If you could invite three cricketers to the pub on a Tuesday night…

1. You can’t have Ian Ward.

   Daisy and I play this game sometimes, but (naturally, as West Londoners) ours is the dinner party game.

   Ian Ward is coming to our place for dinner.

   He cannot go to the pub with you – certainly not before dinner and then come on to us. We’ve been down that road before – one guest turning up late, already intoxicated and slurring “no wine thanks, I’ve already had a tankful of beer”.

   I think Daisy might want Colly at the dinner party too – I’ll ask her. I’m pretty sure you can keep Carl Hooper down the pub, although Charley The Gent and his misses might want him at their dinner party.

   In any case, get off our turf, KC.

   You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Daisy – you might start feeling sharp, inexplicable pain like someone is sticking needles into you. Stuff like that.

   1. We’d like to see a voodoo doll of us. We imagine it would be unflattering in its appearance.

      But surely this is easily resolved. We’re meeting Ward and Colly on a Tuesday night. Surely you’re not holding your dinner party on a Tuesday, even in West London?

   2. Ged, I’m disappointed that Charley The Gent doesn’t practise monogamy.

   3. Apologies for out-pedanting a well-known pedant, but “misses” is an accepted alternative spelling of missus or Mrs – the plural of which is misseses:

      http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/misses

   4. Ged, the name is “A well-known pedant”, not “a well-known pedant”. Proper nouns always start with a capital letter.

   5. well spotted shalabh – i stand humbled and corrected.

2. Off the top of my head I’m going with Atherton, Ed Smith and Charlotte Edwards.

   It would probably be quite a cerebral evening with not many japes to be had, so perhaps Henry Blofeld and Tuffers could enter at about 9pm to lighten the mood.

3. I’d never heard of Neil Manthorp prior to this post, but if he can help me work out what time Waitrose have reduced their wraps, he’s in.

   (I had a great one at Tesco the other day – three packs of sandwiches, all different ones, for a total of 87p)

   The other slots would probably be taken by two cricketers I don’t particularly know that much – I don’t want to fall into the ‘meeting your heroes’ trap.

   Actually – are we allowed people who would probably not want to be in a pub on a Tuesday night? If not, that rules out a large chunk of the Pakistan and Afghanistan teams for religious reasons.

   Not that I’m overthinking this at all, of course…

4. Chris Gayle, Geoff Boycott and Matthew Hayden. None of them would have known who else was coming beforehand. I’d sit them all down at a table in the middle of the pub, then I’d nip off to the gents. Crucially, I wouldn’t have bought a round for them, so they’d have to sort that out among themselves. The pub would be The Snake Pass Inn, and it would be January.

   On the way back from the toilets, I’d get invited to join a game of killer darts by Mike Brearley, Viv Richards and Mark Taylor (http://www.kingcricket.co.uk/the-best-of-new-zealands-sporting-stalking/2009/05/26/). We’d move on to cricket-darts, but only after Viv Richards had got a bit annoyed that we were all ganging up on him for being the best darts player. Mike Brearley had suggested that tactic while Viv was having a wee.

   Ed Smith would be sat at a table by himself with a half and a notebook.

   1. I do like the “leave them there and run” strategy. Was thinking of Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, and Andrew Strauss myself.

   2. Was that link the one you meant to include, Bert? We don’t really understand.

   3. Oh wait, the Taylor bit. That answers an unwritten question we had, so that makes sense.

      Ignore us.

   4. What was the unwritten question? Was it not the written one what you writ above?

   5. No, it was: ‘Why Mark Taylor?’ – which your link answered once we had read through the comments.

   6. Some people can do all that direct linking to comments stuff. Not me though.

      By the way, I should have made clear that Viv Richards went to the toilet to have a wee, in case anyone was confused. I’m not accusing one of the great cricketers of weeing in The Snake Pass Inn one Tuesday evening in January.

5. This is always a great game. Years ago I would have automatically picked Warne. I met him once, and he was perfectly nice. But the glitzy lifestyle has dulled him to my eyes.

   I’d take Tresco, Graeme Onions and Flintoff. Always Freddie.

   1. Swann/Hick claims another victim. It’s Graham Onions and we like that suggestion. We’d be happy to buy Graham a pint.

   2. The rules of the game should surely include a requirement to match your chosen guests drink for drink.

      In which case I’m not sure Freddie would be the best suggestion if you value your liver and/or dignity.

