Obama, the mistake the American people will be paying for for decades continues to make the faux pas his own, the latest being an attack on disabled athletes.
We can reveal that it is in fact the fault of the teleprompter he reads for every occasion.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
What's that again?
This column just needs to be shared if just to remind us that all sportspeople, not just our perennially losing cricketers, are human first, superheros second.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Bloody awful!
I had the misfortune last night to watch some rugby (well I think it was rugby) while eating dinner.
How I managed to keep the food down still surprises me.
What I saw was two groups of players, one group wearing two-tone pink, the other dark blue with yellow and sh*t-brown (after a VERY hard night) highlights.
The fellow who was carried off just as I started to watch looked strangely familiar.
After watching a bit I wondered if he was simply broken-hearted at the play of his compatriots.
I have never seen 31 (32 if you count the carried off fellow)such clueless, direction-less and inept men performing - anywhere - ever.
That TV shows this rubbish in prime time surprises me (although I admit not a lot).
What amazed me though was that a crowd that appeared to be in the high hundreds watched this crap without invading the pitch and showing the pathetic bastards how to f**king do it.
Some were even shown jumping around, cheering (although I suspect this might have been added file footage from some gay mardi gras given the dress and make-up displayed)
In today's world it appears people will watch any old rubbish.
I wonder how long it will be before some bright bastard will come up with a game that is a cross between tippenny runs, baseball and french cricket, pretends it is a true sport and markets it as the new, exciting way forward.
How I managed to keep the food down still surprises me.
What I saw was two groups of players, one group wearing two-tone pink, the other dark blue with yellow and sh*t-brown (after a VERY hard night) highlights.
The fellow who was carried off just as I started to watch looked strangely familiar.
After watching a bit I wondered if he was simply broken-hearted at the play of his compatriots.
I have never seen 31 (32 if you count the carried off fellow)such clueless, direction-less and inept men performing - anywhere - ever.
That TV shows this rubbish in prime time surprises me (although I admit not a lot).
What amazed me though was that a crowd that appeared to be in the high hundreds watched this crap without invading the pitch and showing the pathetic bastards how to f**king do it.
Some were even shown jumping around, cheering (although I suspect this might have been added file footage from some gay mardi gras given the dress and make-up displayed)
In today's world it appears people will watch any old rubbish.
I wonder how long it will be before some bright bastard will come up with a game that is a cross between tippenny runs, baseball and french cricket, pretends it is a true sport and markets it as the new, exciting way forward.
Rudd the illusionist?
I'm not into internal politics of foreign countries but as Australia could drag NZ down with it this column by Paul Sheehan is essential reading.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
No, I don't like it.
The ball looked as big as, well, as a cricket ball looks when your “eye” is in.
I swung the bat and felt that wonderful feeling you only get when sweet spot and ball connect.
It must have been slightly lower than I thought because it travelled fast and straight towards the boundary neither rising nor dipping.
The game was at the Heathcote Domain and a browsing herd of dinosaurs on the maltworks side of the ground looked up somewhat in alarm at the approaching missile.
I had the same (or a similar) experience one time in Mosgiel.
Those were the only two times I remember that I challenged the boundary on the full.
I've watched cricket since I was a young fellow of seven or so and still remember many of the big hits that went for six although not, I admit, as well as I remember the cover drives such as the one John Wright greeted Jeff Thompson's second new ball with at Lancaster Park one year or the two John Edridge placed to the boundary on his way to a multiple hundred against New Zealand.
The sixes I do remember were part of the building of innings of note, Dick Motz' 103 in 53 minutes (8 sixes, 7 fours), Hadlee and Lees fighting back against the Windies again at Lancaster Park in an ODI before pyjamas became the norm, Lance Cairns' six in Oz (MCG?).
I have over the last few days heard myself described as an old fogey, humourless, heartless, with no ability to enjoy myself and many more entertaining and sweet adjectives because I didn't enjoy the tippenny runs game staged the other night at AMI stadium (at Lancaster Park).
I plead guilty to all the above.
Leaving aside the half-wits of the Gifford ilk and T20 converts like BC who demand that all should drop down and kneel at the alter of 20/20 simply because THEY like it (They do need to take a long look at themselves) the game leaves me cold.
I found Wednesday night's game boring.
Perhaps boring is not quite true, unsatisfying would be better.
Cricket to me is a game encompassing many skills, a team game that pits individuals against each other giving both a chance to test themselves as well as the other while playing in a team environment with the challenges, mainly mental, that that brings.
Tippenny runs takes away many of those skills, particularly that of patiently waiting for the opponent to show a weakness and then using all your own skills to exploit the weakness.
Tippenny runs creates that weakness by forcing players to take risks before they are ready, by forcing premeditation.
That however is why I dislike the game not why I found the game unsatisfying.
In Major League baseball at the halftime all-star break they hold a home run derby.
The home run in baseball equates to a six in limited overs cricket – the ultimate shot that takes the fielders out of the equation.
The home run derby is a contrived competition that sees many home runs hit in a day but, and this is important, no-one takes it for more than a contrived competition, a bit of fun.
