When I was but a lad I had a smallish collection of what I now have an enormously large collection of, namely books about cricket. As is the way of these things - 'Which things, cricket books?' 'Don't be so bloody impatient; wait for the rest of the sentence' - some of the books I had when I had only the smallish collection are the books most firmly lodged in the fabric of my memory, most deeply laid down in some corner of what used to be called my brain. I don't necessarily mean the detail of their content. But I mean the look and the feel, and in certain cases even the smell, of those books. One such was a volume called Silver Fern on the Veld by R.T. Brittenden (scroll down); and which is about the New Zealand cricket tour of South Africa in 1953-54. Bert Sutcliffe, remember. Neil Adcock. Aren't you sorry you don't possess a copy?
Well, anyway, it's been the first day of the Test series between England and New Zealand today (technically, I now see, yesterday) - at Lord's. And that's just lovely. The dulcet tones of Richie Benaud: commentator nonpareil, wise old guy, never using two words where one, or even none, will do. The rhythms, the subtleties, the beauties, the sheer wonderful duration of Test match cricket. I think God made it to give people a glimpse of utopia.