Genuine Mexican?

A pearler from yesterday's Test Match Special, the last produced by outgoing Peter Baxter. The legendary Tony Cozier had his colleagues in hysterics after being conned by a spoof letter from a Mexican calling himself Juan Carr.

Cozier was reading out emails during the lunch break in Durham, and when the team is usually at its best when they make it up as they go along. He said: "One listener says he is trying to introduce cricket to Mexico but is finding it hard as it's very mountainous and there are no flat areas at all. That's from a Mr Juan Carr."

There can't be too many better places to be than on live radio in the TMS box when genuine laughter takes place. Viv, Aggers and Blowers lost it before Aggers eventually told Cozier, who didn't get the joke: "I think you've been done there Tony."

Ashes Diary: Mongolia and mopeds

I went out on my moped in the Capital last night, intent on finding out how London was gearing up for the Ashes series ahead. Here are my edited findings for Nutley:

23:25 It's a reported 28 degrees at the Gabba. Through my visor it is raining hard, spotting one Australian in retro shirt in Piccadilly Circus. There is an Ashes series about to start, why is everyone F*&£in waiting for a bus?

23:55 Sports Cafe, Haymarket. After a ring round, transpires this is the only place showing live action all night. Speakers on full volume, it's like a Cup Final. Amazing atmosphere. How will fans keep up their energy for five days. Restaurant seats with own monitor have been sold out for weeks.

00:02 Steve Harmison's first ball results in a cacophony of laughs from Aussie punters.

1:05 Onwards to Cricinfo's offices to see how they cope with ball-by-ball coverage etc. Three are on duty and shepherd's pie awaits for the lunch break at 2am.
1:20 A reader from Northern Mongolia emails in. "It's very cold," he writes.

2:30 Am warned off going to a cabbie rank under the Westway due to high danger at this time of night, so will have to make do with speaking to a cabbie listening to TMS later on.

Speak to security guards, venture to the Kensington Hotel where the Aussies stayed last summer, and make it back to the Sports Cafe to see if punters have moved on to Vodka Red Bull. Catch last session with TMS in bed - you couldn't end it any other way.

Blowers, exclamation mark!

A great story reaches Nutley concerning the indefatigable Henry Blofeld, Test Match Special's commentator. Now I've watched countless James Bond movies in my time but never thought of linking evil, piranha-keeping Blofeld with cricket's own version.

According to this month's OSM, Bond creator Ian Fleming named the villain after Henry's dear-old dad. Says Blowers:

"My Papa and Ian had known each other at Eton. When Ian was working on the novel that would become Thunderball in the early Sixties, he wrote to Papa telling him that he had come up with a new villain, that he wanted to name him Blofeld and would he mind. Exclamation mark, exclamation mark! Papa thought it mildly amusing and wasn't in the least bit worried. Mind you, that was before any of the films had been made, so he had no idea how notorious Blofeld would become."

The days when England players cajoled around Australia (late night casinos with Kerry Packer, flying Tiger Moths) may be long gone, but what are the chances of Kevin Pietersen reliving the good times of Beefy, Gower and Lamby with some spear diving on the Gold Coast as pictured above?

Sounding out a spot

Chandigarh is reputed to have one of the largest rose gardens in Asia. There are road lanes, speed limits (of sorts) and the PCA stadium here resembles Hampshire's Rose Bowl. Even Jerusalem rang out over the tannoy before play today; all sweet memories of England. So it was even more of a comfort when I passed a local whose mobile ringtone rang out the BBC's Rugby Special theme tune.

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While colleagues back home are having trouble sending material to the office from Cardiff and Dublin, life couldn't be much easier when it comes to filing in India. Expecting the usual trouble of forgotten leads and connection problems, it has been a revelation that each ground's press box has been equipped with wi-fi internet speeds. I'm sure the England and Wales Cricket Board could learn a thing or two from this, especially when told at Nagpur that these initiatives were first planned four years ago.

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"Right, whose up for doing some radio commentary for the next five days?" This was the BBC's Jonathan Agnew's line when he walked into the press box minutes before play was due to begin. TMS were having technical difficulties among other problems in their box and Aggers could be heard muttering that it was the worst he'd seen in 15 years.

The former Leicestershire and England bowler is not new to these experiences. In 2001 he was locked out of the Galle cricket ground over a radio dispute and had to commentate from the Galle fort during the England-Sri Lanka Test. It also got worse for Five Live's Kevin Howells. Filing his first radio report of the day from the press box, the scorer couldn't have timed his moment better to inform us of the runs total over his loud microphone.

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So Geoff Boycott had to be content with a press box viewing until the troubles were ironed out. It wasn't the first time the written media had heard his voice on this tour. Freddie Flintoff was giving his post-match conference in Nagpur when his comments were suddenly drowned out by the Yorkshireman's voice a full two partitioned walls away.