nice, i,m a lancome girl myself

love italian and jamie, you lucky girl

Thats sounds like a great party

no play yesterday
but i,m watching now, just lost a wicket,

we haven,t played to our full potential and our openers
have been disappointing, but at the end of the day
good enough to beat the aussies and win the Ashes, so thats all that
really matters

Just to let you know

John James is cricket tweeting

Do you reckon he's listening to an English commentary? Not that that proves anything, he could do that from Oz. Technology is not always our friend........

Well Shane Warne, was getting it in the neck from him,

so i,m not sure if he was responding to Warne's tweets or Warne on sky tv

Oh, of course I don't do twitter so only heard the comments on Sky

Shane Warne irritates me no end
so i was all for it, quietly cheering him on

well i,m off to bed
so i shall say goodnight
hope to speak soon

Goodnight all :yawn:

Sleep tight :sleep::sleep::sleep:

Lindy xx

Morning all.

Glad England won the Ashes. We watched the highlights on C5 as we don't have Sky - very exciting.

What did John tweet about? Very curious really.

Started clearing out the cupboard under the stairs and did major reading and organizing for our trip. I am getting paranoid about our water tank bursting. Quite a few people around here have had their water tank burst.

Off to garden centre later and then a barbecue! Really looking forward to it.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

there are a whole set of cricket tweets from ~John

if I put them here maybe someone can translate them for me...


John James ‏@uk_JohnJames_oz 16h
@hilcol56 @warne888 He gives it the biggen behind @MClarke23 . well come on tuff man , declare .

John James ‏@uk_JohnJames_oz 16h
@warne888 Clarke is making sure he can't lose by increasing the total beyond reach,So he is NOT prepared to lose or he would have declared.

John James ‏@uk_JohnJames_oz 16h
@warne888 Or is he making sure we CAN'T chase it down , cause that's what it looks like to me . Cook-3 Clarke-0 #fact #ashes

John James ‏
@warne888 you keep saying England should be prepared to lose in order to win ??? Well Is Clarke ??? Cause he's still batting ?????

John James ‏
@M @wa haha I've been listening to your interviews Michael , I wonder who's side you're on sometimes . 3-0 #ashes

John James ‏
@hi @w8 @M oh nah Wally Warne wasn't happy with that option He wanted us to keep chasing and keep chasing until the end

John James
@h @w @M That's the luxury of being 3-0 up , we will do what ever we feel like #comeonengland

John James ‏
@MichaelRonan2 you Sir , are 3 nil down .

John James ‏
@warne888 you keep saying England should be prepared to lose in order to win ??? Well Is Clarke ??? Cause he's still batting ?????

John James ‏
Funny how MClarke23 didn't seem like he was willing to lose in order to win at the end warne888 . #hypocrites

John James ‏
Go on KP24 take it to them son #ashes

John James
warne888 yes Kp is a good aggressive batsmen but so is Trott I'm sure you know your own stats why don't you take a look at Trotts .

John James ‏
warne888 maybe because Kp doesn't play ODI's anymore while Trott does with an average over 50 and a high strike rate . #research

John James ‏
warne888 Clarke was CLEARLY NOT prepared to lose or he would have made the chase more reachable ,he doesn't want to lose anymore than Cook.

John James ‏
@war all we need to remember and all YOU need to remember is its 3-0 and we will do everything we can to keep the 0 .

its frustrating isn't it, waiting for things to be sorted, and it stops you doing all the other things you want to do, or would like to do.

at least everything is all sorted out now, and you can enjoy the rest of the bank holiday

somewhere like that could be perfect, my cousin got married and had her reception in a hotel just like that.....im not sure it could even be the same place, does it have a trout farm in the river outside?

you are right , this could be fun to arrange, maybe me and my OH could go to there for the weekend for a trial period beforehand

Oh, I think you definitely have to explore and try places out before booking

I don't think this is quite the same place you're thinking of, but very close.....there's a hotel and trout farm at Bibury, approx 10 miles from Burford I've never stayed there but it is very popular.......

Oh and re John's tweets, I don't think I could translate them one by one......but basically they are a commentary on the match, on the tactics used by the Oz captain (Clarke), the England captain (Cook), the abilities of the players (eg Trott and KP) and they are in response to various tweeters including Shane Warne (former Oz player, all round legend and current pundit).

Well, you did ask I could go on but I won't........for all our sakes!

