TV View:It was the English journalist Brian Viner who came up with the finest description ever recorded for David "Bumble" Lloyd's Accrington accent: "It's like liquid black pudding," he said.
Sit it beside Michael Holding's Caribbean lilt in a cricketing commentary box and it's like listening to a contest between a set of bagpipes and an oboe, you just end up marvelling at the sheer wackiness of the planet we inhabit.
And when you blend liquid black pudding with oysters you get one of those Bumble Lloyd rambles that prove almost as entertaining as the opening two Tests in the Ashes series.
Ian Botham: "So, where were you last night?". Lloyd: "I were in an oyster bar." Botham: "Hmm." Lloyd: "They reckon they put lead in your pencil." Botham: "Sorry?" Lloyd: "Oysters." Botham: "Hmm." Lloyd: "I never knew what that meant, to be honest." Botham: "Hmm." Lloyd: "It's probably all right if you have someone to write to." Botham: (Silent). Lloyd: "So, England 321 for three."
What they make of Bumble in Nepal, God knows, but, much to his surprise, they, no more than ourselves, are tuning in.
Lloyd: "You won't believe this Nasser, I had an email this morning from Katmandu! Katmandu? Katmandu!" Nasser Hussein: "Hmm." Lloyd: "But this one 'ere's a bit of a damp squib really - not Katmandu, Milton Keynes." Hussein: "Hmm." Lloyd: "And Port Stanley, Falkland Islands." Hussein: "Hmm." Lloyd: "And Diggle. That's near Oldham." Hussein: "Hmm." Lloyd: "And the Austrian Alps." Hussein: (Silent).
Lloyd: "So, England 412 for three."
Bumble, we're happy to report, is back to his chirpiest after losing his buzz in Brisbane, where, after that first Test drubbing several of the old chestnuts were dusted down for a fresh airing, eg: What is the height of optimism? An English batsman applying sunscreen.
The first couple of days in Adelaide, though, renewed Bumble's faith; they might even have put some lead in his pencil. Ian Healy, in contrast, was gobsmacked, the former Aussie wicketkeeper struggling to come to terms with the England revival.
"We've got you right where you want us to be," he told David Gower. "Ian, you're confused," said Gower. "Eh," said Healy, "yeah."
Need it be said, the weather in Adelaide has been of the irritatingly perfect kind; it was probably the 1950s when that crowd last saw a cloud.
Lansdowne Road yesterday? Let's just say if Shane Warne had that wind behind him in the second Test he'd have been transformed into a speedy bowler of Dennis Lillee proportions.
RTÉ's panel for the FAI Cup final, Dave Barry, Brian Kerr (who provided our favourite player assessment of the day: "he can be an up and downie fella") and Roddy Collins, worried that the weather conditions would wreck the game, turning it in to the dampest of squibs, but if that's the kind of final that storm force 12 gives you then from here on in football should only be staged in the hurricane season. Insanely exhilarating, plus the seven goals.
Granted, the wind did interfere somewhat, the first goal-kick of the game landing in Belmullet, and there was a time when it seemed like the demolition crew would have no work to do in Lansdowne, that the elements would raze the auld place to the ground.
George Hamilton reckoned it was a day for the big lads, and he was right, Clive Delaney equalising for Derry near the end of normal time. "He's as tall as Mount Errigal," said George, which isn't strictly true, but the windswept peak that was Delaney yesterday will hardly take offence.
And then the own goal decided it all, but you have to say, any club that celebrates a cup triumph by lustily singing Teenage Kicks deserves all the glory it can muster. A wind-assisted victory it might have been, so it may not make it in to the record books, but a storming final it was, in more than the one way.
And a storming performance John Giles produced on Tubridy on Saturday night. "Is Jesus over-rated," Billo Herlihy asked him. "Eh," said Gilesie, "no, I don't think the lad Jesus was over-rated - I think if you look at him he was the complete Messiah, he could do it all, he could walk on water, he could turn water into wine, the only thing that's sad was the fact that he stopped when he was 33."
"Hardly his fault, in fairness," said Billo.
The Apres Match crew? You gotta love 'em. Nigh on tasty as liquid black pudding.
