Cricket, lovely cricket...........

Test cricket is back, so the papers can get out their most-used headline ‘England collapse’ .

 

Explaining the rules of cricket to an American is a completely impossible task. The land of instant gratification can’t comprehend a game that can last 5 days without a result.

 

When an old buffer was asked by a Yank what this game of cricket was about, he relied ‘Game? It’s no game, sir. It’s way of life’.

 

How true! It has two characteristics not possessed by any other sport.

 

It combines a code of conduct that reflects the decencies of life - and wit! Sportsmanship, individualism but playing for the best interests of the team, playing by the rules, not cheating. And think of how much of our language is based on cricket. ‘I bowled a bit of a fast ball there’; ‘It’s not cricket’ – underhand or unfair; ‘caught-out’; ‘sticky wicket’; ‘bowls from both ends’ and many more.

 

The fact that the modern game honours these more in the breach than the observance is just a sign of our times

 

As for wit, how much of this do you see in the grotesquely named ‘beautiful game’? Foul language; racist taunts, maybe. But wit? Never a trace.

 

‘Sledging’ means putting the batsman off his stroke (another cricket expression)  by some witty or caustic remark.

 

Some are pretty coarse – Australian bowler to English batsman. ‘Oi, there’s piece of sh** on the end of your bat’. Batsman looks at bottom of bat. ‘No; the other end!’

 

Brian Johnson and Jonathan Agnew were masters of the art of witty commentary – ‘The batsman’s Holding; the bowler’s Willey’, although I suspect that some of their jests were rehearsed. One that wasn’t was the famous occasion when the commentary came to a stop altogether because they were laughing so much.

 

Botham was batting. He played too far back and desperately but unsuccessfully tried to lift his leg over the stumps and was out. ‘Oh dear’ says Johnners, ‘Botham couldn’t get his leg over!’ Aggers corpsed. The next you hear is ‘Oh, do stop it, Aggers!’ and then he corpsed. Then listeners to ‘Test Match Special’ joined in, and hard-shoulders on motorways received thousands of drivers who were laughing too much to be able to carry on driving.

 

The commentary is on YouTube.

 

Maybe the best-ever riposte to sledging came from Ian Botham. As he took guard, Marsh, the Aussie wicket keeper yelled out ‘How’s your wife and my kids?’ Botham – ‘The wife’s fine, but the kids are retarded!’

 

Fred Truman, the great Yorkshire fast bowler had a wicked tongue. The batsman hit a ball of Fred’s for an easy catch but it went between the fielder’s legs. ‘Sorry, Fred’ he said, ‘I should’ve kept my legs closed’. ‘Aye’ said Fred ‘And so should thy mother!’

 

And of course we still have the mordant humour of Geoff Boycott’s commentaries – ‘Batting like that ‘e was lucky to get nought!’; ‘My granny could’ve ‘it that wi’ a toothbrush; ‘My granny could’ve caught that in ‘er pinny!’ But my favourite was about a particularly portly player, so noted for his appetite that when he appeared on the field he was greeted with chants of ‘Who ate all the pies?’

 

When he dropped a not-too-difficult catch, Boycott commented ‘ If it ‘ad been a cheese roll he’d of caught it!’

 

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—

Ten to make and the match to win—

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,

But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote

"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Euthanasia in Liverpool?

 

 
I am not the author of this blog, but it is of such importance that I feel it deserves greater coverage than one appearance on My Telegraph blog.

There was a blog on this subject a couple of weeks ago concerning the Liverpool Care Pathway program and it’s inherent dangers. I can't find it right now, perhaps the author of the blog might remember. There was criticism of it for suggesting that doctors and nurses were needlessly killing patients, partly to save money, partly to free up beds.

I came across some information that might add to the debate and I have copied some of it here.

On Saturday a British newspaper web site told the story of 82-year-old Patricia Greenwood, who was put on the Liverpool Care Pathway by doctors in Blackpool, who removed all her feeding tubes and drips.

But then her family defied orders and gave her water, which sparked the beginning of a remarkable recovery. Now she is planning to go on a world cruise.

Earlier this year neurologist Professor Patrick Pullicino from the University of Kent, claimed that death on the LCP was a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' and a form of backdoor euthanasia.

