Last French post, I think and a little on cricket

I did something I do in a lot of cities yesterday, and got out into the suburbs of Marseilles. Unfortunately, there were just dull. I had hoped I would find some interesting neighborhoods somewhere, as I had close to the centre of the city, but it didn't really happen. (It may have just been bad luck. The "get on the public transport system and go somewhere random" strategy usually works, but it didn't here. I had a good look at at least some of the port. I saw cars being unloaded, and some containers being loaded and unloaded. The bulk of the port business has moved a fair way out of the city - I saw some of it from the train as I came into Marseilles the other day.

Yesterday evening's sitting around and talking at the hostel session involved drinking a large amount of wine with an Irishman, a French Canadian and a Tunisian. The predominant language of the conversation was French, so I missed most of it. (The Irishman told me that because both the Tunisian and the French-Canadian spoke non-standard variants of French, they were speaking a sort of lowest common denominator version of the language, but that didn't help me much). However, one of the fundamental laws of the universe did come into play. (If you start drinking with an Irishman, you will be doing it for some time).

And on cricket, there have been two test matches going on this weekend. Australia once again comfortably beat Bangladesh by an innings, although the Bangladeshis did take the game into the fourth day. And England are playing South Africa. To my surprise, South Africa have had the best of the game by far. However, there has been a lot of rain. Going into day five, England will probably hold out for a drawm but a South African victory remains possible of they can take the last three England wickets quickly, enforce the follow on, and bowl England out a second time.

I am back to London this evening, where my DSL line should theoretically have been set up. More tomorrow.