I’ve given it a good go, but, and forgive me the indulgence here, like when Des Lynam moved from BBC to ITV, things just haven’t been as good since I got home. As hard as I try to make the mundane interesting, Dances With Chazzwazzers readers have voted with their feet.

No one really gives a flying stuff about things here back in Blighty. I’ll grant you a detailed synopsis of my Fantasy Cricket Team can only be so interesting up to a backward point, and my bitter musings on the travails of Luton Town aren’t even in the same hemisphere (literally and metaphorically) when compared to the vibrancy of the Huka Falls but I have tried, dear reader.

Thankfully, over the hill comes the cavalry (again, literally and metaphorically) in the shape of my neighbour. Josh is heading overseas for a bit, starting off in some of the greatest cities and destinations Asia has to offer before ending up in Australia for the Lions Tour. He has set up a blog chronicling his adventures. Here is a link.

http://findjoshb.com/travel-blog/

Talk about getting stuck in from the off, like a blogging equivalent of Lewis Moody, our man isn’t going about this travelling malarkey softly-softly, as I type Josh is Tokyo bound. The famously demanding capital of Japan is the first step on his journey, no easing himself in via some former colonial outpost, Josh is going for it big style. Read all about it on findjoshb.com

I wish him every success. It promises to be a great trip. For those of you seeking a travelling fix from the comfort of your own home and a bit tired of my daily grind, I urge you to follow Josh!

The build up to the Ashes continues apace. The release, by Cricket Australia, of their Ashes Tour Party this morning will further add to the already fervent anticipation of the highlight of the summer.

The 10th July will be here before you know it.

Meanwhile, closer to home, with the Mighty Elstow due to begin their season this weekend, some Aussie news of our own. Matt Sampson from Nambor, Queensland has taken time out of his world tour to turn out for us at The Warren this summer.

Matt is a big hitting, fast bowling allrounder, who among other things, is a dead ringer for a young Andrew Sachs.

We’re still working on his nickname. Matty or Matto? Sammo or Delilah? Manuel maybe? Either way here’s to a great summer of cricket and lots of Caaaaaaallld Ones.

Welcome to England Matt. Good on yer.

If yesterday’s ‘travelling moment’ was a touch contrived for the purists, here’s something a little more authentic.

This was taken on a Sunday afternoon in January at Cottesloe Beach in Perth, Western Australia. In a bar. On the sea front. You can imagine the rest.

You’re undoubtedly correct.

I am nursing a Caaaaaaaaaalld One and supposedly contemplating the meaning of life. I am, however, probably ogling the bunch of splendid barmaids, deep in the moment, oblivious to the fact that months later people all over the Internet will be laughing at how hucking fuge my nose is.

China, my old mucker and co-campaigner of the sorties to Sri Lanka and Australia sent me this, along with some other shots from my time in the lucky country and a typically entertaining piece of correspondence. Salisbury’s finest is off to Columbia tomorrow to begin his four month South American adventure and to meet his future wife.

Buena suerte y buen viaje mi amigo.

Woolloongabba, Thursday 21st November.

The date is branded upon my conscience. The first morning of The Ashes in Australia. I want to be there. I need to be there.

And it all starts today. New job, new start.

Keep me away from my old habits. Please. The casual boozing has to stop (one or two occasions already scribbled into the diary notwithstanding, naturally). Otherwise I won’t be there.

And that would be blooming annoying. Really blooming annoying.

The SCG, 2nd January 2013. Been there. The SCG, 3rd January 2014. Want to do that.

If you’re clicking into see various shots of the Great Wall or a dramatic Shanghai cityscape night scene, I’m afraid you’re badly out of luck. Instead, there’s a few photos of me auditioning for a place in Great Britain’s Olympic Gurning Team. Plus some nice beaches and other stuff.

One for Grandma really (Hello Grandma!), just so she knows I’m still about. Anyway, thank you to China, the man not the country, for sending me the pictures. The least I could do is let the good readers of DWC have a look at your good work.
Thank you fella, I’ll get you a Caaaaaalllldd One when you’re in Bedfordshire next.

Beach scene between Coogee and Bondi, Sydney.

Outstanding shot of China’s left hand ruined by some beach or other in the background.

Fifty shades of blue? Well, about two really….

The Melbourne Walking Tour, a real low point of the last six weeks. A ‘highlight’ from the tour; more chuffing vandalism. I mean ‘street art’, sorry.

