December 2008 Archives

7.10am.

Inching along the M6.

Torrential rain. Bumper to bumper.

Lorry right up yer rear. Spray.

Desperate for a number two.

Let nobody say sports journalism is an entirely glamorous occupation.

Meanwhile, thinking particularly of three members of the Warwickshire cricket 'family' - Tim Ambrose, Ian Bell and Ashley Giles - I sincerely hope that the ECB see sense and do not send England's touring party back to India. How can the safety of the tourists possibly be guaranteed?

In this international cricket-logged era, I think the sporting world can do without a two-Test series between India and England right now.

For England's cricketers to be foisted back into this volatile environment, when their lives would clearly be at risk, is just wrong. If the tour resumes next week, principally to avoid the financial consequences of it not doing so, then the governing bodies involved should hang their heads in shame.

Without sounding alarmist, let's hope they don't end up hanging their heads in mourning. There's enough of that going on.

"But the crowd, like dolphins breaking surface, was soon getting to its feet, struggling into macintoshes and balancing paper hats. Within twenty minutes the players were off - and again there was the vilely familiar spectacle of covers being pushed on, the sky behind the Vauxhall cranes like a damp dishcloth and the atmosphere one of boredom, hope and endurance as inextricably entwined as the colours of the national flag."

Alan Ross describes a stoppage on the opening day of the Ashes Test at The Oval in 1956.

A bit more evocative than "Rain Stopped Play"!

I just don't get it. There was an uproar when Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand did what they did - and fair enough, it was crass - but, day after day, our TV screens are filled by the BBC and other channels with scenes of graphic, horrible, often quite gratuitous violence. That's OK then is it?

Regularly, on the goggle box we see characters getting butchered or, apparently indispensable to any police-related drama, lying on a slab in a recently butchered state.

Stuff like this just seems to have become part of the TV landscape. How? Why?

At what point did images like that become a) necessary or b) entertaining?