25 November 2013

Hail!

According to Stuart MacGill, England were outplayed on the first day of this test when Australia lulled them into a false sense of security with their uncanny imitation of themselves. Obviously they had me going as well. You guys! Such kidders.

Speaking of impersonators, there was some talk back in 2010 of Mitchell Johnson having an evil twin. You could never tell in a game if you were going to get real Mitch or fake Mitch. I think this game has made it clear that evil twin Mitch is absolutely the one we want and if the other one is tied up and gagged somewhere, we're comfortable with that. Don't shave the moustache Mitch, you need it to twirl. How many times have I stressed the crucial role of hair in this game?

And speaking of hair, I didn't think the "Armageddon" player backdrops were really working for Nathan Lyon...
... until I grasped the Nicolas-Cage-in-Con Air inspiration...

... which makes Nathan the natural leader. Do you think people would laugh too much if he grew out his hair?

And back to impersonators again, I was going to suggest that Tremlett was more Lurch in the end than any of the other monsters that get thrown up, then I felt bad about someone getting compared to a monster so much and decided to go down another track:


I know David Bowie is still many people's idea of a freak, but it's a comparison that preserves his dignity.

And on to something else. Great post-match press conference from Alastair Cook, he was the perfect pouting private-school boy, snapping "You don't need me to explain it to you" at a journalist when asked why England lost. You won't win friends with petulance, Mr Cook, ask Ricky Ponting in 2005. Keep it up though, because it's great fun to watch.

P.S. Is there a better advertisement for veganism than Peter Siddle? Plenty of energy and no high ground (as far as I know. His girlfriend is an animal activist). I would like to get my hands on some of his recipes, though I'm guessing he's a "food as fuel" sort and just inhales bananas and nuts.

P.P.S. Anyone else noticed Chris Rogers' manky arm guard? Maybe a lucky one like Steve Waugh's cap/hanky? It looked like he lent it to Peter Siddle. Who in turn seemed lent it to James Anderson. Is there but one arm guard in the world? No wonder it's manky.


22 November 2013

Broadsides

Much as I love to see Mitchell "Guy's my middle name" Johnson get going with the bat, here we are again. Again with the B-team trying to salvage something from the A-team's wreck. Again with an innings where a stoic middle-orderer (how often is it Haddin?) partners plucky Tail-enders. They really are fun to watch when they make something of it, but it's not the way it's supposed to work. There was an audience comment pasted on the ESPN ball-by-ball commentary "England need not be complacent with their current position. These lower order partnerships are always a characteristic of the Ozs for the last few seasons". Yes, yes they are. Is it an official strategy? Why not straight out reverse the batting order? Is the problem with the upper order that they think they're batsmen?

Tremlett provoked much comment, mainly to the effect of whether he was actually flesh and blood. The word from the loungeroom was that he was Frankenstein, and in the same spirit James Brayshaw described him (his word was actually "that") as "an incredible physical arrangement". The word "unit" came up a lot. But he didn't fool Warnie, who spotted the human vanity in his figure-hugging body shirt. The England shirts show a fair bit of cunning tailoring. Darts the likes of which are normally only found on blouses. I'm guessing there's some very advanced sports science behind them, and then at the end of the presentation Q says, "they'll also look really hot".

We were going to listen to some Grandstand commentary and then found they weren't streaming online. Now here's the thing. My boyfriend is what's called a "hi-fi dag". In our lounge room there is... One set of speakers on either side of the television, another free-standing set around the sound system. Two large flat boxes, one black with with two big knobs next to the television and a silver one with the sound system with one big knob, and I know they are amplifiers. A turntable. A smaller silver flat box next to the silver amplifier that I'm pretty sure is a CD player. On top of that a smaller black flat box that according to the writing is a "pre-amplifier". Next to that an even smaller silver box that's a "DAC". And on top of that, my favourite, a small plain black box with nothing on it except a small button in the middle with the word "POWER" above. I suspect this is a flight recording unit so that other hi-fi dags can work out what cabling mistake my boyfriend made if we go down in a flaming conflagration.*

Now, is there a radio to be found in this array? There is not. It looks like we could be plugging in the digital clock radio from the bedroom (if I can find somewhere to plug it in), or even - god forbid - digging out my crappy all-in-one CD-cassette-radio from its box of shame in the spare room. Just like olde times!

