The longest daySaturday
5:15 AM
Ugh. I am so tired. No one is supposed to be up at this time. On a Saturday. I am having to haul my ass to Old Trafford to get on the coach to go to the Oval. Thanks to the wonderful foresight and planning of the English Cricket Board we are having to drive 4:30 hours to get to the final.
5:27 AM
Its already started. One of the coach drivers has declared that his "Rule Book" says that he can only drive 4 hours at a time. He says the furthest he can go is to Stamford Bridge and leave everyone there. The other alternative is to wait an hour or so until he can find a co-driver.
A £50 bung later and we're on our way.
6:15 AM
I am not sitting next to my dad. I am sitting next to a giant of a man who is taking up at least 1.5 seats. The mini-coach I am on doesn't have much leg room. But he has plenty. Mainly because he has loads of mine. I have to stretch my legs out down the aisle.
7:05 AM
Hurray, we're stopping! Hurray, our driver sped up to make sure we were the first coach there so we'd get a longer break! Hurray, we're first in the queue! Hurray, there's a costa coffee! Hurray, my dad's buying bacon and sausage sarnies! Hurray!
7:45 AM
I have forgotten to change my money. For those that didn't know, Londoners use a different currency to the rest of Britain. The exchange rate is pretty poor. For every two Manchester Pounds you get one London Pound. Surely that can be the only reason why beer costs £3 a pint. And a 10p bag of fizzy cherry cola bottles costs 20p.
I am at a cash machine. "This machine will charge you £1.80 for this transaction." I look around the service station. This is the only machine. And there is a queue forming behind me. I need money. I have no option but to push yes. And as I do, I hear a cackle from a distant banking office as the Chief Executive uses this £1.80 to invest in another baby seal sandwich.
8:00 AM
Back on the road.
Damn it! I've just realised that the cooked chicken and egg fried rice I bought from Sainsburys is sitting in my fridge. All I have to survive on is fruit and a couple of sandwiches.
8:10 AM
They put LotR:RotK on the DVD player. I've decided to speak in acronyms as this blog post is already 10x longer than usual and I'm only at 8AM.
9:10 AM
Hmm, that huge coffee may have been a mistake. Especially as I've just opened a 2 litre bottle of water. Still we're 5 miles from Milton Keynes, we won't be that much longer. And Gondor is riding to Minis Tirith.
9:30 AM
We pass the junction for Whipsnade Zoo. The driver makes the first of his standard jokes. "Wouldn't you rather go to the Zoo instead". He gets a pity laugh for thinking that is the cutting edge of comedy.
10:30 AM
We have reached the spiritual home of cricket! This is Lords. It is looking resplendent. It makes you proud to be a cricket fan. We stand in quiet awe of the place. Looking at the ancient pavilion and the green grass of the Nursery End.
Until someone points out that we're actually playing in South London at the Oval. We get back on the coach.
10:45 AM
I have finished my water. A toilet stop would be nice.
10:50 AM
Its so nice to see armed police out on the streets protecting British interests from terrorists. They look like they would give their lives to keep us safe. They would put their Britain's interests ahead of their own. I think as we drive by the American Embassy.
11:00 AM
Oooh, look there's Baker Street, Trafalgar Square and Big Ben. And there's the Mall. And why the hell did the driver think taking us through the central London would be the quickest way.
11:02 AM
My bladder is about to explode.
11:15 AM
The backlash has started on our coach. The large gentleman I am sitting next to is complaining about the way the coach driver took.
"He should've gone North Circular, South Circular. That would've been much quicker."
"Wow, you know London so well. Maybe you should offer to drive us home."
"Me? I don't drive."
"Oh, I just thought you must be an excellent driver since you know better than a professional driver."
"I know everything. I could tell this driver where to go. He's the most useless driver we've every had. Finding the ground is easy. Look, he shouldn't've gone that way."
"Maybe you should tell him. Here I'll get up and you go and tell him."
There is a stunned silence. I don't think he gets sarcasm.
11:20 AM
We are going to miss the start.
11:30 AM
We admit we are lost and pull over. The driver admits he doesn't know where we are going and that he was just following the coach in front. The coach driver in front also admits he didn't know where he was going and was following the coach in front. Which he lost sight of 45 minutes ago.
11:45 AM
The pain in my bladder is excruciating. I am nearly doubled over in pain.
11:50 AM
We find the Oval Tube station. I go for a McShite in a pub. The sigh of relief could be heard back in Manchester.
Noon
We are in the ground! And have missed the first 30 minutes. But at least Frodo got to the throw the ring into Mount Doom.
2:30 PM
The first match is out of the way and a convincing Lancashire victory. Now we can look forward to the main reason we are here. The reason why we got out of bed at such an un-godly hour. The mascot race!!! Lanky the Giraffe is defending champion.
I have noticed recently, that there is a similarity in the way Lanky dances and the way Lofty the Lion of Bolton Wanderers dances. Maybe they are related... hmm, I also don't recall having ever seen them in the same place together either.
3:00 PM
Lanky finished in the top 5 in a race won by Carmen the Warwickshire Bear. She beat off competition from the Sussex Shark.
6:15 PM
Girls Aloud are coming on! I can't wait to see them. I'm not fussed as to which songs they sing, its more a matter of what they look like and they on the far side of the ground so I can't see them. And the big screen has broken. And the sound system is crap so I can't even hear what they're miming to.
And its raining.
8:15 PM
The rain subsides, Lancashrie collapse, I was on Sky Sports and Somerset win.
That is all that will be said about the cricket.
10:50 PM
We find the coach. The driver has bought a map. We head off home.
10:55 PM
We are heading towards Portsmouth.
11:10 PM
The large gentleman sitting next to me is asleep. Thankfully he has his seatbelt on, otherwise he'd have fallen on top of me. He is limper than Graham Norton's wrist and is as life less as a crash test dummy. I am thankful that my iPod has charge in it.
12:45 PM
I swear I fell asleep for about 10 minutes. I was woken up when the guy in front decided to mistake my knee for his arm rest.
1:15 AM
We stop for a short toilet break. We are all tired. You can tell everyone is tired because people have stopped moaning.
3:00 AM
We are back at Old Trafford. I go home to bed.
This has been the longest day of my life. Apart from that time when I foiled a presidential assassination, averted a nuclear threat on Los Angeles and stopped the release of a deadly chemical weapon. But we'll keep them for another time.
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