Wipes brow
ok i,m going to try and explain this to you
it was all to do with time left in the match

test cricket last for 5 day and 5 days only, so if you lose a day to rain, thats it, you can't make it up.
and each team bats twice

so on day one, Australia won the toss and decided to bat, not a hard choice due to the oval wicket, its new hard and flat, so as long as you see off the new ball, which will move in the air and be faster, it should be easier to bat on. But you have to remember that the wicket is not going to stay like that, after day 4 and 5 with people running on it, its going to deteriorate and make it harder to bat.

so day one, Australia finish the day with 307 runs for 4 wickets(thats Batsman out)

so on day 2 Australia continue to bat most of the day, and
decide to declare on 492 for 9 wickets,(this is a good score) now they could of continued until they lost all of their wickets, but they wanted to put England in to bat for the last
evening session, they did this hoping to take some early wickets of England, remember England would be facing a new ball, with cloudy and dark condition.

but the day finished england with 32 runs for 0 wickets

Day 3

England bat the day and finish 247 runs for 4 wickets
so we are still 245 behind

Day 4 is rained off

Now Day 5

all 3 result are still possible, win, lose or draw , but the draw is the most likely this is the last day.

After all England are still on their first innings batting
so we go into bat our first target is, we need to get to 286 to avoid the follow on this means if our batsman don,t make this target before we are all out, they can put us back into bat straight away and try to bowl us out again for less than Australia opening innings, this would be great for the aussies , because of the time limitation

so England bat in the morning and finish at 377 all out, so we have avoided the follow on, so thats good. but we are still 115 behind

Now Australia go in and bat now they could just take the draw, bat slowly and run out the day, but they would still like to try for the win, so they go out and bat in the afternoon, go aggressive and try to get as many run as they can and quickly, they are running out of time, but doing this you are going to lose wickets they get 111 for 6 and then declared, which give them some time, but not much, to bowl England out for less than 227

so Australia leads by 227
England have a choice when they go into bat, go for the draw and just slowly bat out the day or go for the win by getting over 227 with aggressive batting, but thats a risk you can lose wickets that way and off course the game if Australia bowl us out for less than 227

so the tweets are all about Shane saying we play negative cricket, going on about would we be prepared to lose the game, by going for the win, or just be negative and happy for the draw. In the end we played it by ear, we were scoring runs with out to many wickets going down, and nearly made the target for the win, i think we were sitting at 207 with time left in the match, but then it was called off, for bad light.
so a draw

wipes brow again
i hope this helps

i did go on Lindy
but you can skip my post about the cricket
i promise
i won,t mind

No way I'd skip that Georgy..
I thought it was a brilliant explanation

I have to add though, that we did still have time to finish the match
And get a result
One way or the other
Had it not been for that pesky 'bad light'

The crowd was definitely not pleased
When the light meter read
That by the rules
We had to stop

Personally I think had it not been for that
We just might have squeaked it

But in any case
I was really pleased
To see Ian Bell
Get so many awards

He had a fantastic series!!!

Afternoon all.

Just made some couscous for our barbeque for two tonight.

Wow, georgy, I could use you during the matches. You have explained things very well.

Thanks augusta for putting all John's tweets on. Have to say, from the little I saw yesterday I absolutely agree with him.

Wasn't Shane Warne a spinner like Swann?

Hope everyone has a good evening.

It was a very exciting match
and we do it all again in November
the Ashes down under

Bell was brilliant, saved us many a time
well deserved and a great winner series

why thankyou Nyannie,
test cricket can be complicated, but its my favourite
kind, a much more tactical game

perhaps we should get Augusta to watch a T Twenty game,
they start this week, much more crash bang wallop,
fun to watch and easy to follow

Yes you are right Shane Warne was a spinner like Swann
he is engaged to or married, not sure which to Elizabeth Hurley

Enjoy your Barbecue the weather looks good for it

Now here's a truly tragic query

Does anyone on here have a cordless vacuum cleaner? ( either G-Tech Ram or Dyson or any other kind?) if so, what do you make of them? I keep wanting to get one but can't quite believe they're as good as the ads say!

Okay, back to basics....what do you think, John??!

And on that note.....

Night all :yawn:

Sleep tight :sleep::sleep::sleep:

Lindy xx

Wow - send our Georgy a medal - and please help out next time I get American friends over who are determined to understand cricket!
It was nice to see John tweeting - now does it give us any clues to his location - if he was in Oz he was pulling an all nighter! :sleep:
Oh well - if he wants to break cover, I expect he'll let us all know.

Morning all.

I agree with you Giddy, think georgy should start a career as a cricket consultant! I do wish John would break cover though, would love to know what he is doing with himself.

We used to have a cordless vacuum but we gave it up. It just didn't do a good job. My o/h had a 15-year old car hand-held vacuum and it worked better than the one we bought. Give me my tank Meile any day. Works much better than the heavy upright Sebo we were pressured into buying by our ex-cleaner. It is so annoying - the hose is very short so we can't clean ceilings or tops of the lights - have to do those with one of those telescopic dusters! BAD BAD buy.

Anyway, how are we all today?