What with the fumes and the traffic, London bus conductors generally have a steady line in black humour, and the clippie on the No 13 from Hampstead on Thursday morning couldn't quite believe that anyone was getting off outside the home of cricket. It's just possible he'd been blackballed for MCC membership, but probably had more to do with the fact that his vehicle had been buffeted all the way down the Wellington Road like a trawler through the Bay of Biscay.
Test cricket is already down to nine.
Any cricket yesterday would have done, and England performing well was an added bonus. For the moment, though, cricket's latest gadget is Hawkeye - a machine programmed to inform the viewer whether the umpire has made a correct lbw decision. Up until now, this has largely been left to the players, via the usual series of pouts, postures, and other assorted wobblers, but Hawkeye is the latest contender in the inexorable move to take every element of human involvement out of decision making. Dickie Bird had his faults, but it's doubtful whether, in years to come, they'll be queuing outside the MCC bookshop for a copy of Hawkeye's autobiography. Hawkeye, as it happened, had a quietish start to its Test career, only twice indicating that the ball might have gone on to hit the stumps.