Clark hit upon the idea as a way to ensure that he would never, ever, have to spend another winter in his home town of Hull. He's doing a pretty good job in that regard as he's now into his tenth edition, dating back to Nasser Hussain's India campaign in 2001-02. The only tour that's not had its own dedicated edition was the Pakistan trip in 2005-06, because there simply weren't enough fans out there to make it worthwhile. "There are a lot of guys who put a lot of effort into writing for The Corridor," says Clark, "and they deserve to be read."

He lists 12 fellow contributors on the acknowledgements page. It's an eclectic mix including a former Wisden employee, a Masters graduate in Cricket Diplomacy, and a bloke known only as Big Harvey. The topics are varied and invariably worth reading - a tough 20-question quiz with such enigmatic posers as "555 in 1932. Where?"; a fan's eye appreciation of England's long-time Mr Nice Guy, Ashley Giles; a damning fan's eye appraisal of the World Cup, and even (in the interests of fairness) a defence of poor old Duncan. Oh yes, and a cut-out-and-keep ICC protractor, where every degree is 15 degrees …

"It's basically all put together with email, paper, glue and photocopiers," says Clark. On the eve of the first Test he commandeered the Telworld Copy Centre in the centre of Kandy, where he explained his complex page layout, stressed the need to turn every individual page over to ensure the booklet remained double-sided, and left the staff to it while he concentrated on the important bits - collating the sheets in the correct order, and stapling the finished product

"The guys in places like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh do a far better job than in Australia, South Africa and especially the West Indies," said Clark. "They earned a good tip because we were up until 1am and the shop re-opened at 7.30, but they really care and want to do a good job." It's not just magazines that Clark has been known to flog, however. During last winter's tour of Australia he swelled his coffers no end with an incredibly popular range of "Douglas Jardine - Ashes Hero" T-shirts, many of which are still being worn to this day.

The sheer weight of visiting fans isn't quite what it was during the Ashes, although Clark's costs are dramatically lower whenever England are on the subcontinent. On the first day alone he sold 150 copies, and is already "well on course" to the figure of 600 he needs to cover his travel costs. Hull, it seems, can freeze over for another winter.