no blog

The greatest catch of all time . . .

2007-02-13T02:23:00.000-08:00

I have fond memories of a catch against England by John Dyson about 20 years ago, but I think this one beats even that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRMmkX2NJ94

It's not till the last part of the feed that I took on board quite how good this was. And a match winning effort too.

So tell me - how come we didn't offer large sums of money to Trevor Penney to improve English fielding ?

Lets hear it for Ebony-Jewel Cora-Lee Camellia Rosamond Rainford-Brent

2007-01-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

Finally English cricket has a rival to the great Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas. Ok it would be better if it was a left arm quickie with Vaasy's cunnung and nous but hell I;l take anything I can get at the moment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/womens_cricket/6266671.stm

The rise of the BNP

2007-01-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

Now obviously being of brown skin I was never going to grow up thinking the BNP the National Front and their various derivatives were a good thing, but commenting on them on message boards tends to just attract a lot of abuse. So here's a story about why anyone, even someone who thinks that they've been let down by governments or thinks that maybe there should be tighter controls on immigration should never ever ever vote for the scum.

About ten years ago my older brother was on his way back to a hotel in Leeds following a series of meetings. It was late and dark but Leeds is a nice enough place and so he felt perfectly safe. Unfortunately he happened to be walking past a pub that had been hosting a BNP meeting.

A group of four of them started shouting abuse as he walked by. Not being stupid he crossed the road to avoid them. But then they started to follow him, shouting more and more racist nonsense. He's a confrontational bloke and can handle himself but four against one is a bit too tasty so he quickened his pace - he was only a couple of minutes from where he was staying. But they kept on coming - now in his youth he was a sprinter so he decided that discretion was the better part of valour and legged it. He got about 20 metres before running straight into another group who'd got ahead of him. There was nothing at all he could do - he was outnumbered at least eight to one. They dragged him to one side and methodically beat the living shit out of him, eventually leaving after an eternity of pain and running away. They'd broken his eye socket, his collarbone, several ribs and his most of the bones in his left hand. He was saved from worse because he managed to back into a wall so they couldn't get behind him and so there was no damage to his kidneys. He spent the next six months in hospital or in bed at home strapped up and on drips. While he was there his business collapsed as did his relationship. It contributed significantly to the depression he now suffers from and which turned him into an alcoholic.

The police I have to say were bloody marvellous. Within days they had rounded up several suspects and charges looked likely. however the owner of the pub denied that the meeting was a BNP one. The BNP leadership claimed that several of the people arrested were in fact at other meetings elsewhere and could not have been involved. My brother could only identify one of the attackers who did in the end go to trial and was convicted, but only of affray. Think he got six months in the end.

The scum who did this to my brother will all still be members of the BNP. They may well be officials. If anyone votes for them christ knows they may even get to be representatives. May they burn in Hell tormented by people of colour for all eternity, along with anyone who thinks that voting for them is not really racist at all. If you vote BNP you;re the same as those scum.

Cricinfo team of the year

2007-01-02T01:29:00.000-08:00

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/274468.html

Can't really argue with it apart from maybe Cook although I haven't got a ready alternative to him to mind. Two Sri Lankans in it though which is nice to see. Oh and come to think of it I'm not convinced about Freddie this year either.

WIndows Vista

2006-12-18T02:46:00.000-08:00

It's new. It's revolutionary. It isn't a straight rip off of OSX honest.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/ifr_main.jsp?nsid=a718aabc2:10f950c8434:3cce&rf=bm&fr_story=d14603c1e23e6ce37920a8134a2e27b1405a4991&st=1166438763675&mp=FLV&cpf=false&fvn=9&fr=121606_053910_26f34614x10f8a78fbe8x4dc9&rdm=783865.2025833098

Well maybe a bit.

My crap year

2006-12-04T03:49:00.000-08:00

I had intented to blog more often and sometimes even on personal things. But this year hasn't really worked out like that as will become apparent . . .

So we started off badly. My beloved knackered her ankle just before Xmas last year leaving her in considerable pain. Oh well we thought it's only an injury. It'll get better. A year and a lot of pain later it turns out that she'd fractured it badly and it hasn't healed properly. Physio will sort it out but in the meantime . . .

