A jolly cold day in the MCC soup

During my, dare I say it, distinguished military career (Territorials), I have found myself in tough conditions on more than one occasion. Losing that tank on Dartmoor was a blot on the copybook, to say nothing of the hot water I got into when the Battalion Commander, a fellow cricket lover, discovered that it had been appropriated by a former Somerset stalwart. A professional of Colin Dredge's standing really ought to have been more responsible than to be driving a tank through the village of Frome, Gillette Cup victory high-spirits or not.

Until this last weekend, the coldest I had been in my life was the night I spent crouching behind that tank waiting for Dredge. I knew that sooner or later he must pop out to relieve himself of the impressively large flagon of scrumpy I had watched him purchase earlier in the evening, and that this would allow me the chance to leap through the hatch, fire up the tank, and make good my escape before the press got hold of the situation. I don't know if it was the discipline of all those years bowling on that unhelpful Taunton pitch, or if Dredge was genetically blessed in the bladder department, but it was many, many long, cold hours before he emerged to answer the call of nature.

As I say, that lonely night in Frome was the coldest I had been, until a visit to Lord's last weekend to watch Middlesex do battle with Surrey. I travelled to the game, as I do to all matches, with my dear friend Dessie, an Indian gentleman with whom I have shared digs on the Finchley Road for several years.

We had proceeded to Lord's in a taxi cab as normal, Dessie excitedly showing off some sort of portable computer-screen thingamabob that he had purchased. Dessie is a great one for technology, and said that this device could show all sorts of cricket matches from around the world, including the gaudy but (between ourselves, now) rather fun Indian Premier League. I was initially mistrustful of this device, particularly after Dessie pointed out that you can even get the Daily Telegraph on it these days. I did not find that reassuring in the slightest, and have written a letter.

We pootled along happily enough in the taxi watching some match or other on what Dessie conspiratorially, but with obvious satisfaction, told me was a "pirate website". I told him that I had no wish to do anything illegal, certainly not after my brush with Customs And Excise and that Tuffers' Balls, Muffs And Bloopers DVD that I bought at the airport in Amsterdam turning out to be not what it said on the tin. Dessie told me not to be so wet.

Anyhow, the day took an alarming turn for the worse when Dessie spotted Sir John Major getting out of an official-looking car on the St John's Wood Road. I naturally crossed the road to speak to the former prime minister, whom I have been fortunate to meet once or twice, both through cricket and my work as regional president (Hertfordshire) of the International Circus Performers Society, for whom we both do some charity work. Once you have watched the erstwhile Member of Parliament for Huntingdon juggle four chainsaws while keeping a lion at bay with nothing more than a small stool and a copy of the Maastricht Treaty, his struggles to keep the party together over Europe seem all the more unfathomable. There is steel in that man.

And Sir John needed every inch of that steel when he got out of the car, screwing up his thermos flask of - as it turned out - pea and ham soup. Dessie set upon him in a warm order, launching into a tirade of abuse about Sir John, the MCC and redevelopment plans for the ground, which Dessie accused him "of wanting to turn into a roller-disco". Sir John, visibly rattled, tried to get away from Dessie, using his thermos flask as a makeshift weapon, while Dessie tried to land a telling blow with his computer-screen wotsit as a running battle continued all the way from the Grace Gates to the pav itself.

This undignified scuffle soon attracted the attention of a pavilion steward, a formidable-looking cove who separated Dessie and Sir John, but not before this pea soup had gone liberally all over yours truly. Holding Dessie with one hand, and the former PM with the other, he read the riot act; and I suspect we could all have gone out about our business quietly had he not noticed Dessie's computer thing blaring out its pirate cricket.

Apparently, under a direct personal edict from Giles Clarke, viewing one of these pirate website jobbies is the cardinal sin in the game these days, and as a punishment we were forced to watch the entire rest of the day's County Championship play to give us time to think about what we had done. And if the rules at HQ are clear on one thing, it's that it is completely forbidden to wear a shirt with pea soup down it in the pavilion, so I was compelled to sit outside in disgrace, shirtless and freezing, banned from the warmth of the Long Room as Dessie and the former prime minister drew offensive pictures of each other on this computer-screen device. Rory Hamilton-Brown got a useful 50, but I would be lying if I said that made up for it.