All this batting, bowling and fielding is very fine, but what makes a game of cricket the perfect way to spend an afternoon is tea.
For Fantasy Bob tea is special, almost holy; it is the one part of the game he has mastered - maybe not to Test standard since the egg mayonnaise does occasionally slide to the floor via his whites, but he still performs at the tea table to a level of competence well beyond his batting or bowling. There have in his career been many great teas, where home baking has left him stunned by the choice and reluctant to resume play. Sadly there have been many teas which can only be regarded as failures and an insult to the concept. FB has even seen the pretence of potato crisps attempting to mask the absence of coronation chicken sandwiches. Protests to the authorities need to be considered in such circumstances . League points should certainly be deducted.
Of course any tea worth its stripes will have chocolate cake. Here is where danger lies. Fantasy Bob noted a newspaper report recently about scientists who had sequenced the cacao genome. Cacao is of course the source of chocolate. FB is unsure why anyone would do this, but that is another poinnt. Apparently humans and bananas share about 50% of genetic material and FB suspects that the cross over with the cacao plant must be higher. Indeed several people he knows, top order bats mainly, seem to be nearer 100%, having acquired all the characteristics of chocolate cake. How could this be? FB suggests this must be an instance where some of the founding principles of modern genetic theory no longer apply. Can learned characteristics be inherited? Current theory says no - but FB's observations on a wide range of subjects leads him to believe that this may not apply between the cacao genome and the human genome. In layman's terms, the more chocolate cake you eat the more you take on its genetic identity.
So juniors be warned - don't overindulge. Leave the chocolate cake to FB - his genes are beyond further damage.
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