A woman tells that her father suffered a severe stroke caused by a blood clot in his brain. 'All fluids were removed from him and we were told he was in the final phase of his life,' she wrote.

'All we were told was that there was no hope for him; it was a matter of time before he died. Eight days later, he opened his eyes and proved everyone wrong by pulling round. Two years on from this he is back at home, although in a wheelchair and with some loss of speech.'

Another woman's 85-year-old mother was admitted to hospital with an infected gall bladder. The following day doctors told her, to her shock, that her mother was gravely ill and had no chance of survival.

The doctors, who included three consultants, told her that if she did not agree to the Pathway she would be adding to her mother's distress and misery. She signed the form - only to be horrified subsequently to find her mother highly disorientated, agitated and distressed from lack of fluids and treatment.

'I compelled the nursing staff to restore hydration and medications, or take full responsibility for the outcome if they failed to. I also took matters into my own hands by feeding her natural yogurt, soft foods and spooning water into her - something which was to continue until she was released three days later, having been restored to full health, cracking jokes and saying goodbye to those who were unfortunately left probably to suffer the same fate.

'A year has since passed. My mother has a robust appetite and has never succumbed to the "impending doom" I was led to believe she could not escape.'

Another woman's father was in a nursing home waiting for surgery to amputate his legs following complications from cancer.

The man's daughter was called by a nurse who told her that her father was on the Pathway, and who then overrode her objections to that decision. Distraught, the daughter wrote to her father's surgeon begging him to intervene to save her father's life - which he did.

'Dad had his amputation and has made a good recovery. I visited him today; he was sitting up asking for sweets. We talked about him coming to us for the Christmas hols. It really could have been a different story. He's my dad, he is 83 and has a right to choose to live.'

And finally, 'Whilst trying to have a balanced view on the overall care of my father,' wrote one woman, 'the desperate fear and anguish on his face as staff talked about his imminent death in front of him will never be forgotten. I remain devastated that we could not help him. I feel that the LCP is unethical and in my father's case was illegal.'

Growth, gas and chicken ranches.........

The economic news from the US seems a lot brighter than ours, and I was interested to see that the housing market is on the up. Hopefully this applies to Houston.

 

I have been keeping a finger on US energy matters for about 4 years, and it now looks as if bonanza time is just around the corner. What I had not quite foreseen was the astonishing impact on previously moribund industry. Cheap gas (as I previously mentioned, about a third of European prices) is reviving iron and steel making, chemicals, pharma, plastics etc. to the extent that European plants can’t compete, and businesses are relocating back from China where, as I predicted a couple of years ago, massive increases in labour costs are killing competitiveness. If Mr Chin didn’t fiddle his exchange rate, China would be in deep poo.

 

What is really happening here is anybody’s guess. We are told that we are out of double-dip recession. Great news except that I don’t believe we were ever in one. The Office of National Statistics figures are all over the place. The latest is that we have an annualised GDP growth rate of 4%, which is pre-crisis performance amounting almost to a boom. This is the fastest quarterly growth in the last 5 years. Unemployment is falling, as is public sector borrowing, and pay is rising.

 

Never mind the doomsters. Retail sales are on the up. New car purchases increased by about 7% in the past year, job-creation in the private sector   has been surprisingly massive, far off-setting cuts in our bloated public sector, there are more people in employment than ever before.

 

And there is one infallible measure of things getting better. That is when assorted academics, economists and gobby lefties tell us how bad things are going to be unless we do a U-turn back to the days of borrow-and-spend.

 

A friend expert in these things always reckons that the best investments are in sin, and therefore you should out your money into alcohol shares, tobacco stock etc. Well, part of our growth is down to the incredible growth of on-line gambling here, with firms like Poker Stars making a bundle.

 

Apropos which I remember years ago that Barclays – I think it was – bought into what they thought was a highly-profitable agricultural business in the US. Nobody told them that a ‘chicken ranch’ in Nevada has nothing to do with fresh eggs. They made a lot of money, though.

Obama, Mitt and Sandy.....

 

The interminable campaign may, but probably will not, end on election day on 6 November.