Proper graffiti this. No irksome left wing rubbish connotations, just a nice picture.

Manly Beach, looking as manly as I can. Don’t all rush ladies.
Oh you’re not. Right.

Paroxysms of ironic delight after realising yet again we’ve been ripped off for a walking tour. The Blue Mountains is the soothing backdrop.

One of the world’s most iconic buildings ruined by some dreadful posing. Sorry.

Yeah, you get the idea with this one….

Here we go, the sum total I’m left with after six unforgettable weeks in this great country….

Marvellous, as my hero Richie would say. Can’t wait to come back.

Plane’s on the runway. Auckland-ho!

Have a great weekend all.

A trek alongside the Torrens River yields views of some delightful woodland and with the coots and moorhens doing the rounds on the riverbanks alongside the unwelcome predatory presence of the gulls and swans I’m transported back to dear old Bedford and a springtime walk along the Embankment. I say spring because, since leaving Perth, the weather’s been distinctly un-summery here in Adelaide.

Now I can completely empathise with how you chaps in the UK have had it these last few weeks…..

Stopping at an understatedly beautiful scene, I watch as the River Torrens lurks murkily away from view to behind a curtain of Red Gum Trees, Sheoaks, reeds and bullrushes. I glance across the bridge at what will become the venue for the last Pie Day Friday in Australia; an unremarkable looking kiosk situated at the end of the Par 3 on the North Adelaide Golf Course.
The course is a municipal one, but for location and backdrop alone rates fairly highly on those I’ve seen in Australia. It’s a nice little spot if a little windswept. I contemplate a quick round but being so near to New Zealand and so far from my last Caaaaalld One, I decide against it and the demons of self hate remain inside their despicable little hideout somewhere inside the back of my mind.

A pie sits in cellophane solitude in the golf shop’s pie warmer. The last turkey in the shop, though this will surely be variation on a theme of beef. South Australia must be the only state in which you can’t buy Four N’ Twenty’s or Pie Face goods, so I make do with the local equivalent: Vili’s.

The surface looks like a Day 4 one from up the road at The Oval. There’s so many cracks and marks on this, I’d have good money on Swannie getting a five-for on it. As is now standard I liberally smear the pie top with no frills tomato ketchup, which sticks obediently to the surface. Biting down, the pastry shoots out in magpie friendly flakes. The well-warmed beef is the hottest thing I think I’ve experienced in my time in Adelaide. The meat, minced, is like a Four N’ Twenty version of bovine gloop but with a stronger, more offal-like taste. The ketchup springs into multitask mode, acting as an adhesive to the brittle pastry, a welcome balm-like substance against the heat while also countering the over-strong kidney flavour. No wonder the humble red sauce is so revered in these parts.
The Vili’s pie does a job. Only just.

Going with a local metaphor; of the famous cricketing Chappell brothers who played here with such distinction in the 70s, this pie would definitely be Trevor.
And like Trevor, I can’t imagine this pie going down too well in New Zealand.

(Hello Geoff!)

My last full day in Australia and a tribute, of sorts, to one of my heroes as a kid and my third favourite Australian (behind Richie Benaud and Donk from Crocodile Dundee). Rolf Harris.

The basis behind my excursion to Adelaide was that it was the remaining one from five of the traditional Australian Test Match venues on the list yet to have visited. At MCG, SCG and The Gabba I was fortunate enough to have been present for a match. At the WACA in Perth I got to the museum and after some begging was allowed into the ground. At the Adelaide Oval, I just missed the guided tour, but was allowed to bowl around the arena, taking care not to disrupt any of the renovations going on around me. Which was nice.

I’m doing my best to stay out of pubs and the nearby McLaren Vale Wine Tours. So having seen most of the South Australian state capital and with a few moments to spare before my bus tonight, I thought I’d take a leaf out of Rolf’s sketchbook and have a bit of a dawdle.

Um-chuck-aha-chook-a-um-chuck-aha…..

Today’s proposed trip to The Adelaide Oval has been postponed because Adelaide, just for today, appears to have done a Weather Exchange with Manchester. Which must be good new for ex-England footballers as there will be no need to defrost their cars this morning. So Mancunians, get out and drink in the exported South Australian suuuuuuuunshiiiiiiinnne!

The Adelaide Oval can lay claim to being one of Test Cricket’s most picturesque grounds. However, due to the expected crowds of Englishmen coming over for The Ashes later this year, it’s currently having a bit if a facelift. Let’s hope it’s a bit better than Warnie’s….

