My Australian Friend Even Sent Congratulations
It is good to wake up this morning to the news that England have retained the Ashes.
One of my Aussie friends even sent congratulations and said well done!
Will England Win Tonight?
Let’s hope so!
It would certainly silence the groans I can hear coming out of Kangaroo Valley.
I’ve just had this view from an Aussie by e-mail.
We have not had a Team in Oz like these Brits . . .
Great Batting . . . Great Bowling . . . Great Fielding . . . Great Wicket Keeping
Look at the Bowlers working the Ball . . . I have never seen such work . . . New Ball one side and rough the other . . .
Ponting’s gone for twenty . . .
Congratulations the Ashes are Yours . . .
This is just the Brits need . . . now the run up to the Olympic Games . . .
Now the Brits will start to rebuild,
Great Team, Great Win . . . Cricket as we Love it . . .
I don’t get this bit about us needing to rebuild. It just strikes me that we call up a new player and they just fit.
A British team getting things right for once. But only like the cyclists, rowers and the boxers, with the gymnasts following close behind. The English football team should take note. Especially, as I have a feeling that either the 2018 or 2022 World Cups will have to be moved to somewhere friendlier.
Solving the Problem of Watching Sky or ITV Pictures and Getting Radio 5 Sound
As you may know from this blog, I’m allergic to two things; gluten and adverts. I don’t like having to continually switch whilst watching sport on Sky or ITV to BBC Radio 5, to avoid the annoying adverts and get a continuous commentary. In many cases too, the ITV coverage is not up to scratch and vital parts like goals are missed. To be fair to Sky, there’s nothing wrong with their coverage in general, it’s just the adverts, often for products that contain gluten. So they are a double irritant.
Virgin cable gets around this problem in some ways, because it has a Back button, so you can constantly use it to flip between, your preferred video and audio channels.
For Christmas I was given a pair of wireless headphones by Sennheiser, that plug into the headphone socket of a television or radio and give a good sound quality within range.
So I have plugged them into my Roberts DAB radio for good Radio 5 sound and just put the television on the corresponding video channel.
There are some other advantages.
- I can get good commentary all over my house and even in the road outside.
- The range also solves the tea and toilet break problems, as never do I have to miss any of the action. This works well with sport, but you’d probably need to pause the television for a break, whilst watching a serious drama.
- I’d also be interested to know to, how serious music lovers would find the quality of the sound through the headphones.
- I now adjust the volume on the headphones, so that if say I was watching something very loud, then I’m the only one gets the loud noise.
- Obviously, if you are watching with someone else, you just unplug the headphones and watch normally.
It strikes me that various families would find different ways to use one or more of these devices to avoid problems amongst themselves or with the neighbours.
To be fair, I know that the headphones are a good deal cheaper, than the cost of using a solicitor to fight an ASBO caused by a loud television. And not everybody likes Abba!
But whatever, they made a very good Christmas present for me!
Geoffrey Boycott is Distraught
Poor Geoffrey Boycott is distraught for Australia, after the first day in Melbourne. He has just said that it couldn’t have happened to nicer people.
The English Bowling Wasn’t That Good!
Looking at the wreakage of the first Australian innings in Melbourne this morning, as a statistician it is strange that every wicket was caught and there were no lbws or bowled. So perhaps, England weren’t bowling that straight and the Aussies just gave catches away.
Was it just a ploy to give England a false sense of security?
Going Back to Bed as a Happy Bunny
It’s now approaching 4:30 and I’ve just watched an interesting ninety minutes of cricket as Australia decided to give England a lot of catching practice and became all out for just 98 runs.
So I’ve just made myself a LemSip and after I’ve drunk that and listened to the news, I’ll go back to bed and see if I can get back to sleep again. I suppose though I did get about six hours sleep overnight.
The LemSip is an odd flavour; Wild Berry and Hot Orange. If I need to buy some more, I’ll buy the traditional.
Hopefully, it will be alright when I get up in the morning, but England did look a bit collapsible in the last Test and I’ve got Ipswich today, tubes permitting. Town will have to try to play as well as they did in the snow eight days ago.
Waking up to Good News
There’s nothing that a good Pom likes more than to wake up to the news that the Australian cricket team is in trouble.
I turned television on just in time, to see the fifth Australian wicket go down for just 69 runs.
In some ways it all seems rather surreal with a troop of English fast bowlers bearing down on the batsmen. Never in my lifetime have we had so many good ones. Why? In the past we might have had a pair like Fred Trueman and Brian Statham, but usually it was a good one like John Snow or Bob Willis working with whatever could be found in County Cricket.
Why have things changed so much?
Perhaps other sports and business should find out and follow a similar path.
Shane Warne has Better Things to Do!
Shane Warne will not be trying to do the difficult job of helping out the Aussies in the next Test Match, as he seems to have found something better to do.
Eleanor Oldroyd Solves the Aussies Problems
Eleanor Oldroyd is the First Lady of Fighting Talk and on today’s show she gave her learned opinion on how to improve the dreadful performance of the Australian’s so-called cricket team. She actually made two suggestions.
- We persuade the ICC to let the Aussies have a third innings.
- The English team play French cricket, which would mean they had to face the bowler directly.
The latter is a really serious suggestion, as it would probably mean that the likes of Strauss, Pietersen, Bell and Collingwood would rise to the challenge with superb stroke-play.
If you’ve never listened to Fighting Talk, it is one of the best programs on Radio 5 and is also available as a podcast.
Today’s was a particularly good edition, with the program finishing with Eleanor explaining how athletes fail drug tests for too much testosterone and/or Viagra.
Will The Aussies Turn to Shane Warne?
It is being rumoured that the Australians might turn to Shane Warne to help them get even with England in The Ashes.
In a way, I wonder whether some think this might be a good idea for England too, as some of their batsmen would just love to get at him and pay him back for all the damage he’s done in the past! Remember many of the England batsmen have had a good look at Warne lately in 20/20 cricket, so perhaps he’s not as feared as he once was!
The Anonymous Widower 