Many of you will be wondering now that the new season has started how local heroes Leith Beige Cricket Club are getting on. Others will be more interested in my latest adventures with Michael Winner, Sir Michael Caine and their respective wives Geraldine and Shakira. There will also be a large group of readers that just want to know the gratuitous details of my current sexual activities- they simply want the who, when, where, how many times, in what position and with what type of oils, lotion and potions – and to them I say, Sofia Coppola and Richard E Grant in the library with a length of rope as many times as you care to mention and I’d be quicker listing the positions that weren’t used…back to the cricket though.

Tea at Leith Beige headquarters on Leith Links is a complex, time-consuming affair, with sumptuous foodstuffs brought in from all the city’s most exclusive retailers. Preparation for Saturday’s league encounter will typically start the previous Monday with our buyers scouring the capital for bibulous delights to tickle the most demanding sportsman’s fancy. With a huge, almost unlimited budget – thanks in the main to a wonderful sponsorship deal with The Tourmalet Tavern on Iona Street, a somewhat  lacklustre  public house whose only redeeming features are it’s ‘sturdy’ toilets and acceptable German beer – and tea ladies who are among the best in the Lothian and Fife region, no stone is left unturned to keep Leith Beige and visiting teams both entertained and full of stomach during their high level encounters.

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Entrees are a simple affair: Bellinis with Beluga caviar – simple, pleasant and efficient. Most, not all, will have a glass of Bollinger champagne to wash away the sweat and grime of 50 overs in the blazing, unforgiving cauldron of combat that is Leith Links in the fearsome heat of early May.

The main course is a lot more refined and lavish. An orgiastic gluttony of free range nibbles, treats and tastes, handpicked by a team of highly paid enthusiastic bon viveurs whose main pleasure in life is to witness top sportsmen enjoying quality foodstuffs: the finest sausage rolls from Iceland ‘up the bridges’, exquisite chocolate Swiss rolls ‘fae’ the ‘Mid in Gorgie and, occasionally if we are lucky enough and our head source man Ben Wood hears of a possible supplier, we might, just might, get some Battenberg cake, from one of the more exclusive hypermarkets at Sighthill or ‘The Hailes’.

Cricket may seem to the outsider a civilised gentlemanly sport, but when people realise that there’s Battenberg on offer – for free, for fuck all – at the tea break all hell can break loose, I’ve seen grown men (Stevie Middleton) pushing aside youngsters of either sex in a frenzied effort to taste it’s sweet, sugar laden, fattening delights. Second only to this would be the tea itself, in the 158-year history of the club, we have insisted on having it shipped direct from Ashid’s legendary corner store on Broomhouse Drive. A little known brand called Nambarrie has, year after year, satisfied some of the biggest names in the game – Bradman, Botham, Gus McLean, Viv Richards, Viv Lumsden, Eugene Terreblanche and young ‘Deek’ Riordan to name but a few. But Leith Beige doesn’t live in the past it’s the here and now that matters, along with pudding.  Pudding is special and for this we have to travel to Craigmillar Park to the bastion of desserts that is Lidl’s famous European food store, for their special ‘own brand’ version of Cornish ice cream. This can be gobbled straight down or alternatively used as part of our legendary Tennents lager floater™. Marlene Dietrich first introduced this beautiful combination to the club on a visit with Burt Bacharach and Ernest Hemmingway in the early 1950s. It is as popular now as it was then and the club has even introduced two new ‘Brucie Bonus’ Tennents lager floater™ – a wildly popular four pint version of the original made popular by Sir Elton John and David Furnish at the start of the ‘Noughties’ during their visit to officially open the ladies toilets extension and the slightly less popular Jumbo Osaki Hercules
Tennents lager floater™, an extravagant six pint version named after the Japanese golfer who played as wicketkeeper for the team from 1996 –98.

Readers note that full details of luncheons, teas, menu suggestions and Tam Heinitz’s sex tips for girls can be found at our sensual website leithcricket.co.uk.

A bientot mes amis
Leopold Francis Simpson

Next month: The inside story…me, Alistair Darling, and ‘that’ dress.