I normally say to people whinging about a decision taken by our sporting representatives that they should shut up and get behind our team. Over the last two posts I cast doubt upon the wisdon of not enforcing the follow-on against Australia. I hold up my hands. I was wrong. The England captain was right and I should not have doubted him. Sack-cloth and ashes have been worn all day.
Apology having been made I will now feast in the enjoyment of the England victory against Australia at Lords. There’s nothing better than a victory over the old enemy. Going 1-0 up in the Ashes series, and doing so at Lords. As the advert says, priceless. Now lets get back at them.
…a line from a song on the Echo and the Bunnymen album Pocupine. Used because Pork is something done very well in Alsace and I would normally have something of the Pork persuasion on a weekly basis at home and have only had it once in the month since I left.
It’s also a word play on the swine flu. I woke on Friday with a sore throat which felt like I had been gargling razor-blades. During the day I felt progressively worse so it was with relief I was able to get out after work and get some ‘Max Strength’ Lem-Sip. So the weekend has been spent taking things easy and letting my body fight the infection. I did ache a bit yesterday but I think it’s just a cold caught from one of the many nationals on our site. My inactivity has also partly beec caused by St Swithin. After it rained on his day, 15th July, we’ve been getting very wet with rain on a regular basis most days. The students do not like it at all. Do they not realise that summers are so much better than they were in the 70’s?
What lazing around the site has allowed me to do is keep up with the cricket and what a wonderful match this has been with things going one way and then the other. My jury is still out on whether not enforcing the follow-on was the right idea. I’m also following the Tour de France, something I have been progressively more interested in and frustrated that the last two years – despite living in France the rest of the time – I’ve been out of the country for it. What a year for the British riders? With Mark Cavendish in hot contention for the Green jersey until the bizarre decision yesterday but still with a chance of winning the most stages by a Brit if he wins the last race, and Bradley Wiggins in third position tonight and in with a good shout of the yellow jersey. Here for no other reason than it was on the radio whilst writing this is Dave Edmunds, with Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello, doing the sublime ‘Girls Talk’:
On arrival in Hull I was asked if I would work on a special programme which meant working 40 hours a week rather than the 30 I had been contracted to do. As I am away from home working anyway, so it didn’t matter how much I worked as it would not be keeping me from my home life, and there was an offer of overtime to cover the extra hours. So the last three weeks its back to working as hard as I did more than five years ago. All that is pretty much an explaination as to why posts have been few and far between. After work, and preparing for the next days work, I just want to relax and go away from the site or sleep.
Following the Ashes I was pleased with Lancastrian James Anderson’s heroics which meant we didn’t lose the first test. I was disappointed that England seemed to play without the intensity of 2005. I am even more concerned now that, having got on top of the Aussies we have not turned the screw psychologically and made them follow-on. I know England have not been great at getting the total needed in the fourth innings to win and that the pitch seemed quite benign, however I would have expected England to enforce to follow-on. It is being said the ‘Freddie’ might not be up to bowling a second innings now and that’s why, but then why hamstring your side with someone whose clearly not up to the game now? I write as a big fan of Freddie.
I can’t let the incident of the interview on BBC Radio Berkshire with the newly selected Reading West candidate pass by without posting it here or anyone who might want to see the modern equivalent of ‘bair baiting’. Anyone who read anything about ‘Naz Sarkar’ befrore the selection could see he would be a rubbish candidate. Now he has confirmed it with this interview:
You really have to wonder why he was selected when there were many more applicants who would have been beter for the job. Could it be that the outgoing MP, Martin Salter, didn’t want anyone selected who would show him up in a bad way and got his organisation in the seat behind the most hapless possible candidate?
Dress Down Saturday
As I’m in Hull it’s only appropriate that I pick for this weeks section of the memories of great bands from the 80’s the fab fivesome, the Housemartins. They burst onto the scene in 1986 with the song ‘Happy Hour’:
and together with their other big hit, Caravan of Love, and their album, London 0 Hull 4 they were a part of the soundtrack to my post-graduation summer, where the sun shined, I fell in love but was spurned, and with a group of friends that I had a great time with. I’m sure it wasn’t seen quite so golden at the time. They split in 1998 and spawned a number of gropus and artists. Here’s ‘Caravan of Love’:
The Flashing Blade 