 

We have a dreadful storm brewing in the Atlantic, Hurricane Sandy, that threatens to seriously disrupt the heart of our East Coast in about a week's time. It is expected to merge with another storm front and to hit at high tide. This combination of weather phenomena unit to call Sandy a Frankenstorm. There is talk of the impact being great enough to prevent people from voting. Who knows what Washington might do to mitigate that prospect. There is speculation that it may be prudent to delay the election, but that is a monumental task that would rain merde on the Administration.

 

I doubt it would happen. If Sandy's fury materializes, the US government will again have an opportunity to display its emergency procedures and decisions through our Department of Homeland Security.

 

Were it only Sandy that is giving us ulcers we would be fortunate. The more alarming prospect is that whomever wins the election will have an army of adversaries to confront. Civil disorder has been promised by M and by O followers should their candidate not win. M has been threatened with death on numerous occasions as, I am sure, has O.

 

Although these threats are abundant and should not be taken seriously, it only takes one serious person to succeed. Our authorities are most certainly investigating each threat.

 

The ideological chasm between M and O is such that the thinking population has taken a firm stand behind their candidate. Others are forced to think and work out the roots and implications of each contender's policies. The remainder of the voting population will cast emotional votes.

 

Political pundits largely agree that O was elected because a majority of people wanted to demonstrate America's capacity to accept a black leader. Those who voted for O became a significant part of American history. It was not difficult to make that decision as O possessed a compelling charisma and dynamic that promised hope and change. We needed both and we voted accordingly.

 

It is now clear that O's words were but a shroud for a hidden agenda. Solving our immigration problem, closing Guantanamo, stopping earmarks, shutting down lobbyists and resolving debt issues were but facades for an agenda of recasting America in O's image and likeness. He fought for government sponsored health care, minority and women's rights, a more secular society, and an end to America's cultural and ideological imperialism vis-a-vis the world at large. And in the process, he attempted to redistribute incomes under the auspices of having the super rich pay their fair share of running the country.

 

Had O run on that agenda, he would have lost. His political philosophy was uncomfortably close to socialism and that word alone raises the hackles of almost every American. To be sure, we don't understand the concept very well, but we don't understand communism very well either, but this we know and know full well, we do not like socialists and commies. The brand of humanity we espouse is to create a society in which everyone has an opportunity to work and care for themselves and in the process, those who cannot work or be cared for will be succored by those who can.

 

America has and will continue to tolerate certain levels of poverty and unemployment. As of late, these levels have gotten out of hand and are rising alarmingly. Many suspect that the benefits of the O administration and its willingness to expand welfare of all types, i.e. entitlements, are in fact expanding poverty and unemployment. People on the lower end of the socio-economic scale find it easier to remain on welfare and claim entitlements than to find a steady job.

 

The force feeding of Americas poor though entitlements is not acceptable to most citizens. There is a strong movement on the political right to bring back the capitalist state in which entrepreneurs create jobs for the working population. While this philosophy is quite acceptable, many will nevertheless vote for O because he is black, because he is secular, because he is pro choice.

 

The manner in which that scramble of often conflicting values will determine the winner on November 6 assuming, of course, that Sandy does not have her way with us.

EU & immigration; worms turning?

At last the thing that dare not speak its name is back on the political agenda.

 

Since the early 90’s, mentioning the EU was the political equivalent of farting in church, especially in the Tory Party.

 

Now the Cameronians have woken up to the fact that the totalitarian bureaucracy that masquerades as the European Union is a major issue for voters. Or to put it another way, the people hate the whole rotten edifice, so politicians better boss-up if they want the votes next time. The Tories are particularly scared of UKIP, not because there is much chance of Farrago winning seats but because he may snatch majorities away from the Conservative Party in marginals  or even more.

 

But still the propaganda is put out about how economically ruinous it would be if the UK was no longer a part of the European cartel.

 

Only the other night a ‘consultant’ from Cicero was saying that the UK exports to the EU are more than 50%, so we can’t afford to put that at risk.

 

That is a pretty terrible argument from one who probably charges a couple of grand a day for his precious words.

 

For starters, it isn’t true.

 

The real figure is in the 40’s. And before anyone says ‘Hooray, we are exporting more to the rest of world’, we ain’t. It’s simply that we are exporting less to the EU because of the dire state of the EU economies.

