Boris Sounds Jetlagged
I can just see him getting off his plane from China, opening his newspapers, and being very cranky.
Telegraph - Labour’s law - just squawk loudly and take no action
Labour’s new measures against civil protest mean that you cannot use a loudhailer. As we all saw at the Labour Party conference, you can’t heckle a cabinet minister any more without the risk of being arrested under section 44 of some swingeing new anti-heckler act.
You can’t smoke in public. You can’t legally hunt foxes, in the way that people have been doing in this country for hundreds of years. Naturally, I lack the courage to smack my own children, but anyone who is forced to that regrettable expedient will find that new laws proscribe any chastisement that leaves bruising or discoloration.
If you try to stop an inspector pushing his way unexpected into your kindergarten, you face a fine of £2,500. You can have your DNA held on a government database, and very shortly you will no longer be able to apply for a new passport without being obliged to fork out vast sums for an ID card. You can’t replace your own window in your own home without some kind of inspection, and you certainly can’t change a switch in the kitchen.
You can’t put a union flag on your locker without the risk that you will be prosecuted for racial discrimination. You can be extradited to the United States without any prima facie evidence that you have committed a crime at all, let alone in America. You can lose your driving licence for a collection of comparatively trivial speeding offences, provided that they have all been recorded on camera.
You can’t say anything that might be construed as inspiring “religious hatred”, even though the Koran is full of stuff that plainly falls into that category. You can’t “glorify” terrorism, even though there are plenty of people in this country who have just celebrated the anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916. You can’t even say that a police horse is “gay” without being arrested and prosecuted for homophobia.
And yet, if you are a foreign criminal, and you are convicted of a very serious offence such as murder or rape, you can serve your time in a British jail and then just melt back into the landscape to re-offend, even though the courts may have specifically ordered that you be considered for deportation.
You people should be very, very thankful that you don’t have a Bill O’Reilly over there. You might think I mean you should wish that you had a Bill O’Reilly, but believe me, you’ve got to look at it from the other side.
April 28th, 2006 at 1:15 am
Brett - I reckon that a Bill O’Reilly would come in very handy - we could really use an all-time great wrist-spinner in the Ashes series. Though perhaps ninme doesn’t mean that Bill O’Reilly?
April 28th, 2006 at 2:06 am
Yes indeed, Bill “Tiger” O’Reilly, the leg-spin bowler with the attitude of John Snow or Dennis Lillee. Too bad he missed seeing the resurgence of wrist-spin; it would have seemed to have been a dying art in Bill’s last years.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:59 am
I love that story Blofeld tells about the time O’Reilly was commentating and a batsman was run out backing up without notice. Tiger was greatly incensed at this unsportsmanlike behaviour on the part of the bowler. This amused the rest of the box, the Tiger not being generally noted for his affection towards batsmen. “Surely you would have run the guy out yourself when you were bowling?” he was asked. The answer? “The thing is, Mate, when I was bowling they were never all that keen to get down the other end”.
Which was no more than the simple truth - Compton’s supposed to have confirmed it.
He didn’t live long enough to see Shane Warne? Sad. SKW’s the player who rekindled my love for the game after the Windies’ quicks had all but wrecked it.
April 28th, 2006 at 3:16 am
Haha! That’s a good one about the Tiger.
The Windies quicks wrecked a lot of things - including tail-enders’ averages. Wouldn’t be no double centuries from no. 10 batsmen against that lot.
Yeh, boofhead that he is, Warney sure did revitalize the bowling game. His first Test delivery in England was the most dramatic notice possible that a new era had begun.
April 28th, 2006 at 3:51 am
Oh, yes, and Henry Blofeld. The SCG “Hill” used to be unofficially (and now officially) known as the Doug Walters’ Stand, and usually sign-posted as such with a white banner put up by some lads during the game. For one England match this makeshift sign was replaced with one declaring The Henry Blowfly Stand. Henry was so taken with it, he used a photograph of it for his Christmas cards that year. Great fellow Mr Blofeld.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:24 am
One of the few guys, along with Fingleton, to have fallen out with The Don and not given a stuff. See also McCabe. Blofeld likes himself too much.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:35 am
One of the few guys ie O’Reilly.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
The other one I know of was Ian Chappell - did a nice impression of the Don in a documentary “Cricket in the 70s”. A rough diamond for sure was Chappelli, but he had a great cricket brain.
We only got small doses of Henry.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Is Cricket harder than softball?
May 1st, 2006 at 2:11 am
Is calculus harder than subtraction? You know you Americians were very good at cricket until at least the early part of last century? Pity you didn’t keep it up - Bart King of Philadelphia’s a legend in the game.
Saw Chappelli make a hard-yards 50 on a tough track at Headingley in 1968. Struck me as being the sort of bloke that, if you’re going to have a fight in a pub, you get on your side. Hadn’t known he’d fallen out with the Don, good for him.
You know the Don was born on precisely the same day as Lyndon Johnson.
May 1st, 2006 at 9:31 am
If I’m ever in the position to have a nice broad green lawn at my disposal, I shall endeavour to bring it back.
May 2nd, 2006 at 1:14 am
Thanks nin! That would be great! You won’t regret it. You know cricket can be awfully sociable as well? If you’re going to spend 8 hours playing a game it becomes rather important that the players are pleasant.