The Ashes

Todays highlights can be found.......... Well actually no they can't. Relentless rain caused the entire days play to be abandoned. Blasted weather.What an anti-climax after yesterdays heroics. Boooooo! My mates at the game have been sending me progressively drunken texts as the day has gone on. Sounds like they made the most of it and had fun attempting to get photographed with comedy costume wearers at the ground. Highlights include a man dressed as a pint of guinness, another dressed as the ashes urn and a young lady dressed as wonder woman. The latter claim may be more the result of inebriation and wishful thinking than anything else.Silly marginally related fact for the day: Did you know the England cricket team is actually comprised of players from both England and Wales? However each of Wales, England, Scotland and N.Ireland has it's own inernational football team. BUT the Olympics is made up of a British team comprising all four nations. That is why there is never a British football team at the Olympics. No-one can agree as to how it would work.We are one confused schizoid country when it comes to international sporting representation. Or should that be countries? Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

And the cause of this malady is quite obvious.Your beer is warm and flat.That's enough to send any nation(s) over the edge.

Oh don't get me started on that. That topic is a whole other silly Straggler thread just waiting to happen. So I will just refer you to the response I gave Oni some time ago Message 126. The British beer festival is held in London Earls Court next week. I will of course be attending. Apart from the obligatory big bellied, sandal wearing bearded eccentric contingent who take it all deperately seriously there will be a good mix of people. Almost certainly some Aussies to take the piss out of with regard to the cricket too. Great fun! Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

You know those tense, nerve-jangling, last desperate bid to save the game draws I was talking about in response to misconceptions about test cricket? Well this game isn't one of those. Instead it is, in all probability, going to be a weather ruined dreary draw of the more obvious kind. There are still some interesting individual duels to maintain the interest of the more fanatical follower. And it is still conceivably possible for England to pull off a miraculous victory. But by virtue of the weather a fairly tedious draw is by far the most likely result. Boooo!Like all good cricket commentators in such times I will take up a tangential matter. Namely sporting national anthems.The British national anthem is "God Save the Queen". In sports where England have a team seperate and distinct from the other nations that make up the UK (e.g. Rugby) "God Save the Queen" is used as the English national anthem. If such things matter at all this seems a bit unfair on the other nations that make up the UK. However given that the anthem in question is a dreary, turgid ditty requesting that a god I do not believe to exist save a monarch that I do not believe should exist............Well the whole thing is very silly. But it is yet another example of the confused nature of sporting representation and "national" pride that exists in these Isles. Flat warm beer can only explain so much insanity.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

But the monarch is not just the symbol of your sovereignty but is the sovereignty of your nation, and a few others as I understand.Over here we vest our nation’s sovereignty in our flag. People often get this wrong. The Stars and Stripes is not just the symbol but is, in fact, the actual Sovereign of the nation. Other than cut it up into funny caps, baggy shirts and short skirts, there really is not much fun you can have with such a sovereign.You have a real life flesh and blood Royal Family to poke fun and gossip at. All we have is the President and, frankly, being a political officer whom half of us don’t like anyway, the jabs and whispers are politically motivated, not the quite pointed, mean-spirited and down right vulgar fun you all get to have gossiping about Prince William’s intended.I won’t trade places with you, but as the song says you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone. Going to Washington and mooning the White House does not carry the same quality of protest that mooning the Queen at Windsor Castle has. Just think of all the fun times you would miss if Her Majesty were replaced by a bolt of cotton.

And the reasons for these "other" nations accepting such nonsemse is even more inscrutable than our own..... Oh I dunno.. Abe Lincoln, The Stars and Stripes, Statue of Liberty etc. etc. There are many symbols that could be taken the piss out of. The SoL with a spliff in it's mouth is a tee-shirt I have seen in plentiful supply.... Whilst it has it's tabloid moments the British Royal family needs to do more than pose for "Hello Magazine" to justify it's existence IMHO. Yeah but the fun of replacing her as head of state with a guy dressed in the comedy costume of a "bowl of curry" is something I still aspire to in my lifetime. The ultimate in colonial cultural ironies.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Contrary to my pessimistic assertions yesterday England are actually having a decent stab at trying to win this game. Regardless of all the lost time. At the very least they are making Australia fight to save the game and earn the draw.Highlights of yesterdays play here including a decent bash from England hero "Freddie": http://www.five.tv/programmes/sport/cricket-on-five/24824It could still be a fairly innocuous finish if the Ausssies hold on easily but if England get a couple of the Aus batsmen out this morning it could be one of those nerve jangling finishes. More later.

To the hordes of EvCers uncontrollably trembling with excitement and shaking with anticipation as they await my latest Ashes update..........I can put you out of your misery and reveal that the current game ended in a draw this evening. England toiled for the keenly sought victory but the stubborn Aussies resolutely refused to succumb. Eventually the game fizzled out into a comfortable draw with honours even.England remain 1-0 up in the five match series. Two games remain. Next game starts on Friday in Leeds. As current holders of the Ashes Aus only need to tie the series to retain the trophy. It's still all to play for.The tension mounts...... Edited by Straggler, : Next game starts on Friday. NOT Thurs.

Indeed it is. Their Mr. Johnson is doing all he can to fire up the Aussies, isn't he? First with Flintoff then Swann and finally a tte--tte with Broad. Seems to have worked. So on to Leeds.

Hi, Straggler.So, a draw means they ran out of time?Or they had the same number of runs?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Yes. To win a test match you have to bowl out the oposition team twice in the allotted time. Even if you have more runs than them but fail to do this the game is a draw.That is how you end up with 'tense' draws. The batting team can be in a position where they have no chance of scoring enough runs to win but can save the game by desperately clinging on in the face of the bowling team doing everything possible to wrap the game up. In such a situation a draw can feel much like a victory (and is often celebrated as such). That would be a tie. Not a draw. Such things are almost unheard of. Apparently (I looked this up) it has occurred twice in the entire history of test cricket.Tied Test - WikipediaSo thanks for the question. It forced me to learn something.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

The next Ashes match starts tomorrow. Weather allowing. It has been absolutely bucketing down all goddam evening in London and this does not bode well for "sunny" Yorkshire. Anyway...... I remain optimistic. And I am sure that my hordes of EvC cricket followers will be waiting for my next weather/match update in keen anticipation.In the meantime - Purely because it reflects the drinking, yet pseudo-intellectual, cultural stereotype of the modern English cricket fan here is a silly (yet pseudo-intellectual) "drinking" song."Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

​

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'bout the raisin' of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

​

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away,
'alf a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
and Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."

​

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed."I heard a yank psychologist on the radio the other day who said that a large percentage of the British male population would be considered to be "high functioning alcoholics" in the States.Personally I take offence at the term "high functioning".Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

High functioning??? And WTF does that make most of the American male population???Great python song, BTW. Only bettered by "Sit on my face and tell me that you love me" Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Yes. I should have attributed it to them in my post. I certainly didn't mean to sugest that it was a "Straggler original". "High functioning" or not, such genius is indisputably beyond me. Yes but even I was unsure how to introduce that into a sporting context Well.... For the sake of international relations (and so as not to alienate my ever burgeoning army of EvC Stateside cricket followers) I shall remain silent on that issue.

I never wanted to be a research biologist, I wanted to be .... a lumberjack!! Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia! With my best girlie by my side we'd sing! Sing!! Sing!!!!! .....TTFN,WK