Another One For the Boys, In the Run Up to November
God I can’t wait for the party conferences to be over.
Telegraph - Pom is good enough
Its etymology may be unclear but there is no mistaking its meaning. A pom is a Briton, usually of a whingeing disposition.
Cricket Australia, under guidance from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, no less, has decreed that the word is not “hurtful when used in isolation” and can therefore be hurled with impunity at England’s cricketers and their supporters – provided it is not qualified by any word “deemed racist, offensive or humiliating”. But the word pom shorn of any suitably earthy antipodean qualifier is a feeble little thing.
Surely our Barmy Army is tough enough to endure whatever emerges from that fecund repository of invective that is the Australian cricket fan. Let’s face it: if we retain the Ashes this winter, we won’t give a XXXX what they call us.
Hahahaha
September 28th, 2006 at 1:14 am
And beleive me, they’ll call us all sorts of things. Can’t say I’m the greatest fan of the Barmy Army, though - difficult to get full value from the play if you’re leaping up and down and chanting.
September 28th, 2006 at 8:49 am
How do you leap up and down and sip wine, never mind nibble on sandwiches?!
September 29th, 2006 at 2:30 am
Ah, these guys are in the cheap seats, drink beer from cans and eat pies. I’m sure Brett and I would between us take you to the sipping and nibbling areas of the ground. Even the cutlery areas, now I think of it.
September 29th, 2006 at 4:06 am
Did someone say Corporate Box? That’s not cricket! Well, I suppose we could make an exception for an honoured furriner.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:23 am
(Mmm… Pies… You can’t get pies here, you know. Just those frozen chicken pot pies but with an adult palate I’ve noticed that they’re really quite horrid. There’s a German meats place in Canmore that had a meat pie, a real nice big one that cost as much as a miniature little flower-and-partially-hydrogenated-something-or-other and Peter and I were going to go back for it for our last night’s dinner but we got there two minutes after they closed. I’ve never been the same since.)
Did someone say corporate box? I wonder if “sipping and nibbling” qualifies as a lifestyle choice?
Where’s the event going to be held?
September 29th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Are the pies being discussed like US chicken pot pies? But not dipped in liquid nitrogen? I confess to being a huge fan of chicken and turkey pot pies by Swanson. Comfort food as it were.
September 29th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Yeah I used to live for the frozen chicken pot pies when I was a kid, but now it’s just too heavy and the pastry is that fake gooey stuff and I just can’t do it anymore.
September 30th, 2006 at 1:20 am
Yeah, but it’s like the real fake gooey stuff. Still I only hit the good parts and leave the pans to the two Speedies.
October 1st, 2006 at 9:08 am
I think the Oz pie is sui generis, it’s sort of evolved differently like so much else there. It’s the defing fast food, like fish and chips here. It’s also of great cultural signficance. Brett’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but I read story by a cricket journalist about how on his first visit to the ‘Gabba he was shown the sipping and nibbling suite which was named after a Queensland notable, possibly Peter Burge (who ran to fat after he finished playing and was for some years known as “the fastest growing sport in Australia”). He was then shown the pie stall named after Wally Grout, a wonderful gentleman and cricketer who died far too young. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Grout) As pie stalls go it was busy but lacked architectural distinction shall we say. So the journo queried whehter they’d not got their priorities the wrong way round. “Well, what you gotta remember” the Aussie chawed, “people here were very fond of Wally”.
I don’t know whether that story’s actually true or not, but I want it to be.
October 1st, 2006 at 9:15 am
PS Meant to say “defining” fast food.
You’re right, Brett, I’ve been corporately hospitalitised at both Lord’s and The Oval and frankly if it wasn’t for the free drink I’d not bother. And now that I’ve got into the habit of only having a couple of beers a day I don’t suppose I’ll ever go in for that sort of stuff again.
Corporate hospitality’s OK at rugby, though.