As a result of the building work, one of the ground’s major attractions, The Bradman Collection has been put away in storage until the refurbishment is over. Luckily, The South Australian State Library has some iconic Bradman memorabilia on show. Sir Donald Bradman, as you’ll all know, was born in New South Wales but settled in Adelaide later in life, which this state is rightly proud of.

Pictured below are the bats he used to make the then highest scores in Test cricket (334 v England, 1930) and First Class Cricket (452 NSW v Queensland, 1930), the highest score at the SCG (340 NSW v Victoria, 1929) plus the bat used to score his first Test century (1929 versus us again…) and his hundredth Test century (v India, 1947).

Eighty years from now, the question must be asked. Will they have something similar on display in honour of Mitchell Johnson?

Every so often an absolute gift will drop into my lap for a blog post idea. As they’re fond of saying over here, tooooo easy.

Last night as I checked into my hostel, I could barely conceal my delight. Advertised on the notice board amongst the earnestly well meant but usually pretty hopeless nightly guest events, lifts to Melbourne, both begged and given, and the plugs for other YHA digs, one particular poster lit up like the Aurora Borealis.

Breakfast for $5.

Dear reader, let me tell you I hardly slept a wink. It’s taken six weeks to find something approaching value for money in a country where nothing ever, to paraphrase John Lewis, is knowingly undercharged.

I woke up with a spring in my step. All those stupidly overpriced bottles of water, those I’ll-advised financially but oh-so-worth-it otherwise Caaaaaaallld Ones, the odd Eggs Benedict (Hello Marion!) or those late Jet Star deals, all would be forgotten. I sauntered downstairs with all the bright eyed expectancy of a new cricket season. In the most jovial bordering on smug manner I greeted the slovenly receptionist.

“Good morning, one of your breakfasts please my good man.”

(Don’t worry this isn’t going to be another Cheese Shop Sketch parody….)

“Aw, no worries mate….” Came the cheerful retort, our expressions about to be switched tangibly volte face as he reached for the freezer, then the fridge before, with something approaching a flourish plopped the clingfilmed objects of his rummage triumphantly into a dish.

“Well you didn’t think we were going to cook it for yer did ya?”

Um, well, call me a whole hearted, easily led, naive old romantic of a consumer, but I had rather hoped you might old chap. The bubble’s burst. Then I blinked in the ominously coloured, yet not immediately apparent surrounds of the hostel.

Back in the day, orange was a cheerfully evocative colour. Those football videos of my youth was lit up by this evocative shade. The buccaneering derring do of Stanley Matthews (Hello Stan! Not that Stan, but our Stan!) on the wing. Mickey Walsh’s 1975 Match of the Day Goal of the Season (complete with the wonderful Barry Davies’s commentary) twenty years later for the same club. Then the brilliant Dutch orange majesty of the Total Footballers of Cruyff, Neeskens et al before Marco Van Basten’s limits-of-physics defying goal.

Now it’s just bloody miserable. Since my lot, the Mighty Hatters have in recent years wholeheartedly adopted it as our home kit we’ve never looked like getting out of our non-league surroundings. Not only is it miserable it’s also synonymous with the paying through the nose for stuff and poor quality.

Think Easy Jet, think Jet Star, think YHA.

Controversial maybe, but after a few weeks of staying exclusively in their hostels, the aura of the backpacker’s irreplaceable friend is staring to come off a little. For the most part they’ve done a great job. It’s mainly cheap (some are more expensive than others for no apparent reason though) and safe digs and the facilities are for the most part very good.

It’s the penny pinching behaviour, reminiscent of the aforementioned airlines that grates though.

After something, anything requiring a little bit extra effort or good will? The person you’re addressing morphs from a cheery Aussie to a bluff Northern shopkeeper (and we all know which one, 70s comedy fans), and through sucked teeth, “oooooh, it’ll cost ya tha knows.” The hand reaches out towards you.

Now then, I appreciate the concept of budget travel, I really do. And I am, as previously stated, a whole hearted, easily led, naive old romantic of a consumer. But sometimes, I’d like just a little bit more bang for my buck.

Smiling wearily, I took the ingredients to The Ikea Brekkie upstairs and knocked the shit out of a cracking fry up quicker than you can say “Olympic Breakfast”.

The menu tonight says Lobster Thermidore.

I think I’ll give that one a miss….