The big question

Its probably fair to say that in the last ten days, I have spent at least six of them dedicated to learning the laws of cricket. Picture Paola and I, armed with the MCC laws, a box set of the ashes, a vat of coffee and nothing but our fearless determination in the face of overwhelming ignorance pushing us onwards.

First thing this morning the pop quizzing started late last week resumed, with many although not all answers finishing with 'have a humbug'. Sadly tonight's exam may have highlighted that six days of competative pop quizzing over the email system does not an umpire make.

To be fair the evening started poorly, and we at least made it over the starting gate and arrived at the exam site which may or may not push us above the self proclaimed Ginger Rocky in the ranking. Clearly fate was not on the team's side as Clapham Junction and Balham decided to have simultaneous nervous break-downs reducing the Umpiring examiners to near tears as their preciously planned evening was disrupted by late arrivals and cancellation phone calls.

But by question ten it would be fair to say I was unsettled. During the 10-20 period (a phase we will henceforth refer to as the 'dark time') I was concerned I might not make it to the end. Fortunately I experienced an unexpected upsurge of confidence throughout the LBW section, proving that BN can teach you just about anything, but then I hit the wall of time allocation, penalty run calculation and the mysterious questions of practise on the pitch, missing players, and which dead balls have to be called dead and which you are allowed to leave in peace.

Despite my protestations that I am not expecting to experience any 'dissent' on the mountain, it is essential that I know the laws for managing such occasions (which according to the gentlemanly laws of cricket involve taking the captain aside and gentley suggesting he might like to have a chat over pimms with his players and suggest to them that acts of violence have no place in the game). Otherwise I can threaten them with a report to their regulatory body, who is presumably Kirt who will beat them into submission on the way down the mountain.. although if I'm backed up at the strikers end by Mr Waters I can presumably ask him to pelt them with humbugs...

By the end I was whimpering at my desk desperately trying to add up penalty runs, remember whether you call wide when it has passed the striker or the wicket and trying to establish in a question which was described over several paragraphs which runs would be debited against the bowler, which the batsman got credit for and whether the collective head scratching around the room was nits, or a genuinely hard test.

Anyway... faces did not look the most confident at the end of play, and I think Hill Senior is considering whether he could have more productively spent his time... not least the five hour round trip just for the exam.

On a positive note with Rocky himself having had to miss the test we should be able to prime him with enough of our remembered answers to get at least one accredited umpire between the six of us... the pass mark is set at a blistering 80% it turns out we may be facing ongoing revision sessions, or taking one of the bearded folk from the course up the mountain.

I feel perhaps it was an evening that could have been more enjoyably spent eating pancakes... but that will have to wait til next year now...