Come on Grace, sit down by the wireless and I'll make us a cup of tea.

* Update: this is apparently a "buffer", whose purpose is "to make Jim Maxwell sound more chesty and less nasal".

19 November 2013

Said are you ready

I decided to save the Falafel Coronation Surprise for an upcoming family picnic comprising several vegetarians. That might sound a bit mean seeing as I described it as 'vile', but maybe it will be more to their taste and either way there'll be more mouths to get rid of it. Meanwhile I have addressed myself to the matter of the famous Piri Piri Breaded Tofu and you can read all about it here.

I forgot to mention last time that I enjoyed a fair bit of World Series Baseball over winter. So many people who look like W. G. Grace (I'm thinking of you in particular, Mike Napoli) standing in front of other people who look like Hannibal Lecter. It's a winning combination. Plenty of Buddha Warriors in that code. I'm very pleased to learn that Mike Young, a former baseball player and coach born in Chicago, has been recalled to the Australian cricket staff. Hope he can improve the standard of cricket ground hotdogs while he's here.

I also didn't share my discovery of the Boyd Rankin Parlour Game. It's pretty simple. You see Boyd Rankin and you start singing the Beat's "Ranking Full Stop". Then instead of "Full stop... Rankin full stop", you cleverly change it to "Full toss... Rankin full toss" or even "Full stretch... Rankin full stretch" if he makes an impressive outfield catch. Rankin has a disappointing tendency not to bowl all that full, but to be honest it makes no difference to the game. I see him and even before he bowls I can warm up with, "Said are you ready, are you ready to toss (x 2)..." before falling back on the standard "Full toss, Rankin full toss" (x infinity). Draw out the fuuuuull and roll the r for maximum satisfaction. My endless source of amusement could make for a very long summer for others. Don't start me on my George Bailey "Mr Cellophane" whistle.

I'm ready. Play ball!

09 November 2013

Micromanagement

Well, here's my 'in'. I can hardly hold back when the English go and put out a tour cookbook for the team. Mostly it looks like the sort of thing you'd get at an upmarket health spa. Lots of 'superfoods', lots of things chopped up and mixed together and a sort of faux multiculturalism - dishes that are Indian/Thai/Moroccan/Greek/Japanese 'inspired' or 'flavoured' rather actual Indian/Thai/Moroccan/Greek/Japanese dishes. Not much you'd need a knife for and no bones at all. The standout of the Herald's sample of recipes was the "Butternut Squash and Falafel Coronation", a sort of Coronation Chicken (above) as if interpreted by Mollie Katzen, which looked pretty vile, and hence will have to be tested out immediately.

Looking through the cookbook and catering requirements, I was mainly overcome with 'variety fatigue': tired of too much of the 'different' thing instead of too much of the same thing. It's deceptive, because obviously the idea is to cater to a variety of tastes rather than impose variety on one person, but if I was on tour I would want more food that could have come out of a home kitchen instead of a sanatorium. It's an openly over-designed diet – "Every item in the ingredients listings is there to aid the performance and recovery of the England Cricket Team" – and I think they should relax a bit for everyone's sake.

***

It wasn't a bad off season, though I thought I'd blown it when I missed Finch's 156 runs off 63 in England: surely there wouldn't be anything better to look forward to. There wasn't, in a way, because there were so many other spectacular runs fests that by the end they all ran into each other and lost their edge. I felt for poor George Bailey who managed to score so many runs and still be a charisma-free zone. A Cricket Australia honcho said that if he was picked for the Ashes team the deciding factor would be his 'character', and I laughed, but actually I'm starting to think the vacancy has a Zen edge and I suspect that's what's appealing to CA.

I'll be back for the Coronation.