 

And the figures are wrong. Vast amounts of British goods are exported to the rest of the world via Rotterdam and other European ports, so they show up on the statistics as exports to the EU.

 

Finally, does any sentient person believe that the Europeans would stop buying our stuff if we change the rules of the game?

 

William Hague has broken the spell. Here is his latest (and there’s a lot of diplomatic meaning in this):

 

‘The Eurozone countries must do what they must to resolve the crisis, but the way forward for the EU as a whole is not more centralisation and uniformity but of flexibility and variable geometry, that allows differing degrees of integration in different areas, done in ways that do not disadvantage those that do not wish to participate in everything, and preserves the things we all value.”  

 

And the other great unmentionable is suddenly on the agenda big time, as the focus groups tell the expenses-cheats that immigration is one of the great concerns of the electorate.

 

Step forward Kitten Heels May.

 

Here’s her theme song:

 

If there's a wrong way to do it
A right way to screw it up
Nobody does it like me.

 

Desperately trying to be populist, she is vainly trying to reduce immigration to an unachievable target.

 

She cut hundreds of immigration officers to please wee George Osborne.

 

Then she got swamped with complaints about the ridiculous amount of time need to clear immigration at LHR and elsewhere.

 

So the miserable jobsworth in charge speeded up the system to please her by cutting a few corners.

 

This led to another media outcry so she fired the poor bugger.

 

She can’t do a lot about numbers because Blair gave a free pass to every benefit-seeker from the Roma in Eastern Europe, people-traffickers, pimps, whores and comic singers.

 

So to get the numbers, she clamped down on visas for key workers, from company bosses to skilled but hard-to-recruit staff. She then started to make life difficult for students who are vital to the finances of our places of higher learning, even cancelling visas to students in year 3, which she justified by quoting isolated abuses by rogue establishments, forgetting that ‘hard cases make bad law’.

 

She is now being trailed as a rising star.

 

I reckon she has a great future behind her.

 

 

 

Hop tu naa........not halloween!

The presence in the shops of witches’ broomsticks, ugly masks, and pumpkins signals that Hop tu naa  is here again. But there has been a major set-back. Part of the rituals include turnips – for making lanterns, using the stumps to bang on your door – and  the turnip crop has failed.

 

Contrary to popular belief, this has nothing to do with that modern interloper, Halloween. It marks the Celtic New Year and goes back into the mists of time.

 

It is untrue that it involves burning a Scotsman at the stake. In fact, regrettably it is no longer legal to shoot a Scotsman on sight. Or to hunt gays with dogs. And we don’t believe that ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ is factual.

 

But if the hop-tu-naa singers come round and you don’t give them sweeties Jenny the Witch will get you. She was done for witchcraft in about 1715, but instead of being burned at the stake she was banged up for a short while and fined about 3 quid. So she must still be about. Certainly there are quite a few around here who might well be her.

 

This is the Hop tu naa song:

 

Hop-tu-Naa

My mother's gone away

And she won't be back until the morning

Jinnie the Witch the silly old bitch her arse is made of clay

She done a fart behind the car and blew the wheels away (Hey!)

 

 

Being of Celtic/Viking stock people here are a bit superstitious.  Coming from the airport you pass over Fairy Bridge, and you must greet the fairies. Do we? You betcha. An American tourist recently asked his taxi driver what would happen if he refused the greeting. The driver told him that he would stop the cab and the fairies would beat seven bells out of him.

 

 

Then there’s the buggane, a great hairy thing that’s always up to mischief (’Just like you then’, says she who must be obeyed. Hardy har-har!). There’s the tale of St Trinian’s Church (yes, really) which the locals tried to build on the buggane’s turf. Well, he was having none of it because he and consecrated ground didn’t get on too well. So he kept blowing the roof off. The local tailor took a bet that he would stay in the church at night sewing a pair of breeches long enough for them to get the roof on.

 

The buggane arrived, the tailor took refuge in a churchyard where the buggane couldn’t go, and the church  never did get finished. There’s a cairn there to show where the buggane lurks.

 

It is in a very beautiful part of the countryside.

 

I’m not going there.

 

 

US election: 'Texas to arrest UN observers!'

