Body Doodles

I've really not been in any kind of zone today. It's been a long time since I've felt so little flow when out with the camera. I hadn't taken a single frame and was abandoning my lunchtime walk to get back to the office when I spotted Chris here. It was easy to strike up a conversation. He had a wide array of tattoos, which particularly intrigued me because they were more like doodles. Instead of the quite formal designs which you usually see, his were much more freely expressed.

I didn't say this to him, but my immediate impression was that someone had been doodling all over his body! I thought perhaps he got them done cheap by a tattoo artist learning their trade. It turned out that most of them have been done by himself. He literally does doodle on his own body. I had to ask him to lift up his shorts for a shot. A year ago I couldn't ever have imagined a situation where I'd say that to a stranger!

NB Non cricket lovers can safely ignore the rest!

This encounter put be in a better frame of mind and the day started to improve on the work front. I'd been following the test match by text commentary and left work when the ninth wicket fell with 20 overs still to be bowled. It was pretty much an impossible situation so I was amazed to turn on the TV at home to find Jimmy Anderson and Moheen Ali still at the crease with four overs left to play. I then watched the most intense and absorbing cricket I've seen in a very long time. England almost pulled off the greatest final day rearguard action in the history of the game. With almost the very last breath of the five day match, with the penultimate ball of the innings, Sri Lanka finally got Anderson out with a short ball homed in on his throat.

I couldn't begrudge the Sri Lankans their win. They played brilliant cricket, with greater passion than us. The true winner, though, was test cricket itself. Both five day matches went down to the last over. with utterly gripping final sessions of play. A drawn series would probably have been a fair result but England shouldn't be too disappointed. To me, the future looks bright. Root, the veteran new boy scored a double hundred in this short series, and the three really new boys - Ballance, Robson and Ali - have now all registered centuries in just their second appearance. That's extraordinary really - made even more so in that all those brilliant individual performances didn't bring greater reward for the team.

That's the bit that needs to get sorted out. Much the same with our footballers too. There is this sense of the whole being less than the sum of the parts! And I think that's all a question of confidence and belief. Just wish I could advise both teams on where to get some of that!