Andy Ford: A Rum Diary (or Why Cricket and Fishing are the Same) [21 min listent]

Voices of the Countryside

What does a country boy and angler do on holiday when he’s left his rods at home and is reading a book by Hunter S.Thompson? The answer is to reflect on really unimportant things in life, like why are cricket and fishing actually the same.

Shit it’s hot. It’s 35 degrees out there, the sand burns the skin off the bottom of my feet, and I could do with a large rum in a glass full of ice.

I want to write about stuff I like - and I want to do it in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. I’ll fail to do that well, but I’m going to try anyway.

OK, so this is self indulgent, but I’ve decided I don’t care.

At last I’ve got time to disengage my brain and quieten the voices. I need to think about things that really don't matter while I lie on a Portuguese beach, roasting my feet as they poke out from under a sunshade into the glare of a cloudless sky.

There’s the noise of waves breaking, the chatter of other holidaymakers gibbering at each other. The weirdness of a large Portuguese man, who for some strange reason is dressed as a ship’s captain, cap at a jaunty angle, dinging a tiny bell and then loudly trying to sell people doughnuts for six Euros from his cooler.

Each wave first gathers up, then releases the troubles of our world as it crashes.

“What shall we talk about?” my wife, who is bronzing nicely, says from the next lounger along.