The manifest absurdity of the US being monitored by OSC, as if it were on a par with the Srpska Republic (whose elections I had the honour of monitoring for OSCE) is so risible that it sent me back to the report from Our Man in Islamabad on the Pakistan elections in 1997 in which I led the UK component of the EU group. Here is a bit of what he said:

 

‘The French made fools of themselves, bringing a political figure – the Vice-President of the National Assembly, who had not the slightest intention of observing the elections. He arrived late, dropped out of his assigned mission, and took himself off to Swat for largely touristic purposes. On his return to Islamabad, he called a national press conference without waiting for the EU report, declared the elections free and fair according to his own extensive observations (presumably from the back seat of his car), and disappeared back to Paris’.

 

I was told later that this guy pitched up accompanied by ‘gorgeous putting Rita Chevrolet’!

 

He was also pretty scathing about the Germans, saying ‘…….they appeared to have no practical experience of elections…..doctrinaire academics whose moral vision got badly out of step with the observable facts. The female member of the group was exclusively concerned with women’s rights in the fiercely traditional tribal areas’.

 

So that is the sort of farce that can be expected in the US, although perhaps not in Texas, where the A-G has threatened to arrest any OSCE person who goes near a polling station.

 

And yet they monitored both ’04 and ’08 elections at the invitation of Dubya without comment as far as I can judge.

 

UN to supervise Obama poll?

Tonight is the final O and M debate and the concerned public is waiting nervously to see which candidate will come up trumps. Most probably, neither will and the outcome will be a stalemate with both sides claiming victory. The race is close according to the polls, but then again, there is bias in the polls as well as their interpreters. All in all, its a bit of a mess.

 

One relief is that not much has been made of the race and religion issues. There have been threats of violence, however, against enemies of both candidates should they win. The contest is decidedly passionate and highly ideological.

 

One bazaar phenomenon is the commissioning of polling station monitors from Europe and Central Asia. Amid reports of fiddling at these stations, minority and liberal institutions have requested the presence of monitors from the UN affiliated Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), specializing in this type of monitoring.

 

Fears have been expressed that conservative groups are intent on keeping minority voters away from the polls prompting the administration to allow the monitors access to certain as yet unnamed polling areas.

 

Americans perceive their country as the flagship of democracy and the chief exporter of related principles to peoples throughout the world. We do not take kindly to being monitored for the application of these principles in our own country. The monitors could well be a source of aggravation both before and on voting day.

 

The whole concept of inviting monitors smacks of politically motivated efforts to motivate and incite minorities to come out and vote. Everyone knows that voting fraud of any magnitude is not committed under the eyes of polling station observers. I find it difficult to imagine what some visitor from Central Asia will be able to detect that could not be otherwise, and better, detected by our own people.

 

There is a large insult factor involved in this matter with all Americans feeling somewhat if not seriously annoyed by it.

 

My take on the Ryan-Biden debate was that Joe Biden was better at lying than Ryan was at telling the truth. Yes, Joe was extremely rude and was allowed to practice his impoliteness by a biased moderator, Martha Raddatz of ABC News.

 

Indeed, Martha at times tried to impose herself into the debate. This was also true of Candy Crowley, the CNN moderator of the second presidential debate. She even went so far as to confirm a statement by Obama that she subsequently had to retract as it was incorrect.

 

There were moments when I wondered just who was running for office.

 

UN to moniter US elections; an insult?

Tonight is the final O and M debate and the concerned public is waiting nervously to see which candidate will come up trumps. Most probably, neither will and the outcome will be a stalemate with both sides claiming victory. The race is close according to the polls, but then again, there is bias in the polls as well as their interpreters. All in all, its a bit of a mess.

 

One relief is that not much has been made of the race and religion issues. There have been threats of violence, however, against enemies of both candidates should they win. The contest is decidedly passionate and highly ideological.

 

One bazaar phenomenon is the commissioning of polling station monitors from Europe and Central Asia. Amid reports of fiddling at these stations, minority and liberal institutions have requested the presence of monitors from the UN affiliated Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), specializing in this type of monitoring.

 

Fears have been expressed that conservative groups are intent on keeping minority voters away from the polls prompting the administration to allow the monitors access to certain as yet unnamed polling areas.