   3. Jesus, it’s Tuesday night. What’s all this ‘matching people drink for drink’ stuff?

   4. I didn’t say they had to be alcoholic drinks.

   5. Matching people drink for drink is easy if you all agree to “have three pints before reluctantly agreeing to have a fourth even though we’ve got work tomorrow”.

      The Fourth Pint is normally a sensible limit on a Tuesday. Otherwise you end up drunkenly watching the Apprentice and screaming insults at the screen. I hear.

      In these days of Craft Beer with names based on bad ‘hop’ puns and ABVs in the 6% range, even three is sometimes a bit of a stretch.

   6. I haven’t had a drink since T20 Finals Day. I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m quite enjoying the perverse joy and feeling of pathetic martyrdom brought on by my self-imposed abstinence.

   7. Our local’s one of those places that always has a bunch of craft beers on. However, the other day it also had a cask of 2.6% session ale in amongst all the fiendishly strong IPAs and stouts. Went down a storm.

   8. Stupid vowels.

      Harveys Brewery do a good line in 2-3% beer. It’s all much tastier than you’d expect.

      I feel obliged to tip my hat also to slabs of 3 dozen small bottles of weak continental lager. I have, over the years, purchased and consumed many of these in France on holidays. Truly they are the standard against which all sub-3% beers should be judged.

   9. Between my last comment and this I have actually been to the pub. On a Tuesday. One of the beers I had was 2.8%, as well.

      Sadly I didn’t find any reduced sandwiches in the supermarket on the way home…

   10. A P Webster’s living the dream.

       String, we’ll second your hat tip. Sainsbury’s Biere des Flandres is a great way of hedging your bets when you’re not quite sure whether you want a beer or not. Small and weak, you can have three of them and you still won’t have had a pint.

6. Tricky. I think Phil Edmonds, Mike Brearley, Dermot Reeve and Imran Khan. Maybe also one of those Sri Lankans with about 14 initials. Reeve could nip to the gents and then come back a bit.. animated and do some of his Imran impressions.

   Dominic Cork would be somewhere nearby, being annoying.

   1. If you’ve got Dermot, you don’t need Imran.

      In fact, why not just invite Dermot on his own? He could do impressions of everyone. You wouldn’t even need to turn up yourself.

7. Brearley, Jardine and Vaughan. Just to hear them argue about who was the best captain against the Australians.

   Do I have to go to the pub, though? Surely the whole point of this off-season stuff is that I can go back to hiding indoors and carefully tending to my various social anxieties before the summer once more forces me outside.

   1. We had another vote for KP, Flower and Prior via email. Do you all enjoy going to the pub to watch arguments erupt? That’s not our idea of a decent Tuesday night out.

   2. I thought about Flower, but can’t imagine him getting animated enough to be interesting. He’d just sit there looking all dour while the other two hurl words, pint glasses, and possible lumps of cheddar at each other.

   3. What else do you possibly do in pubs?

      I don’t go there much ’cause of my general aversion to places that aren’t my living room sofa.

8. Sorry to break the topic, but someone in my office just picked up the phone and said “Hello? Sorry, I can’t speak.”

   1. That shouldn’t be as funny as I find it. It’s a perfectly normal, if self-contradictory, sentence.

      And yet.

   2. Did he (or she) go on to say “none of us can speak”, Sam?

      Now that would be funny.

9. Botham Tufnell and Stephen Fleming. In one of those Amsterdam cafes on a Tuesday night.

10. Colin Milburn, Robin Marlar, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie.

11. Or, if they have to be not dead:

    James Taylor, Tony Cottey and Tatenda Taibu.

    You know, normal sized people.

12. Incidentally, did anyone catch Mr Agnew’s latest online flounce?

    Apparently, he’s going to leave Twitter and join a new social network where Piers Morgan isn’t welcome, or something.

    1. That’s flounce-tastic, but understandable. I think it might be time for a bit of [i]I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue[/i]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=285DD7QECzY

    2. BBCode doesn’t work, it seems. What about html?

13. James Sutherland, N Srinivasan, Giles Clarke, Hannibal Lecter, and a bottle of Chianti.

14. I hate all pubs which are objectionable.

    So that was a bit of a non-starter.

    #dudemeta

    1. I hate all pubs which are objectionable too, but I like all the others.

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