In Waitrose today, while waiting at the check-out, a young mother and her younger son appeared behind me. He was a bright, cheerful thing with only one word on his mind. That word was ‘yoghurt’. He said it, loudly and clearly, almost constantly, as his mum put her shopping on the conveyor belt. He was a bit obsessed.
I asked him if he knew any other words. He said ‘yoghurt’ in reply. This made everyone laugh so he repeated it. His mother said that he asked for a fork the other day which sounded very much like something else.
As I finished packing, paying and chatting to the woman on the check-out, I turned to him, in his pram and said, with a very broad Australian accent “Seeya, Yoghurt!“
And being Australian meant I was well pleased with the result of the first Ashes test today. (I call that a somewhat dubious segue.)
Things started a bit gloomy with rain delaying play all morning but it brightened up enough to begin at 14:15. I put TMS on and listened to the final hours of the Australian batting. And it was tense. As the meter swung between a win (for either side) and a draw, I felt myself growing euphoric and despondent at various twists of the tail.
By 7pm, the Australians were eight wickets down and needing a handful of runs. Captain Cummins and bowler Nathan Lyons both held their nerves and won, what had been, an amazing game of test cricket. There’s an excellent report of the final day here, albeit from an Australian point of view. Nicktor’s reaction was a little different.
Even Mirinda got suddenly excited, whooping and yahooing, going so far as to text Will ‘Woohoo‘ accompanied by an Aussie flag and a cricket bat. Will responded with ‘I thought you didn’t like cricket?‘ Her answer to this was, ‘I do when we thrash you imperialists.‘ Which was a little inaccurate as the game was almost as close as a test match could be and a million miles from a ‘thrash’.
Still, I admire the sentiment.
But there was nothing wrong with the word imperialists