Mr Bean goes to Edinburgh

Warwickshire's chances of harvesting two much-needed FPT points tomorrow are in big jeopardy from the weather. It is pelting with rain in Edinburgh and has been for some hours. Cold too. The local forecast for tomorrow is a little better but The Grange is taking an awful lot of water today.

Grim news all round. Unfortunately, and very much against my will, I seem to have taken the guise of Mr Bean for this trip.

It all started this morning in Warwick when, quite out of nowhere, my trouser button flew off. "No problem," I thought, dead cool like. My trusty belt will do the job. I failed to realise that passengers going through Birmingham Airport these days are instructed to remove their belts. As all Warwickshire's players filed through, confident and perky, I hung back in horror. Then when everyone I knew was firmly out of sight, I went for it. I minced through security clutching my metal objects in one tray, my laptop separately in another tray and my laptop bag in a third (needing three hands there) at the same time desperately trying to stop me trousers falling down.

The lady in security could not make up her mind whether I was to be suspected or pitied. Had this incident been submitted for a Mr Bean script it would, I think, have been rejected as not credible. Mr Bean never looked THAT undignified.

Then we landed in Edinburgh into weather that, never mind cricket, the trawlermen of Arbroath would draw a line at going out in. There was a lengthy delay in our luggage coming through and it transpired that this was to allow the luggage-handlers to expose our bags to the maximum amount of rain - and to hurl selected items roughly about in large puddles.

Mine was one of the selected items and, when I reached the hotel room, the product of all that hurling about became clear. The top had come off my shaving cream and had evidently remained compressed so that it continued to discharge, with the consequence that all my pants and socks for this trip (we are going straight to London for the Middlesex game) are covered, not just flecked but covered, in shaving cream.

I was going out to have a look at Edinburgh tonight but I think maybe I'll go straight to bed.