16 January 2010
The third day of the fourth test match against South Africa started with the home side being 215 for 2, against England’s abysmal 180 all out yesterday. Our captain, Strauss, was out first ball which  rather set the tone for the rest of the innings. Then, there was the added complication of the South African opener Smith, clearly being out at 15, and the review umpire failing to notice that he snicked the ball and,  as a result, wrongly failed to give him out. Smith went on to score 105 which may well have sealed England’s fate.
Whilst I was finishing reading a fascinating book entitled Yemen by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, which broadly covered the period that I spent in southern Arabia in the late 50s early 60s, another book arrived, this from my kind brother-in-law, Col. John Garton-Jones. Amazingly, this book was also about the same region and the same time period. This book, Roads to Nowhere – a Southern Arabian Odyssey, was written by an old mutual friend, John Harding, you was a member of the Colonial Administrative Service and acted as an Assistant Political Adviser in the Eastern Aden Protectorate, as an administrative officer in Aden and finally as a Political officer in Lahej and Radfan. It really looks an interesting book and I shall enjoy reliving old times through its pages.(My lavatory book at present is a tiny volume by Alan Bennett, Clothes They Stood up in.)