All my articles have started with words such as frustrated, depressed and cheesed off, so far. This one is no different I'm afraid.

The elbow is as bad as it has ever been and I'm now awaiting some new treatment referred to as 'Shock Therapy'. I'm hoping it's not the same treatment they used experimenting on mice and rats. Anyway, I'm living in hope.

At the time of writing I'm up in Manchester covering 12th man for the 1st team who play Lancashire in the next round of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy.

Great injury, this is, I can field, bowl, throw, run the roads and train, but I cannot bat and I cannot play golf.

We've just started a net session at Old Trafford when lo and behold the heavens have opened. Torrential rain and thunder.

We rushed into the groundsman's tin shed to shelter from the storm when - would you believe it? - up pipes our academic genius with an Oxford degree to his name, Richard Montgomerie asking "What on earth will become of us if the thunder strikes this tin shed?"

It just shows that even with a Rugby Public School and Oxford University background, the dressing room banter makes us all play on a level playing field.

Monty's slip up got me thinking about the characters I've played with over the years and some of the quotes they would rather forget.

I've thought about the comparison of personalities and characters in the Sussex dressing room and the old Glamorgan dressing room. It's fair to say that apart from Steve James' Cambridge degree and the odd O level there were no budding Albert Einsteins in the Principality's cricket team.

While at Hove you've Will House of Cambridge, Richard Montgomerie of Oxford, Robin St John Smythe Martin-Jenkins of Radley and Durham and also Chris Adams and Jamie Carpenter who attended public schools.

Though as previously mentioned the cricket dressing room is a great leveller. For example, Chris Adams to Bas Zuiderent whilst discussing Holland's inability to beat France at Euro 2000. "The Dutch are temperamental, all Scandinavians are the same."

Matthew Maynard to Tony Cottey on discovering the Sunday League sponsors, John Player, have been replaced by the Refuge Insurance Company. "That's great, I won't have free fags anymore, they'll be giving us bin bags!"

Darren Thomas (A Glamorgan fast bowler) attending a barbecue in Zimbabwe where there was a pig on a spit. "Hey Cotts, get me some more beef off that pig!"

Michael Yardy while competing in the team's version of the Weakest Link on tour in Grenada. "What's the capital city of Venezuela?" asked Robbo. "Brazil." answered Yards.

We move on to two respected cricket coaches, John Derrick of Glamorgan and Mooresy at Sussex. John Derrick was attending a team meal at an Italian restaurant and the waitress brought his pizza on a silver salver. "Would you like it cut into four slices or six?" she asked. "Better make it four, I'll never manage six." he replied.

Then onto Pete, he was filling in his Cricketers' Who's Who and under the heading 'What profession would you like to undertake outside of cricket? he replied "First team coach". So as you can see even the shrewdest minds can wander at times.

There are plenty more of these 'slip-ups' I can recall but for now I'll leave the players in question to sweat a little.

But suffice to say there are plenty of characters left in the game and when I finish I'll desperately miss the dressing room banter and camaraderie, that's for sure!