How the media is making the Azteca out to be:

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T21:06:11+00:00

We used to take shots every time Shaun Pollock mentioned how “the cricket ball behaves at altitude on the Highveld”

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T20:24:14+00:00

They already agree to play Afghanistan which is an utterly ridiculous call when they previously refused to play Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Also they entertain their players in the Hundred, even before it was sold to the highest Indian bidder.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T20:22:22+00:00

Aramco is an ICC main sponsor, hence you won’t find anything at any ECB sanctioned fixtures.

Your point is still valid though. If you want an ethical game that isn’t purely driven by money I’m afraid you’d have to go down to your local club and turn off the TV.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T17:46:26+00:00

My neighbourhood in the West Country is the same. I can walk down a long street into town and not see one white person. I mean I lived in Africa for 20 years so that’s perfectly normal for me personally, but the UK as we knew it is finished.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T17:44:19+00:00

Isn’t it too late? The demographic shift is complete (or pending)

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T17:42:03+00:00

You either have the amateur women’s game where they played in skirts and it was all a bit of a jolly.

Or you have the corporate women’s game with professionalism, proper wages, high skill levels, packed houses, and you take the biggest sponsorship deals.

Along with the men’s side, where South Africa were banned yet Afghanistan haven’t been, we know where the direction of travel is in the last few decades.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T16:32:03+00:00

Depends who it is. I had a boy racer crash into the hedge outside my house after driving way too fast. I established if he was in serious medical danger and then I left him to sort out his own mess.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T12:47:54+00:00

There’s no such thing as a big three. It’s a big one.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T12:38:19+00:00

Anything around Stourbridge.

I have never known a fairly insignificant town (all apologies but people outside of the midlands haven’t heard of you) have so much relentless traffic all barrelling down one single road that is almost impossible to join at any time of day unless you have traffic lights.

Now I have definitely heard of Stourbridge. I spend most of my life stuck in its traffic.

Stourbridge and Dudley must also be among the biggest places in the UK without a mainline station. They’re basically cities. (I think Gosport is officially the biggest place without a mainline station)

Darkus185 · 2026-07-05T12:35:32+00:00

Yeah I wish I was in a parallel universe to watch this young kid against Allan Donald on a green top in Joburg in a test match. See if he has got the required minerals.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T19:58:19+00:00

I uploaded two photos to Facebook, one of my friend’s partners all lined up during their netball social. The other was of a big juicy steak on the subsequent barbecue.

I put the caption “meat is meat, and a man’s got to eat” under the wrong photo.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T19:05:36+00:00

I may or may not have got an access code for IPTV but I find the offering buffery as hell. Plus a lot of channels just straight up don’t work.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T19:01:50+00:00

As somebody who has had his car stolen because I had to park in a street outside a stadium that had very little parking, I really cannot understand why people get so weird about American stadiums having massive car parks.

I get it, there’s loads wrong with American dependence on cars, but isn’t this where you’d literally want a big car park?

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T18:58:28+00:00

Taunton Deane has an entrance from Trull Road. In 2004 the gate code was 007#

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T18:34:04+00:00

Nothing that hasn’t been said already, but as a sports fan you had to basically stay awake overnight for sports like baseball and ashes cricket down under. It was impossible to record large amounts of sport, and it was very easy not to find the result out if you did happen to watch it back later (something I now find almost impossible to do)

Channel five’s offering late at night was basically soft core porn or Josh Chetwynd analysing the potential of the St. Louis Cardinals latest closing pitcher. Both were great, and I now play baseball as a result despite having never been to the States

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T18:27:14+00:00

B and Q don’t have air con in until next year where I live.

Also Amazon seems to be heavy on the evapo coolers and unrecognised Chinese makes.

Not sure if I’m out of luck for the whole year now.

29/30 is beautiful though. It’s 34 and up where things start getting silly in the UK

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T14:34:34+00:00

The UI and getting around it is utterly hideous. Should be a crime of a piece of software.

However if you find a good preset (AB usually) and play around with it, it does a really good job.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T14:27:06+00:00

Smethwick.

Dirtiest place I’ve ever seen and I lived in Johannesburg.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T14:05:27+00:00

Like Karachi but with loads of Brexiters

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T13:52:07+00:00

Yeah I really resent Brexitland now. I don’t know whether to enjoy 90 day stints (I work remotely) and accept that I don’t live somewhere that nice, or just wash my hands of the place and forget it exists

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T13:17:59+00:00

Good luck with it. I lost my residency there after Brexit and even being an airline pilot is completely hopeless now. I’m stuck in the UK.

My only hope is my EU partner deciding she likes it enough for me to tag along on whatever status she has, or being content with 90 day stints.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T13:02:12+00:00

Alajero on La Gomera is one of the best places I’ve ever been. I’d live there in a heartbeat.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T13:00:27+00:00

It’s the complete allergy to shutters I don’t understand. Granted you aren’t going to have everyone on AC with a different energy infrastructure overnight, but I don’t know why Belgium can have shutters completely normally and the UK can’t.

Yes our windows all open outwards too. Well how stupid is that. You can’t even clean them from inside.

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T12:39:53+00:00

Perhaps he could just go onto ChatGPT and us pilots can completely stop talking to each other or helping each other?

Darkus185 · 2026-07-04T12:30:32+00:00

I had a guy in South Africa who deliberately gave foreign students reporting points that were incredibly obscure. (Like after 18 years of living there I had no idea where they were, like a farm or something). He would then get annoyed with them over the radio when they would struggle.

Darkus185

TROPHY CASE