To me that is what tippenny runs is, a contrived competition for a bit of fun.
If it remains in this context I'm all for the game but to treat it seriously, to make it mean something, to matter, destroys that concept entirely.
And this is why I find the game unsatisfying.
To see sixes struck as part of an innings when the occasion arises is exciting but to see over after over of batsmen attempting nothing else other than to hit sixes, to watch all the other batting skills subjugated is simply not cricket.
Watching Brendan McCullum hit a six to break the shackles of a bowling attack or to win a game or even just because the ball deserves it is exciting and one of the more enjoyable parts of cricket. Watching Brendan McCullum hit a six is not exciting in itself.
Watching ten/jack of the Windies batting order (even just on Cricinfo ball by ball commentary) withstanding the Poms in bad light for ten overs is far more entertaining just because we don't know what will happen.
Yes I know that this tippenny run stuff is THE game of the young, the money spinner but, like sevens football and the S14/tri-series rugby I'm guessing people will soon tire of it simply because it all becomes the same.
Tippenny runs has taken the unpredictability out of cricket.
Cricket, in fact all sport and indeed most entertainment, needs to be unpredictable not just in outcome but, Just like my shots all those years ago, in execution.
Those shots at Heathcote and Mosgiel were both dropped on the boundary.
I never did hit a six in competition cricket.
I swung the bat and felt that wonderful feeling you only get when sweet spot and ball connect.
It must have been slightly lower than I thought because it travelled fast and straight towards the boundary neither rising nor dipping.
The game was at the Heathcote Domain and a browsing herd of dinosaurs on the maltworks side of the ground looked up somewhat in alarm at the approaching missile.
I had the same (or a similar) experience one time in Mosgiel.
Those were the only two times I remember that I challenged the boundary on the full.
I've watched cricket since I was a young fellow of seven or so and still remember many of the big hits that went for six although not, I admit, as well as I remember the cover drives such as the one John Wright greeted Jeff Thompson's second new ball with at Lancaster Park one year or the two John Edridge placed to the boundary on his way to a multiple hundred against New Zealand.
The sixes I do remember were part of the building of innings of note, Dick Motz' 103 in 53 minutes (8 sixes, 7 fours), Hadlee and Lees fighting back against the Windies again at Lancaster Park in an ODI before pyjamas became the norm, Lance Cairns' six in Oz (MCG?).
I have over the last few days heard myself described as an old fogey, humourless, heartless, with no ability to enjoy myself and many more entertaining and sweet adjectives because I didn't enjoy the tippenny runs game staged the other night at AMI stadium (at Lancaster Park).
I plead guilty to all the above.
Leaving aside the half-wits of the Gifford ilk and T20 converts like BC who demand that all should drop down and kneel at the alter of 20/20 simply because THEY like it (They do need to take a long look at themselves) the game leaves me cold.
I found Wednesday night's game boring.
Perhaps boring is not quite true, unsatisfying would be better.
Cricket to me is a game encompassing many skills, a team game that pits individuals against each other giving both a chance to test themselves as well as the other while playing in a team environment with the challenges, mainly mental, that that brings.
Tippenny runs takes away many of those skills, particularly that of patiently waiting for the opponent to show a weakness and then using all your own skills to exploit the weakness.
Tippenny runs creates that weakness by forcing players to take risks before they are ready, by forcing premeditation.
That however is why I dislike the game not why I found the game unsatisfying.
In Major League baseball at the halftime all-star break they hold a home run derby.
The home run in baseball equates to a six in limited overs cricket – the ultimate shot that takes the fielders out of the equation.
The home run derby is a contrived competition that sees many home runs hit in a day but, and this is important, no-one takes it for more than a contrived competition, a bit of fun.
To me that is what tippenny runs is, a contrived competition for a bit of fun.
If it remains in this context I'm all for the game but to treat it seriously, to make it mean something, to matter, destroys that concept entirely.
And this is why I find the game unsatisfying.
To see sixes struck as part of an innings when the occasion arises is exciting but to see over after over of batsmen attempting nothing else other than to hit sixes, to watch all the other batting skills subjugated is simply not cricket.
Watching Brendan McCullum hit a six to break the shackles of a bowling attack or to win a game or even just because the ball deserves it is exciting and one of the more enjoyable parts of cricket. Watching Brendan McCullum hit a six is not exciting in itself.
Watching ten/jack of the Windies batting order (even just on Cricinfo ball by ball commentary) withstanding the Poms in bad light for ten overs is far more entertaining just because we don't know what will happen.
Yes I know that this tippenny run stuff is THE game of the young, the money spinner but, like sevens football and the S14/tri-series rugby I'm guessing people will soon tire of it simply because it all becomes the same.
Tippenny runs has taken the unpredictability out of cricket.
Cricket, in fact all sport and indeed most entertainment, needs to be unpredictable not just in outcome but, Just like my shots all those years ago, in execution.
Those shots at Heathcote and Mosgiel were both dropped on the boundary.
I never did hit a six in competition cricket.
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