Manchester - Joy Bangla

Was a very big weekend, with a lot to go through, not necessarily in chronological order:

Sport
Australia is currently in England on the Ashes tour. As a bit of a warm up they are also participating in a triangular one-day series with the might of Bangladesh. That said we got tickets to the Australia v Bangladesh game at Old Trafford. When we purchased the tickets we thought it was going to be a total pillaging by the Aussies, but it would be worth going none-the-less just to have a few drinks. Then a week before, to our total horror, the most humiliating and humbling defeat happened in the history of international One-day cricket when Bangladesh overcame Australia to win only their 10th game in history!! Australia was not playing well and we were maybe a little worried. But we needn't have worried as order was restored and Australia put Bangladesh to the sword on this occasion! Australia reached the target of 140 in the 18th over without loss. Symonds was the destroyer taking 5/18, but he wouldn't come join us for a drink.

As usual the highlight of the game is the crowd! The bangladeshi supportors were cheering every ball that was hit when batting and every dot ball when bowling and made the game that would have been otherwise dull quite entertaining. In our area we had our own fun matching wits against local Poms who came to the game. Needless to say it wasn't difficult and then Coops made a little boy cry. That was definitely the hightlight of the day!

In other sporting news - earlier in the morning the All Blacks totally humiliated the British Lions by 21-3 in appalling weather conditions in Christchurch. NZ should have put 50 on them though!

Nightlife
Manchester is a party town and doesn't really try to hide it. We hit the town shortly after arriving. I can tell you know that age definitely does not weary them up here. In the pub there were 60 year olds dressing like 18 year olds with the short skirts and plunging necklines. Some of the ladies also have decided that being 120kg and buying a size 12 top is totally normal. Its not something that we will soon forget.