 

Americans perceive their country as the flagship of democracy and the chief exporter of related principles to peoples throughout the world. We do not take kindly to being monitored for the application of these principles in our own country. The monitors could well be a source of aggravation both before and on voting day.

 

The whole concept of inviting monitors smacks of politically motivated efforts to motivate and incite minorities to come out and vote. Everyone knows that voting fraud of any magnitude is not committed under the eyes of polling station observers. I find it difficult to imagine what some visitor from Central Asia will be able to detect that could not be otherwise, and better, detected by our own people.

 

There is a large insult factor involved in this matter with all Americans feeling somewhat if not seriously annoyed by it.

 

My take on the Ryan-Biden debate was that Joe Biden was better at lying than Ryan was at telling the truth. Yes, Joe was extremely rude and was allowed to practice his impoliteness by a biased moderator, Martha Raddatz of ABC News.

 

Indeed, Martha at times tried to impose herself into the debate. This was also true of Candy Crowley, the CNN moderator of the second presidential debate. She even went so far as to confirm a statement by Obama that she subsequently had to retract as it was incorrect.

 

There were moments when I wondered just who was running for office.

 

Copyright: MJCHAPUT  2012.

 

The bonkers button.......

Last week in politics, somebody pressed the bonkers button.

 

First we had the Mitchell fiasco.

 

It should have been instantly obvious that Mitchell was yesterday the moment he opened his mouth. As a senior public figure you simply can’t behave like this. Had I done so as a senior public official I should have been out in milliseconds. As Chief Whip he needed to carry the respect – even fear – of Tory MPs, so it was plain at the outset he could no longer do his job.

 

So what did Dave do? He had two options. To fire him immediately or to throw his weight and authority behind him.

 

Instead he did absolutely nothing; zilch; bugger-all. What a leader!

 

It was the 1922 Committee that did for him.

 

And another thing. The real villains of the piece were the Police Federation, one of the last dinosaur unions, along with teachers, transport and the public service lot. The Old Bill not only fed the story to the media in the first place (and I daresay somebody took a little bung for his pains), but also leaked the internal inquiry report to the Sun, such is the integrity of the finest police force that money can buy!

 
Then we had the totally fabricated story about Osborne’s train fare. The most cursory evaluation would have shown that this story had no legs. The simple truth is that he and his aide had 2^nd class tickets. There were no seats so they sat in 1^st class and paid the difference.  End of story.

 

Actually, not quite!

 

I am no fan of wee George, mainly because it is patently absurd that anyone in his 30’s, however brilliant, has the experience and ‘bottom’ to hold one of the great offices of state. Apart from which we should congratulate him on going about his business by train. He could have taken his official car at much greater expense. Or an aircraft of the Queen’s Flight, as Blair did so often without comment (and also used Northolt instead of Heathrow for his long-haul trips to avoid mixing with the hoi-polloi).

 

In most places’ he would have been accompanied by police escorts and flashing blue lights. In the EU, he would have travelled by executive jet, with his driver sent on ahead with the Merc or BMW.

 

He should be congratulated for his parsimony, not berated because a nosy hack was not going to let the truth get in the way of the story.

 

Now we have the DT, which is trying to emulate the hysterical style of the Daily Mail, stirring up more nonsense about first-class rail and business-class airfares.

 

So let’s get this in perspective. UK MPs are amongst the worst paid in any democracy – less than Italy, Ireland, Germany and others, never mind Japan where MPs trouser twice what our lot get. Because successive governments have lacked the guts to tackle the issue of pay, they created an ‘expenses’ culture, and here we are!

 

The answer is simple – too simple, perhaps, for the average bureaucrat to understand.

 

All pay should be on the same scales as the Civil Service. This would instantly de-politicise the issue.

 

The PM would be on the same scale as the Cabinet Secretary; Ministers with Permanent Secretaries; MPs with Deputy Secretaries.

 

Expenses? All would get the Civil Service scale. This means fixed daily subsistence allowance for nights spent away from home, mileage allowance  for travel using own car, first-class rail fares on official business, second-class for travel home to work when living more than 40 miles from London, and air fares at the cheapest economy rate.

 

What’s the problem?