The other day, a little flyer popped into my letterbox.
MISSING: Dirty Dirk Nannes
LAST SEEN: "Apparently, last seen boarding a plane to Japan to (not) ski ... before fattening his wallet in the UK".
APPEARANCE: Bearded.
REWARD FOR INFORMATION: a photo of Natalie Portman, autographed by Jrod, OR a photo of Jrod, autographed by Natalie, depending on gender of finder.
Well, with a reward like that, how could I not try to win. So, I began my quest to find him.
I understood from my informer, Deep Throat, that he likes falling over a lot. So the first stop was a bouncy castle at a fair.
However, when I described the nature of the mision in order to garner a search party from amongst my fellow detectives, they all said "bearded man frequenting funfairs on his own? Nah, this is specialist stuff luv, you wanna go up to the 5th floor for the people who do that".
Next stop was a CAMRA festival, as he is a bearded man. But when I showed them the picture, they said "Call that a beard? I've seen more convincing beards standing next to Tom Cruise".
Next, I tried walking the street wearing an "I'm Looking For Dirty Dirk" tshirt. Maybe the text was too small or something, but all I got was "right here, baby!". Over and over again. And none of these people were Dirk.
Someone asked me "well where did you leave him?". I did explain that if I knew that, he wouldn’t be lost.
Someone else said "you'll find him in the last place you look, you mark my words!". I did explain that this was the case with any kind of search, as people do not generally continue looking for something after they have found it.
I had nearly given up hope. I'd been around the world (it seemed), but I I I, I couldn't find my Dirty Dirk. This quest was as ill-advised as Gwyneth Paltrow's pink Ralph Lauren Oscar dress.
Then I remembered that when you have lost something and can't find it, you're supposed to look in the place where you least expect to find it. So I tried Middesex's starting XI.
No joy there even.
But on the way out of Lords, in the pouring rain, I almost tripped over a huddled figure seated on the ground wrapped in a blanky. I avoided eye contact, but then he said "spare some change, miss?" and something about the rising intonation at the end of his sentence made me turn round and look, and there he was! I've never been any good at "Name That Bum", but today I'd hit the jackpot.
He said "all I wanted was a game, just a game of cricket". So I gave him a copy of International Cricket Captain 3.
"Oh" he said. "Version 2 is better".
I said "Dirk, Dirk, Dirk. You know what I'm going to say, don't you. Yes, that's right. Someone like you who is destitute in the street asking for a game is not in a position to express a preference as to what kind of game".
Dirty Dirk, if you're out there, come say hello. This is a safe place.
*A HUGE cricketwithballs thank you to Ceci for her brilliant photoshop work.
...
www.cricketwithballs.com "Now with extra juicy Podcast"
No comments:
Post a Comment