So anyway, Joe's rib.

We staggered along to the pub after the adjudication. Strange little "Greyfriars Bobby". And I was standing in amongst the packed masses, supping my Grolsch, when someone wove their way over to me and started muttering about Joe and his rib. He was having some difficulty with it. After a coughing fit apparently. But I slackly beer-revellingly ignored the alert and went on drinking.

I was temporarily - and delightfully - distracted by a text from a client saying "watching comic relief. I hate myself and I want to die. Hope you're ok" and a text a few minutes later "sorry, wrong Claire. Hope you're well". Marvellous stuff. What to do about that?

But then someone (Jonathan?) came back over to me and said that I really should go and talk to Joe as it looked like it was serious. So I trotted across to him and indeed, he thought he'd cracked a rib in a post-play excitable coughing fit. So off he went to casualty.

Self self self I immediately anxiously thought about the play. Richard Graveling was more or less simultaneously leaving the pub and in a flash of desperate insight, I thought perhaps he could replace Joe - if Joe were not to fit to perform the next night. Richard was affably amenable. He was heading to the rugby the next day and said I could just call him and let him know one way or another. Admirably unperturbed.

Joe texted me just before 2am saying that he had pulled a muscle, would sleep on it (as it were) and call me the next afternoon to alert me to his fitness for performance. So I slept - with some anxiety, it would be fair to say.

But then in the middle of Asda (Walmart) the following day, he texted me to say that he was bruised but fine. It seemed almost like an anti-climax.