Walking strangely on the ankle put pressure on her back. The pressure was comnpunded by stress at work and sitting badly until eventually something went completely and she was unable to move her neck without sharp stabbing pains that caused loss of consciousness and more frightening memory. Thankfully the NHS was on the ball and she got through the worst off it thanks to very strong drugs and physio. It was bloody terrible for a long time thouggh.

None off this is particularly important of course in the grand scheme of things however . . .

So our plan to set up a business in Sri Lanka is now on indefinite hold; not that I'm scared but I'm just so angry that the bastards can't stop killing each other. I have to be thankful for the BBC for being the only news organistation that even notices Lanka exists, but for most of the world there's just that obsession with the middles east while other parts of the globe go to hell. I shall blog on this more another time perhaps ; as of now however it's a full scale war again.

Now we get to the really crap bits. In June her dad died. He was of a good age and had had a great life but for anyone who reads this and has lost a parent knows there's nothing at all like losing a parent (well losing a child is probably worse but I won't have to endure that). It completely destroyed the middle part of the year - she was a terrible mess as were her family. Because he was an eminent man the funeral arrangements dragged on and on which didn't help. It was all very beautifully done in the end though - the eulogy was superb and delivered by an old friend, but it's all so unimportant compared to the grief of his family. He was a truly lovely man too.

Just as we're in the midst of this my father collapsed. We thougght he'd had a stroke but as it happens it wasn;t a full one just (just ?) a mini storke brought on by blodd pressure medication and the heat of the summer. It looked for a while that he was on the way out though - which has forced him to take his health more seriously. He wants to see his grand children grow up after all.

My brother's divorce continued to get worse and worse with his wife refusing to allow him to even see his daughter despite him actually having custody. I don't really understand how that works to be honest but it does. The bitch from hell won't see her sons at all, or even call them which means that the children are desparate to see the other parent and more importantly their brother or sister. The youngest has no memory of mother or sister at all now.

And then my older brother went completly off the rails. Struggling with depression and alcholoism he descended into a spiral of ASBOs and arrests. Finally he collapsed and was rushed to hospital with a failing liver. He was there for weeks andd frankly they didn;t think their was any chance. But in the end he was discharged (after five weeks) . . . only to be readmitted a few days later in a state of complete collapse. He;d contracted MRSA and pneumonia and was hours from the final curtain. Thankfully my sainted younger brother rrushed him in before things were irreversible but itt's still touch andd go now. The MRSA appears to be in retreat, the possiblity of TB has gone and the liver is much much stronger. He's taken years of his life but he should at least have years left. He won;t ever be off drugs again - for the liver and the side effects and he is likely to pick up an infection at the drop of a hat but today he comes of the MRSA treatment. Thank fuck.

Now I hear that my favourite aunt's cancer has returned . . .

Ok I don't blog all that often

2006-10-10T10:16:00.001-07:00

There are various reasons mostly time constraints but often just mood. However this it worth reporting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozDkNsfzYmI

In a hurry so can't do it properly as a link or an embedded doc - but cut and paste. If you're of a certain vintage you'll laugh your socks off.

Lanka

2006-08-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

Today I should be I a fine mood. Granted as someone with two cricket teams to support internationally it would be nice if they didn't both always take things down to tthe wire, but the resurgence of the Sri Lanka team is magnificent to watch. Jayawardene is probably up there with Ponting as the best captain / batsman in world cricket at the moment (although the Strauss boy is doing well too). Murali is of course rapiddly approaching the point where superlatives are mundane so routine and remorseless is is genius.

But obviously I'm not at all happy. The laughably titled ceasefire is breached every day because we have two sides so pig headed that they care not at all for life. I strongly suspect that neither side remembers what the fuck they are fighting for in the first place - most of it is ancient history now. And today - a bomb in Colombo, aimed at a Tamil politician who committed the heinous crime of opposing the LTTE. Outside a school no less.

And before anyone comes on here and slags me off - I believe that all of them - the government the JVP, the Monks and the LTTE should be towed somewhere unpleasant (Southern Lebanon perhaps) and let the rest of Sri Lanka get on with life. There is no moral high groundd anymore - the actions of all sides deny them that.

