A little late, but better than not to write at all...

Sitting in my pokey office, my day is currently bearing all the hallmarks of the similarly titles TV show. It is related to the cricket, so bear with it...

I have just had to do a health and safety assessment which encompassed the following:

1) "Stacking chairs - The efficient, correct and quick method."

2) "Fire: What and what not to do" My question about fighting fire, if your name happened to be fire didn't go down as was intended:

"Mr Burt, should that situation ever occur, I would advise that everyone involved got out of the building, and did not persist with tackling, battling or indeed as you say, fighting the fire. That would be insane."

Dan 0, sense of humour failure 1

3) "Coffee, tea and the hazards of workplace related burns." After hearing the horror stories from this talk, I'm very much going to stick the fags, Mountain Dew and Red Bull - None of which seem as harmful as the sinister cuppa that's just been described to me:

"The heat of a boiling cup of tea is more than capable of doing as much damage to your skin as a hot oven or stove..."
In that instance I was transported back to year nine science. How can this be proven or disproven? Already in my mind I was imagining how I might write up the experiment for the H&S man to mark for me... I would be aiming for a B+

Apparatus:

2 x Hands
1 x Body
1 x Oven (Aga will suffice, but middle class status must be confirmed before commencement of experiment)
2 x Leather driving gloves
1 x Tea Bag (optional sugar)
1 x Splash of Milk
3 x Nice Biscuits
1 x Sponge cake

Method:

Get two human hands placing one in a steaming mug of tea and the other on a red hot/nuclear stove.

What I will do:

I will place one of my two hands in a mug of tea, and at the same time, put my remaining hand onto an electric stove. I will be timing the two hands to see how long it takes for them to jump away from each heat source. As a placebo I will take a third hand and plunge it into a Victoria Sponge cake to see how long this third hand lasts (Walnut or Battenburg shall suffice).

What happened:

Hand one lasted 3 seconds in the tea.
Hand two is still attached to the hob and making a funny smell.
Hand three got bitten off by Tracey Wilkins.

Put self on hand donor list at local hospital.

But this all brings me to my point (at last). I work in a mundane, veluxed and white office with little danger of death, apart from impending World War and canteen pies. I sit on my own, I drink 2 cups of tea a day and I go to the toilet perhaps 3 times a day.

I do not have the following happen to me:

• Concrete balls being deliberately thrown at my head, at an average velocity of 85MPH/130KPH
• Stand three feet away from someone hitting concrete balls AT me, at an average velocity of 60MPH/100KPH
• Try to catch balls in rubber gloves bowled by Steve Harmison, Shane Bond or Brett Lee
• Inzamam Ul-Haq running anywhere near me.
• Go for a 'quiet' drink with Andrew Flintoff

There is more chance of dying on a cricket pitch than there ever will be in an office. I have to sign various disclaimers because of a toilet roll, these guys just get on with it, for the love of the game, and the chance to do it to someone else next time around. It seems to me that, in a world where everything is becoming increasingly complex, cricket, for all its failings represents a time when life was life. This exhibition of cricket in the West Indies, should highlight to the World, that sometimes it's important to look beyond form 13.4(a).