TMS

There is one good side to the cricket no longer being terrestrial television. I've had to resort to listening to Test Match Special on Radio 4 long wave, which in a digital age is surprisingly difficult. To my knowledge it wasn't available today on digital radio on account of the French Open tennis taking over Radio 5 Live Sports Xtra, so the only way I could listen was through the internet. Unsurprisingly, today's play was interrupted by bad weather, comprising rain and hail, but Test Match Special is at its best when filling in for a lack of actual action. We were treated to absurdist reminiscences by Viv Richards about the first time he was in Britain as a young man. He told a story of how he was stood at a bus stop waiting to go to a party, when it started hailing. Having never seen hail before (Antigua doesn't get much), he thought the world was ending and ran all the way home. There was a dispute about the meaning of the word "bravo" and many descriptions of variously dressed nuns, leprechauns and "Hawaiian dancers or whatever they are".

England won by a record margin, and TMS succeeded in accompanying the extreme tedium of my day's work indexing book proofs. Happy fiftieth birthday!

Tags: testmatchspecial, tms, radio

Labels: cricket