He who tires of Lord's is tired of life

There's a terrific piece from Brian Viner in The Independent all about Lord's and what makes it so unique: less about the cricket, more about the people:

Lord's on the opening day of a Test series; all human life is there. On Thursday I met a Biafran barman who knows nothing about cricket, and Michael Holding, who knows plenty. At various junctures I talked about pit closures with the MP for Barnsley East and Mexborough, about the delights of Bath with a merchant banker, about bad light with Dickie Bird ("it's these foreign umpires, y'see. If they come off for light like this they'll never play in England"), and about Jose Mourinho's dog with just about everyone. The joke in the Mound Stand was that Mourinho had sprung a surprise by having a Yorkshire terrier in the first place; we all agreed that he ought to have an expensive foreign import.

Amid all this, I actually found time to watch some cricket. But watching the cricket is a secondary pastime at a Lord's Test; nattering, quaffing and ambling is what it's mainly about. The quality of the nattering is, of course, directly influenced by the amount of quaffing.