Bunch of cunts the lot of them.

So who exactly does Chris Read have to sleep with to get selected for England ?

2006-07-10T04:39:00.001-07:00

I mean - what does he have to do ?

Improve your batting they told him - done that. Averages around 50.

Scores a century against England's next opponents.

Still keeps brrilliantly.

But . . . clearly Geraint Jones has got photos of Fletcher with a donkey and a monkey doingg something unspeakable because in any other team in the whole worrld he wouldn;t get a look in on his current form. Well maybe Zimbabwe, but no-one else.

Eureka !

2006-06-16T03:29:00.000-07:00

At last I have found it. The greatest shot of all time.

No honest.

Never makes the lists 'cos it was in a third and fourth place play off scored by a terrible Brazilian team in a World Cup that was more than a little tainted by being staged in a country run by a brutal dictatorship that had patently bribed its way to the final.

But . . . I'd never seen anyone do this to a football. And childhood memories of goals are the best ones:

http://www.whoateallthebratwurst.com/2006/06/classic_world_c_1.html

The world's greatest ever cricket team

2006-06-08T02:41:00.000-07:00

The recent test series prompted me to look at some cricket message boards, particularly the TMS ones. And in among all the pointless racism and insults there were a couple of strands that intrigued and annoyed me in equal measure. Perhaps they show that people have no real knowledge of the game they purport to follow or perhaps it's just my age but . . . there are people out there who say things like this :

'personally I've never rated Bradman'

or

'SF Barnes was a nobody'

and it makes me very cross indeed

Ok they both played a long time ago - but for fucks sake people there are some occasions when raw statistics will do. When someone performs to that degree above their contemporaries and indeed anyne who has followed after you don't need to have seen them play to form a judgement that perhaps they might have been extraordinary.

So here's my greatest ever cricket team. I guarantee that in a three or five test series this side will triumph in all conditions, in any country.

Don Bradman

Any six other batsmen

Any wicketkeeper

SF Barnes

Any two other bowlers

The purpose of the batsmen is to stay in long enough to allow the Don to score a ton.

The purpose of one bowler is because Syd can't bowl from both ends. The second bowler is there to bowl the odd over to allow Syd to change ends occasionally.

Come on then - I'll take you all on.

The hand (or is that wrist ?) of greatness

2006-06-06T03:42:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to be doing all sorts of things yesterday. Working out some new business opportunities, completing course work. But it was sunny and a Monday . . . and more importantly there was an air of expectation that at Trent Bridge something great might happen. And so it did.

I wanted England to win - honest I did. I was born here and brought up here and I am Englsih culturally and certainly in a sporting context. Sometimes however when I read press coverage when Sri Lanka are playing it puts my back up. In 1996 I was furious that Sri Lanka were being written off in the World Cup by all sorts of people who should have known better - when those who really knew anything about cricket could see that the one day game was being reinvented before their eyes. In 1998 I was utterly indignant when that twat Lloyd made comments about the great man's action (backfired though - 9 for 65 in the last innings). This time the press have by and large accepted that his action is legal and have seen that he is also the nicest and most modest of men - but message boards etc have been full of vile insinuations and accusations. Therefore while I wanted England to win I did want Murali to bowl like only he has ever bowled, for perhaps the last time in a test match here. And bugger me he did.

So I went to the pub after lunch. A couple of 'wags' there were shouting 'no ball' but after a while even they shut up. I've never seen anything like it - and I was at the Oval in 1998. From the moment that Tresco went until the moment Monty went bananas I don't think a single English batsman had the faintest idea what to do each time he trotted up to bowl. It was completely mesmerising, so much so that Jayasuriya at the other end looked like a world class bowler as they could not break the spell cast by Murali. Not a master class because no-one can ever bowl like that again, just a lesson in how the truly great sportsman can pretty much win even a team game on his own. It's a privilege to have been allowed to see him play and the cricket world will miss him when in a few short years he retires, presumably to unite Sri Lanka - because on that Island I have never met anyone who doesn't love him.

My beloved Hammers

2006-05-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

Bugger.

