Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the Kildare street club with a slog to square leg.

The Venturers celebrated the hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday with a distinctly unJoycean match against Hampset, the latter consisting of several small boys, some minders, and a mysterious South African professional. The match started ahead of time, an event previously unheard of: Tom was, understandably, not there yet, but Paul Martin had showed up to watch a bit and stood in for him until the official start of play. A minder and a boy opened the batting for them, and Duncan and Adam opened the bowling for us. Runs flowed at once at an embarrassing rate, but so did catches to cover. There was a drive off Adam, which Paul Wilson made look easy; a firm prod off Duncan, which Gregory made look difficult; and a scoop off James, which also went to Paul and actually was easy. But in between these successes quite a few runs leaked away, as well as the ball, which rolled slowly into a hedge and vanished completely. A left-handed minder was beginning to play alarmingly well. But it was Tom's first over that stood out. After an initial dot ball, the rest all went for four; several of these were little more than well-placed pushes towards the rather short cover boundary to the left-hander. 200 seemed quite possible.

Gregory, happiest bowling to left-handers, started off with a wide and a couple of other fairly randomly-directed deliveries. Encouraged by this sight, the batsman - unfortunately the other one - charged wildly down the pitch. Ian, showing competence behind the stumps which will keep him there if he doesn't watch out, did the rest. With James bowling tidily at the other end the run-rate slowed. Kevin would probably have caught the left-hander if he hadn't been looking straight at the sun, but it made little difference. In Gregory's next over he offered him a gentle full-toss on off stump. Instead of choosing one of the seven or so ways of hitting it for four, he chose to try to hit it for six, and sent it a very long way up in the air towards long-off. Other eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent body of enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at terrifying velocity...well, a fairly unJoycean match. Long-off was, of course (and by design) Paul Wilson again, and he caught it very well. Tom's one-handed catch in the first match of the year is probably still the best of the season, but this ran it close.

After that it got a bit ragged on both sides. Even one of the schoolboys tried charging the bowlers. Gregory hit the stumps that time. There were two run-outs, one oddly disputed (the batsman thought he was out, mid-off thought he wasn't) and one smartly executed by Kevin in his follow-through. The South African had just time to demonstrate his status with a pick-up for six off Kevin before being well caught by Tom off the last ball of the innings. But Gregory had been the most economical bowler, which says it all really. Everybody else started off with one expensive over, except Paul Wilson, who chose not to start; and it all added up to 167-8, obviously plenty.

Mark took us away from James Joyce to P.G. Wodehouse, coming out to bat dressed in Black Shorts, like Roderick Spode's Saviours of Britain. He and the properly dressed Paul made a good start, but the asking rate obliged them to take more risks than they would have liked. There were bad balls for them to hit, and they hit them, but they also had to try hitting better balls, and thus got out. Ian, before he had settled, got the Ball from, well, not Hell exactly, probably just Radstock, and was bowled round his legs by a leg-break. It did turn quite a long way out of the rough, but was delivered from round the wicket. The run-rate dropped sharply for a while. Hopes were raised by a schoolboy in a red cap, who didn't seem quite sure which hand he was going to bowl with: Kevin was ruthless when the ball came within reach. But this simply increased the pressure to get runs fast, and gradually the innings fell apart. Kevin achieved great height but little distance, giving them time to find a fielder who would catch it; Tom was run out by a direct hit. John, James, Duncan and Rob all did a bit, and finally the overs ran out quietly, leaving us about 25 runs short.