Janus

Go on, make us laugh

(Cherished readers averse to English sport and particularly football should desist from reading futher.) Continue reading “Go on, make us laugh”

What and where?

Have a guess. No googling or wha’ever! Clues: they can only do it here in winter and never at the origin. The prize is curry for two in B’ham.

Allegedly Sarko himself is not subject to any such torture. His stratospheric grocery bills and zillion car garage bear witness. But last weekend he had to sit at home while his persecutor, Ms Merkel, arranged a Euro-strategy meeting for AAA-rated members only. A veritable ‘Not-you-Perkins!’ moment! How very dare she?

I do wish there was an English or even French word for Schadenfreude because this summer is going to be filled with it – except in France.

An ‘extra’ reflection or two – poetry comp Feb

Reflection 5

Quite diff’rent from a turning track

That sends both teams awry,

This wicket suits their quicks it seems

But never ours. ~~Dubai~~. Bye bye.

Reflection 6

That boy said calmly, turning back,

I know this ‘ere’s a galleon;

But please excuse me if I ask:

“Is our Captain an Italian?”

Caption?

Courtesy of the BBC

Gentlemen vs. Players

Cricket in the 18th Century

Like many cherished colleagues I was brought up with a cricket ball in my cradle, ready for my inevitable success as a player. My Dad was a mean swing bowler and played for Armstrong Siddeley every fine summer Saturday, while Mum was an official scorer, dotting and crossing in all the right boxes. My sister and I soon learned how to do it and waved back to the umpire whenever required.

At more rarified altitudes than ours, the game was socially divided between amateurs and professionals: gentlemen and players – until 1962 when Fiery Fred Trueman (a player of course) referred to it as a ‘ludicrous business…thankfully abolished’. But the distinction had reflected the long history of cricket as a social catalyst. Or was it?

The Beeb had an article only yesterday on that very idea. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16821779. Romantic and salutary apparently. But I wonder. I’m not convinced that peasants performing for the entertainment of their betters (!) represented anything but an expression of the feudal order. Fraternity, Equality and Liberty it wasn’t! Didn’t the gentlemen and players have separate dressing rooms? Or am I mis-remembering?

Reflections on that boy – poetry comp Feb

Soutie’s scientific treatise on the universe has driven me to introspective distraction, allowing waves of cosmic energy to stimulate my creative juices (n’ aw that) and producing this: Continue reading “Reflections on that boy – poetry comp Feb”

Jam tomorrow – Eurostyle

I won’t bore cherished scientists with the true, Latin origin of this phrase, which Lewis Carroll parodies in Alice, but let me draw attention to CS Lewis’s Hymn to Evolution – which I think should become the EU’s mantra:

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future’s endless stair:
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.
Wrong or justice in the present,
Joy or sorrow, what are they,
While there’s always jam to-morrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we’re going,
We can never go astray.

(to the tune, Mannheim, ‘Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us’)

Monday caption?

Btw, the other man is President Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire enjoying dinner at the Élyssée Palace, while his lads did well in the Africa Cup of Nations darn sarf.