Ok I'll expand. Supporting football clubs is of course a complex and emotionally draining thing and we all believe our club to be the best in the world. But you;re all wrong : unless you support West Ham you just don't carry the same burden as us Irons. Great winning clubs like yer Liverpools and Man Utds get to win all the time. Some clubs get moments of glory occasionally but generally acept their lot is to aspire but never achieve. Some clubs touch the hieghts through a benefactor suddenly elevating them above all others. Spurs fans think the world owes them a living (only kidding).

But supporting the Hammers is different and it's different because we are blessed by the hand of Ron. Go forth and play football not to win but to achieve greatness through the style of play he taught us. Better to lose maginificently than to win cheaply or dishonestly. As long as I can remember we've been not only the most attacking of sides but also the fairest - hardly any diving or violent tackilng (obviously there are exceptions to this rule but not many). We don't get to grind out a desparate draw or to sit on a two goal lead. Oh no. If we go 2 up the true Hammer knows full well that we can lose 2-3 because we won't stop attacking so long as we are able. It's not the winning or the takingg part that's important ; it;s the greatness of the endeavour the beauty of the game. Everyso often we transcend ourr individual talents and win something special - the Fa Cup. the Cup Winners Cup. the World Cup. All that is good in English football sits within the confines of the Boleyn Ground.

Which brings me to Saturday May the 13th. I don't mind that we lost. No really. I was desparate for us to win. I felt every single moment of that game and the goals that Liverpool scored were like daggers. But in retrospect we lost because of how we are as a club - 2 up Liverpool would have defended, taken the pace of and slowed down the game. That's why they are a marvellous side with a glorious history of victory in England and in Europe. But did we ? Did we fuck. We started the second half 2-1 up and we were still attacking. Even at 3-2 we kept on. And in the end we were laid low by a wonderful goal which as I watched it kill my dreams I still applauded. And that goal would not have happened had our right back not chivalrously kicked the ball out of play because he saw a Liverpool player injured.

In extra time only one team was trying to win that game too - the players knew that Liverpool wouldn't lose on penalities - and that itself is a statement of how magnificent they are. Better to get done on the counter and lose on the field of play than to lose like that. Defeat in those circumstances has no sting.

In years to come this will be know as Gerrard's final and so it should be because he was the finest player on the day and fully deserved his triumph. All true West Ham Fans also will applaud Liverpool for their sportsmanship and their generosity in victory. But for once the losers of a final will not be forgotten even by those who do so through gritted teeth. It really was the greatest of finals and West Ham, my beloved Hammers, even though beaten were not defeated. Magnificent is too small a word for them on that Saturday.

(ps how come Ashton isn't in Sven squad and Crouch is ?)

Calcio

2005-11-23T02:07:00.000-08:00

I spend a lot of time in Italy - just travelling around, eating fine food, meeting people looking at art and architecture and using my rudimentarty latin to say things like - 'my word carved on this stone are the cutoms rates dues from the time of the Emperor Trajan !' to general bemusement. Well I think its interesting.

But then earlier this year I went to Tuscany with friends and saw something completely out of the ordinary - Siena has it's Palio but in Florence they have the Calcio in Costume. This is basically an ancient football match (so ancient it was played when the city was under siege from the Emperor Charles V) that fell dormant for many centuries but was revived and is now one ot the quainter and more violent traditional pageants. Originally it was played between the young nobles of the city but now the cast is a little different. It all starts with a parade . . .

This parade goes through the city with flags and drums and costumed people. Each quarter of the city has a team - the blues the greens the whites and the reds. The parade leads to an arena in the sqaure of Santa Croce (if memory serves) where more flag waving and parading goes on.

Then they release the teams into the arena. I say release because it would appear that the teams are sepected by emptying the jails and police cells. Perhaps you get remission if you win for your team but my god they were scacy people. The crowd were baying for blood - smoke bombs in the approriate colour were set off at both ends (the Greens were 'playing' the Whites on this day)

Then the game begins. The game is simple in theory - the two teams line up facing each other and then one of the many referees throws a ball in the air. The teams complete to catch it and then passing from hand to hand head towards the opponets end. Touching the end fence constitues a goal. At which point the teams swap round and play resumes with them attacking the opposite goal - not from half way, but from where the defensive line had been before the goal was acored. Presumably this is to keep things even.

