Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the 'First, Maybe Last, Official h2g2 Presidential Cricket Match' will be held next spring during my visit to England for the Spring London Meet. It will be held in Tockington, which is a lovely village near Bristol, on the 6th of May.

The Rev Jack Russell has arranged for us to use the village cricket pitch and clubhouse. He also has mates who are willing to play against us if we can't rustle up enough Researchers for two teams.

How, you may well ask, did this glorious thing even come about? You know how we all make lists of things we want to do before we die? Well, one of the things on my list is to watch a live cricket match. I mentioned this in one of my journal entries. Pinniped, h2g2's most famous seal, decided that it would be even more fun if we had an h2g2 match. I immediately agreed. The h2g2 Cricket Match was born.

It is early days, but I want those of you who would like to participate to put the date on your calendars. We need players, scorekeepers, referees, caterers, and of course spectators. Surely we have enough h2g2 Researchers who enjoy cricket to make this a successful event.

There will be quite a few details to work out before the match. I plan to create a page for the planning. In the meantime, if you are interested, please let us know here. I'll contact you as soon as the Cricket Page is available.

As to the date, I selected it for a couple of reasons. First, it is the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend. This seems like a good time for it, since most of you won't have to work the next day. Also, it is your President's birthday. I thought it would be nice to do something memorable on that day, since I have never really celebrated my birthday with parties and special events the way a lot of people do. I decided that at my age it was finally time I did something fun for my birthday.

Now, I'm trying desperately to learn the laws of cricket. This is made more difficult by not having any matches available to watch. So if any of you know of available videos of cricket matches/instruction, please let me know. Baseball is so much easier to understand. The more I read about cricket, the more confusing it seems.

I know that it is just a week after the spring meet, but that can't be helped. England is a bit far for me to just pop over for a weekend cricket match. As to the spring meet, it is shaping up to be a great one. Researchers from several countries will be attending. Make sure you put it on your calendars as well.

I am really looking forward to spring. I am still digging out from a winter storm that hit last week. We had freezing rain followed by three inches of sleet followed by nine inches of snow. The cats and dog have been locked up in the house for days and are driving me crazy. Plus, I have the neighbour's cat at my house. They never let him inside and I don't have the heart to throw him out in the snow. The good news is that the ice froze shut the catflap from the yard onto my back porch. This means that the raccoon and family of possums that have taken to visiting me every evening are locked out.

The h2g2 Presidential Election 2005 Archive

Hypatia

07.12.06 Front Page

Back Issue Page