Confession: The weather has fooled us again -- so far. After all the bellyaching about rain and Messrs Duckworth and Lewis, the first five games of the World Cup have gone the full distance on Day One without any major rain disruptions necessitating play on the reserve day.

For those interested in such trivia, the only World Cup in England which remained untroubled by rain throughout was the inaugural one in 1975 which began on June 7 and ended on June 21 with not a drop of rain in between. Those days, the games were of 60 overs each side and the final between West Indies and Australia ended in twilight a few minutes short of 9 p.m.

In this World Cup, except for the opening game which was extended to 7.30 p.m to account for some time lost to showers, other games have ended by around 6.45 p.m. in decent light. But there's still a long way to go. Alas for punters, Ladbrokes is taking no bets on rain.

Green Meadows

After taking a train up to Bristol, I decided todrive back with a British photographer friend in his mini Ford which was the about the size of a matchbox.

Watching the verdant English countryside gliding past, I asked Patrick if there was any part of England which isn't green. Maybe parts of the Scottish Highlands, he said, after mulling over the question. It's not difficult to imagine why the poet Burns wrote, ``O green grow the rushes o, green grow the rushes o, the best part of my life is spend with the lasses o...''

Hi-tech Proteas

While scribes are traversing the country by train and car, the cricket teams each have a luxury coach. These well-appointed buses are meant for 51 but with only about 25 players and officials in each team, the jumbo coaches have plenty of space to loll around.

Which they pretty much do as they head out after each training session or game, singing gaily if they have won a game, brooding darkly if they have lost one, but generally chattering to each other like schoolboys going on a picnic. Except for theSouth Africans.

They use two-way radios to communicate with each other even in a bus which is itself nuclear powered. They all have code names and a couple of them even wear disguise to report to Bob Woolmer on the other players. The driver, of course, is a spy for the South African Cricket Board and there are hidden cameras in the lights above. A powerful radar atop the bus scans the English countryside to track other team buses.

Woolmer, of course, has a powerful on board computer (a Cray XMP) which stores the personal life history and gene pattern of all opposition players which can be used appropriately. He is also said to have asked Springbok scientists to work on a laser machine which can be used from the pavilion to guide the ball!

Yeah, okay, I was just kidding. But you get the point.