10 to get in, which is less than a fiver. I saw the last third of the curtain raiser between Canterbury United and Auckland City and settled down to read the program for an hour between games.

However I quickly recouped the price of admission when the Canterbury Brass Band, complete with Chelsea Pensioner-esque uniforms, took their place on the bandstand. Engrossed in reading about Adrian Webster’s travails as a journeyman footballer with Darlington FC I picked up a faint tune from the band. It was sort… of… familiar but not on a muted trumpet.

Because I’m.
Easy Come.
Easy Go.
Little High, Little Low.

!!!

They went on to play a full version of Bohemian Rhapsody, transposed for a brass band, Scaramouche and all. The French horns didn’t want to die – in fact they sometimes wished they’d never been born at all. The cornets were collectively just a poor boy, very possibly from a poor family. The whole funky ensemble just had to get out, just had to get RIGHT OUTTA HERE. It was fantastic, and I was the only person pissing themselves laughing about it.

Frankly the scrappy game of football which followed was something of a disappointment.

NZ were big at the back, with former Leeds Utd defender Danny Hay towering over the Malays. The All Whites play an English style crash-and-bash game and suffer very English faults such as being shit at going forward with any kind of control.

The Malays had a couple of comedy midfielders and lost their shape quite easily. At one stage they seemed to be experimenting with an novel 2-7-1 formation which involved five blokes on the right hand side of midfield.

It finished 1-0 – the Kiwis outmuscled a tiring Malaysia to nick a scalpers goal six minutes from time. The All Whites ought to have converted at least one of the several good chances they had in the air earlier in the game, and 2-0 would have been a fair result.

Saturday. Aside from not eating much (see above) I had to stay in from 8 till 10 listening to the “Cricket Club” on NZ Sports Radio and go to work on the 1st ODI from 12.30.

I won’t go into details of the game. It was a small win for us, largely because I got lucky on a couple of runs bets which weren’t particularly sharp. I matched about 250k on the match odds market and would have won every penny in the world if the Windies had copped. Just as they started to come into the match on the back of a good stand between Sarwan and Ganga they lost a wicket. I never really got a price to close out on the Kiwis but crushed some of my liability at roughly neutral odds. I have to give up lots of slippage to get 100k through quickly, which I never like. That’s liquidity risk for you.

Friday. Seems a while ago now.

I ran Hagley Park in the morning, wandered the same streets as Thurs whilst coming to the realisation that I really had seen downtown Christchurch on the first morning, like a child unwrapping all his presents at once, and that there wasn’t much to do. I wandered off the Jade Stadium in the afternoon and scouted around, scheming of a way to meet the groundsman and ask him technical questions about the preparation of drop-in wickets. This may prove hard to accomplish.