title: Rain men: The madness of cricket
author:  Marcus Berkmann 
description: There are many cricket books, and they are all the same. 'Don't Tell Goochie', autobiographical insights of nights on the tiles in Delhi with Lambie and the boys; 'Fruit cake days', a celebrated humourist recalls 'ball' - related banter of yore; and Wisden, a deadly weapon when combined with a thermos flask. Rain Men is different. Like the moment the genius of Richie Benaud first revealed itself to you, it is a cricketing epiphany, a landmark in the literature of the game. Shining the light meter of reason into cricket's incomparable madness, Marcus Berkmann illuminates all the obsessions and disappointments that the dedicated fan and pathologically hopeful clubman suffers year after year - the ritual humiliation of England's middle order, the partially-sighted umpires, the battling average that reads more like a shoe size. As satisfying as a perfectly timed cover drive, and rather easier to come by, Rain Men offers essential justification for anyone who has ever run a team-mate out on purpose or secretly blubbed at a video of Botham's Ashes.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Psmith in the City
  
  
    
  
  
  ### Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Psmith in the City
  
  
  ## by P. G. Wodehouse
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  to Leslie Havergal Bradshaw
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### 1\.
  
  
  ### Mr Bickersdyke Walks behind the Bowler's Arm
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Considering what a prominent figure Mr John Bickersdyke was to be in Mike
  Jackson's life, it was only appropriate that he should make a dramatic entry
  into it. This he did by walking behind the bowler's arm when Mike had scored
  ninety-eight, causing him thereby to be clean bowled by a long-hop.
  
  
  It was the last day of the Ilsworth cricket week, and the house team were
  struggling hard on a damaged wicket. During the first two matches of the week
  all had been well. Warm sunshine, true wickets, tea in the shade of the trees.
  But on the Thursday night, as the team champed their dinner contentedly after
  defeating the Incogniti by two wickets, a pattering of rain made itself heard
  upon the windows. By bedtime it had settle