h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi LT&PP, I was just reading a report of England's last warm-up before their first test with South Africa, when I came across a couple of paragraphs that I thought might provide you with some amusement:

Ambling in off his 10-pace run-up, Flintoff launched a delivery of such pace that Clive Eksteen deflected the ball off the top of his bat and onto his helmet before it looped into the hands of Vaughan at point.

"It'll be a huge bonus if he keeps hitting people on the head like that," said Hussain.

Excellent stuff Jonny I believe England went on to collapse in their normal legendary manner.

"Ask h2g2" has an interesting/amusing discussion forum going on with a Yank in England about the "Rules of Cricket". You may want to add this to it.

I am watching Aus v Pakistan live on TV at the moment. The Pakis have Aussie on the ropes

Oops. Brilliant batting by Langer and Gilchrist has seen Aussie through. The Aussies scored the 3rd highest 4th innings total ever put up to win a test.

A marvellous game to watch

West Indies begin their tour of NZ next week. Two tests and five one-dayers including one one-dayer across the road from my house.

Some of my former work-mates ask me if I miss work. They have got to be joking - at least till next winter.

Yeah, that Pakistan / Aussie game sounds like it was a really memorable one, with the upper-hand changing several times.

I think Flintoff's head-striking came in the fourth innings, England actually won the game. It looks like England have actually found some sort of reasonable form (although it seems only 2 or 3 of the top 7 in the order can actually reach a reasonable total in the same game). We'll see. I'll actually be back in England soon, so I'll be able to watch some of it as well. The last cricket I saw was some bizarre coverage of a couple of West Indian sides, all that was shown was the ball leaving the bowlers hand (no run up) and the ball being hit. They only showed the fielding if something interesting happened. Made it completely un-watchable, it's no wonder Americans can't understand the game. Speaking of which, that "ask h2g2" thing takes too long to load, I don't have the patience for it!

Missing work, are they insane? I worked for a company that went into liquidation at the start of June in 1996, which was a really rare English summer with very little rain. I made a half-hearted attempt to find a job, and was unfortunately successful far too soon - I was offered a job at the start of August. I managed to put off starting until the beginning of September, but even then it was a pain to be dragged away from the pubs (well, beer gardens) and Edgbaston (my parents live about 2 miles, if that, from the ground). I am envious of your situation! No need to tell you to enjoy it while you can.

I subscribe (free) to an excellent daily cricket email newsletter.You may want to join up. To subscribe complete the on-line form at
http://www.cricinfo365.com/personalise.imm They supply match reports on all first class games being played world-wide.

The Poms are going well against top competition in SA in the last two games. The Test starting Thursday, hopefully will be competitive.

Further to not working. I was made redundant 10 weeks ago. The newspaper I worked for merged with another one, so two papers became one. Since then I have won over $8000 (tax-free) betting on race horses. No big bets, just $6 easy-bets. The betting agency's computer picks the horses. I can do this from home and watch the races live on TV. Modern technology is wonderful.

Yeah, I get the cricinfo letter too. I'm not sure why though, since I never read it! Well, OK, I do read some of it sometimes but I don't really keep up with anything not involving England unless there's headline that really grabs my attention.

I don't understand this, you've won $8000 betting on horses that the booky picks for you? Sounds like the booky's a bit stupid! How much in the NZ dollar worth? (I guess telling me the price of a pint would be the best way for me to guage this!)

$NZ dollar = UK 33p, US 53c, Aus 80c. The average annual wage in NZ is about $35,000. A pint of beer costs about $3.50

We do not have bookies in NZ. All horse racing/sporting betting is run by the government-owned Totalisater Agency Board. It is set up along similar lines to Britain's lottery but with government and racing industry appointed directors, not a private company like Camelot.

Their computer picks numbers at random, the same as the British Lottery computer. You can, of course, pick your own horses if you want to, the same as in Britain.

For $6 I get the numbers of three horses who have to run 1st, 2nd and third plus an extra number for 3rd (4 numbers to run 3rd) in any order, for me to collect. This is harder than it sounds. Their can be up to 24 horses in a race.

Just over a pound a pint?!! No wonder the NZers I used to live with complained about the cost of everything in London! Thanks for the info. Must put New Zealand in my travel plans!

It doesn't sound like very good odds to me, although it's better than The Lottery (which I gave up doing after 6 months). I've never gambled on a sporting event (well, apart from 1 pound on a rugny world cup prediction competition. Kind of made me wish I'd been a gambling man that - only 2 results wrong out of the 30 group matches, more luck than judgement there) on the basis that I'd just get my loyalties confused by betting against England! What do you stand to win from your $6 stake?

The TAB website is at http://www.ebetonline.com

Your payout all depends if the horses are well-backed on the tote or not. 3 favourites would pay very little. 3 roughies would pay a lot.

My biggest win happened when the winner paid $29, 2nd $11, and the favourite ran 3rd paying $1.50. This combination paid $15,000. I got halve. To have collected the $15,000 I would have had to spend $12.

Most payouts are a lot less than this. I keep to $6 otherwise it could get out of control.

Yeah, it can be easy to get carried away with gambling. I was in Las Vegas earlier this year and caught myself staking $50 on the turn of a card, that may not be much to some people but it's, um, at least 10 beers!

Anyway, have you read that thing about the Atherton/Donald spread betting in cricinfo? I'm tempted by that!

The Donald/Atherton betting thing is intriguing. It would make watching the game a lot more interesting if you had money on it

I'm not sure that Donald has it in him any more, he was out of action for much of the last English season with a dodgy ankle. When he did manage to bowl a few overs towards the end of the season (by which time Warwickshire were beyond hope anyway) he didn't manage too much. I guess he could be fully recovered by now though, we'll know in three or four days time...

A great line on England's plight from the Sydney Telegraph newspaper: `By the end of the third over, when four England captains had come and gone, three of them without scoring, the game was already well advanced'.

Not gloating, just reporting

Oh what do I care? Stupid $^%!ing game! Damn, actually I do care - I've got 2 pints riding on South Africa making 450 in their first innings. I rather fear the game is lost whether they do or not. Nice piece of journalism though, so thanks for that.

I am watching Aus v Pakistan on TV at the moment. Exciting stuff

This is a post from the live web coverage at http://www.smh.com.au
Wasti completes a maiden and that's lunch on the second day, with Australia 4/291. Langer is 112 and Ponting 130. What a brilliant session from the Australians, scoring 120 runs, continuing the fast scoring rate which has been prevalent in this test series. The Pakistanis really look disinterested out there and the Aussies look as if they will establish a huge lead.

On another channel I am watching the World U17 soccer final between Brazil and Aus. 0-0 coming up to full-time. A Kiwi is leading the golf at the Australian Open but alas I haven't enough TVs to watch that at the moment.

You're sat there with 2 TVs and a remote in each hand...

...so, how are you holding your beer?

Drinking occurs during the commercial breaks