Bite the dust

This came to my attention this week:


 
The person who shared the information had reservations:


 
I don’t know whether Tony is seeing what I am seeing, but for me the nub of the problem is very clear. It is this:

‘Written loosely to the tune “My old man’s a dustman”’

Let that sink in. I don’t know the song “My old man’s a dustman.” And yet I do. If you look deep within yourself you will find you do too. You know this song, you can feel it in your bones, and you know it to be a terrible, terrible song. Details flash across your consciousness from another dimension. It is sung in a cockney accent. There is ribaldry - oh, the ribaldry. There is a singalong chorus and lots of “laffs”. It must be stopped.

I resent the fact that the song is mentioned as though it will be a familiar reference to me in any way but the nightmarish race memory way described above. I don’t know how I feel about Denis Carnahan now, knowing that he knows and makes use of this song, and I don’t care how “loosely” the new song is based on this one, I know where that song has been.
I may have got the wrong end of the stick completely and “My old man’s a dustman” is actually an old Radiohead album track (“Creep” has potential, come to think of it). But I am too scared to go and find out.

It is of course all part of the perennial “problem” of Australia not having a real counterpart to the Barmy Army. People always talk about this like it is a bad thing, but maybe, just maybe, the existence of the Barmy Army has a tiny little bit to do with a propensity to sing songs like “My old man’s a dustman” and we are well to keep out of it.

PS.
“Barbie Army” is a very weak name, unless you are an actual army of pink Barbies waving tongs. I agree that any name would be stronger than “Fanatics”, but you can do better than this. If you really must do this sort of thing, how about “BBQ HQ”? “Vegemite Regiment”? I’ll stop there.



Super bass

There was some discussion in the Grandstand commentary box about the expression “eye like a dead fish”. I didn’t catch all of it - it extended over several shifts - but Simon Katich and Jim Maxwell knew the expression, Jonathan Agnew and his BBC friends had never heard of it, and Jim tried to explain it to Chris Rogers, who may or may not have known the expression but was highly sceptical of Jim’s guesses as to where it came from. I didn’t blame him, they were very bad guesses, stuff to do with the eyes on a dead fish “sticking out”.

So, I know this expression, and it makes sense that it came up with Simon Katich because he is the model of the cricketer with an “eye like a dead fish”. Here is my attempt to explain what it means and why. It is a theory pulled out of my arse and then I will do some homework to see if it is right.

When you say a cricketer has an eye like a dead fish it means they are unblinking. They see the ball and they don’t flinch. So:

Fish have no eyelids and don’t blink. 
Dead people have open eyes and don’t blink. 
Dead fish = unblinking squared.

You have to forget about things like the fact that anything dead is also blind.

Now I will have a look.

Result: I am very good at this. I also learned that some of the things Jim was saying, to do with shell shock and the thousand-yard stare, seemed to have been gleaned from the Urban Dictionary. I suspect they were notes handed to him from a producer, but the idea that Jim Maxwell regularly consults the Urban Dictionary pleases me very much.






Beam me up

There was a lot of talk about DRS in the Adelaide Test, because there were a lot of reviews and a lot of reviews overturned. This always leads to a lot of angst about the Rise of the Machines.

Part of it is aesthetic: ‘spoils the flow of the game’. Some of it is moral: Won’t Somebody Think of the Children. A lot of it is what I like to call the Epistemological Circle: a computer can’t know better than me because I know better than a computer. (I have already addressed one version of this argument – “you know when you’ve hit it” – here.)

It all tends to merge together into what I think of as the Star Trek argument. Humans: they’re great because they’re rational, but not too rational. It is an amalgam of tolerance/intolerance of human/machine error/accuracy that goes something like this:

Humans get things right.
BUT it is ok if we sometimes get things wrong, because: human.
BUT it is NOT okay if technology sometimes gets things wrong, because LACKS CHARM.
AND it is ALSO not really okay if technology gets things right because LACKS CHARM.

I tend to be systematically on the side of technology in these kinds of things because I am suspicious of gut instinct/common sense arguments in general. They also tend to be mixed up in good old days/when I was a boy arguments, which I flat-out loathe. It is also true however that my own personal ball tracking ability would never come into conflict with a computer because it doesn’t exist. I have the eye of a stunned mullet.

Struggle Street

Nathan Lyon and the National Character

Simon Katich on Grandstand suggested that one of the reasons that Australian cricket fans had embraced Nathan Lyon is that Australians “love a battler”. Hahahahahaha no. Australian cricket fans love love love success and there is no more merciless derision than the derision of the Australian cricket-watching public towards a “battling” player.

Some previous “battling” may add some narrative interest in retrospect once success has been achieved, but has Nathan Lyon ever really been a battler? Nathan Lyon’s narrative is being the groundskeeper who was plucked from obscurity like Lana Turner at the soda fountain and fast tracked into the national team to answer the national prayers for a consistent star spinner. He has been overlooked under some circumstances and that’s about it. It is not a battler story.

I think he attracts the battler label because, unlike Lana Turner, he looks like a battler. The runt of the litter rather than top dog, the very opposite of Warne. I have previously analysed the Australian public’s dislike of Michael Clarke as an aversion to pretty cricketers (Michael Clarke may be the exception to the rule that Australian cricket fans will love you when you’re successful). Lyon is successful, but “quirky-looking” and the Australian public does love love love “quirkiness”, which feeds its self image as a humorous offbeat people who love underdogs and… battlers. Hahahahahahha no.