The only snag with this description is that it omits the how - how one team scores. In essence the ball is thrown into the air and then an enormous fight breaks out. In the first few minutes three of the whites were stretchered off badly bleeding and in at least one case no long conscious. It was a cross between a street brawl and a battle - no actual Calcio going on at all. The Greens were among the biggest and most scary people I've ever seen and that was just the fans. The teams on the other hand included people like this :

Now I wouldn't cross him on a dark night. Or a sunny day. When he was asleep. In the end brute force won out - the Greens were several scores to one ahead but the Whites got more and more pissed off with the violence and with 15 minutes to go decided they'd had enough and walked off. Which wasn't as it turns out what the crowd and the Greens wanted. My they were miffed at being cheated of a chance to run around (well they were probably only out of jail on a short term pass so waned to make the most of it). A fight broke out between the greens and the band - tubas being used as weapons, and not just for the awful noise they make. Eventually it calmed down a little and the greens were allowed a victory parade presumably because otherwise a proper riot would break out.

Cordoban musing

2005-11-08T01:32:00.000-08:00

So just back from a sojourn in Andalucia which made me ponder certain things. This first musing was prompted by the great Mezquita in Cordoba - a fantastic mosque the was added to many many times over the centuries and enhanced by successive rulers and Caliphs ultimately culminating (artistically) in the wondrous mihrab decorated by the mosaicists of Byzantium.
My musing is around my own reactions to art and history. Hitherto I’ve always been of a bent that despite the sometime jarring effects of later generations to alter and destroy buildings and works of art, that the later alterations have validity and give historic veracity to that which we see today. For example in the picture below I was standing in the precincts of the temple of Artemis outside Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the world, looking up at the Isa Bey mosque from the 14th Century crowned by a Byzantine castle and to the left of centre the very considerable ruins of the basilica of St John - one of the works of Isodore and Anthemius.

Every part of this site is a valid and historic to me - and without any of the components the history of the place would be lessened. The pillar is a reconstuction from fragments but it’s clear to me that it should have been reassembled to give at least a tiny flavour of the original building. The work to strengthen and reconstruct parts of the church are equally useful. I wouldn’t suggest that we rebuild the church or the temple as it is their ruined state that add poignancy to the site and reminds us of the fleeting nature of mans tenure on any one place on earth. So wedded am I to this idea that the wounds of history are part of the very structure of a place that even in my favourite building I would feel it diminished by the removal of the 19th century roundels that some feel damage it.

But then I went to Cordoba and I now question my previously unshakeable belief. If you’ve ever visited the Mezquita you will know what I mean. The building is an exquisite jewel of Islamic art - even though the greatest decoration was by Christian artists from the East (a later muse that - the Christian East and the Muslim west). The forest of pillars that sadly my photography cannot do justice to is not quite unparalleled as the guide books would have it but is certainly unique in a religious building in Europe.

The additions of the early rulers of the reconquest are subtle and in keeping with the general themes of the architecture even when they were aimed at converting the building to a church.

But then along comes the power politics of Charles V and the religious certainties of the counter reformation. So in the middle of this subtle and delicate structure we now have a choir and a dome and all the acroutrements of a 16th century church planted smack in the middle of this jewel. Anywhere else they’d merely be another fairly dull church bu here they are a crime against nature, against art and against history. If there was anything I could do to remove them even at the cost of leaving a huge hole in the centre of the Mezquita I would.
Why though have a reacted so strongly to this one building ? Granted if someone decided to paint or plaster over the great church and turn it into a mosque again I’d be furious, but this single act of cultural vandalism has incensed me. It’s not as though Charles V and his advisors don’t have form on this front - after all the Real Alcazar in Seville and the Alhambra in Granada both have awful imperial buildings tacked onto them. But this is somehow different as it is not simply a ham fisted attempt at updating a structure - it’s a wilful attempt to destroy it. perhaps to prove one culture superior to another. The irony of course being that it proves nothing of the sort and indeed very likely show that with religious and cultural certainty it’s possible to produce the sublime - but is equally possible to produce something terrible.

Anyway - that’s my first muse - when is it right, when do we in the modern era have the right I suppose, to alter the artisitc and architectural mistakes of history ?