On Tiny Urns of Burnt Bails...

So we still await the boat load of kit from Oz, awaiting the day we can stop living out of suitcases … albeit some 6 weeks into this journey. Luckily, there are just enough bare essentials in our hut on the island to get me by:
1. There's a fridge stocked with grog.
2. Don’t tell my landlord, but when the importers have run out of Coopers, I can open the lids of the crazy Mexican brews on the edge of the counter (and big thanks for that technique go out to Watto - I'll try your eye-socket-bottle-cap-removal method when I grow up to be a man).
3. We have a stubby holder (thanks, Queenlsander - never has the HTFU message been more required on a daily basis).
4. And what I though was an enormous window in the living room turns out to be a thumping, great big TV.

The result being that I can watch what is arguably one of the most un-watchable sports put to air. And I don’t mean NASCAR. I’m talking Cricket. Or for my North American readers: Baseball on Valium. (Sorry about the NASCAR joke, Jethro.)

Yessiree, the Ashes are on, baby.

It’s Cricket season.

In England.

Where apparently they don’t have summers.

I’m finally a couple hours closer to the northern hemisphere, so I don’t have to stay up until 3am to see the final session of play. I can now sit up until a much more civil 12am ... watching the rain delays.

But one of the most extraordinary things about watching Cricket on cable here in Singapore is not the commentary. Nope, all good on the commentary front - got Nasser, Beefy, Gower, Michael Holding and the ever amusing Casual Kenny (Warnie). No it's the commercials that have got me stunned. Apparently our feed comes from Bombay. Every advert has Indian voice overs, for Indian products: papadums, mobile phones, lemon drinks, 2-minute chilli rice dishes for all 25 of the family at dinner time … and my personal favorite: deodorant.

In this 60 second golden nugget of televised cinema, a feller sprays on a little Axe Antiperspirant under the pits ... and turns into chocolate. The remainder of the ad is Chocolate Man striding around offering bits of himself to the Ladies (with Kamal singing some serious sexual chocolate tune in the background).

And the finale, is also gold. As Chocco Boy strides across the AXE Deodorant Spray logo, some Indian bozo turned up the mic when he reocorded the fade out. So the first couple of times the ad came on I almost spilled beer all over me and fell off the balcony as some subcontinent lunatic booms out “AXE DEODORANT SPRAY VOTED #1 ANTI PERPSPIRANT IN INDIA BY …” and to be honest, thanks to the power of the Mute button, I’ve never heard which part of the rice gobbling demographic gave the thumbs up to the chocolate deodorant spray.

Go the Aussies.