Cameron Bancroft

Cameron Bancroft apparently has a very heavy head. We know now why he didn’t flinch at bat pad when he received a knock on the grill and we know now what he was thinking when it happened: “Weird.”

Jim Maxwell

Is becoming a bit of a parody of himself, no? He went on a rant at one stage: “Why is it always all about the ‘next generation’? What percentage of the population is 65 and over? Get them to the Shield games. They can take a newspaper and crossword.” I wanted to point out that marketing to this group isn’t a very long-term strategy. Or isn’t a very “future-proofed” strategy, if I wanted to annoy him. He sounds tired and I know he wasn’t well last year, but I really think he hasn't been the same since Peter Roebuck died. He sounds alone.

Chris Rogers

I love Chris Rogers. I love how you can hear him sort of grapple with himself when he speaks, a sort of stuttering hesitation like he is still trying to make up his mind even as the words are coming out of his mouth. It's charming.

Off topic: Jarryd Hayne

Arrgh go away it’s too complicated. JUST when Parramatta had got its life back together, you turn up like the bad boy old boyfriend. The one who turns on the charm when it suits him and then leaves you dangling for months. The one with the siren call: “But you’re the only one who really understands me. You’re the one who can save me.” Arrrrgh.

Back on track

Back in 2012 I was already saying "When are we going to stop being 3 or 4 for under 50?" Being saved by the captain and having a solid 2nd innings when the pressure is off is part of this pattern, it does not make up for it. I'll be watching.

In case you were wondering how I felt

Parallel story: when I am dodging work to watch the cricket I try to kill more than one bird, in this case making an apple pie during the first session.

There's been a lot of "5-nil" talk in the lead up to this series. To which I say: no amount of crowing “5-nil” will convince me that anything but an away series win will properly avenge the Ashes of 2005. And it will especially not avenge the tragesty* that was the 2011-12 home series loss, which no one seems to talk about. I tell you, the vision of Graeme Swann doing the “sprinkler” in front of the Barmy Army at the SCG is not easily forgotten, let alone forgiven.

The 2006-2007 series, the original “5-nil”, only represented “job done” for one person, Shane Warne, which we know because he called it a day. The pleasure of the 2006-2007 whitewash was the Shane Warne narrative that ran through it and ran through him. Not the wins per se, but the sheer force of will that won the Adelaide Test and the showmanship that produced the 700th wicket. It perfectly encapsulated the command of the elements and the story that characterised his whole career. 

It represented an appropriate counterpoint to 2005 because the great spectacle of that series, more than the losses per se, was the Agony of Warne trying to win the Ashes all by himself when all was collapsing around him. For sheer defiance in the face of the odds, for the attempt to be not only every bowler but every batsman, it was probably an even greater demonstration of will than 2006-2007, and all the greater for being unsuccessful.

Now, however, Test cricket seems to have settled into a too-comfortable pattern of we win here, you win there, I’m OK, you’re OK, trophies going back and forth like a game of pass-the-parcel where every child gets a prize. It’s not okay, I tell you. A while ago people said Australia crushing the English here at home was getting “boring” and I said never, never will I tire of the Melancholy of Nasser, but I think now that was because it came on top of beating them on their home territory - take that and that. Without that added edge, as part of a regular pattern… yes, it is potentially boring. And even if not, don’t pretend 5-nil is good enough.

*James Hooper came out with this portmanteau on an episode of the Back Page a while ago and it has stuck.

This

Yes. Combined age 451, combined chromosomal arms 56. A dick cannot of a Y chromosome an X chromosome make.

1. I’ll say firstly that we have to make allowances for Chappell and Lawry. Every cricketer who took the risk of helping Kerry Packer create the World Series was promised a job for life, so these two will not go anywhere until they die or damn well want to.

2. At the other end of the spectrum, I have never understood or accepted the presence of Mark Nicholas and you can see from the photo that he knows he does not belong there too. The anchor spot is the obvious entry point for a woman into this line up and should happen immediately.

3. Michael Clarke. Simultaneously bores and enrages me. I think this is the polarisation of the impression he used to make on me at press conferences: bland and irritating. He was so perfect at the media thing so this seems a logical continuation and yet not. So not. Apart from anything else we didn’t get a break from him. He went straight from captaining to the commentary box! We needed a rest. Everyone else leaves a decent gap. Don’t be so eager. Stop reminding us of how commercial a proposition you are. He won’t go, of course.

4. Warnie. Has the novelty worn off? His lack of self-censorship and strategic nous was refreshing at the start. Now he mostly appears as the har har larrikin** interspersed with pronouncements from on high about individual players that become media stories. There is no correlation between Warnie’s magnificence as a cricketer (see above) and his presence on the small screen. Warnie is big, but the pictures are small. He won’t go, of course.

5. Healy. Such a nice face. Can we keep him, Mum?

6. Michael Slater and Mark Taylor. Nothing personal, but it is hard to see their presence as necessary.

Funnily enough one of the aims of WSC was to attract more women and migrants to the game. Nine also recently televised parts the Women’s Ashes series, though unfortunately not the most telegenic moment of Elyse Perry’s 200. The tide in this area is turning very quickly. However stodgy the Nine commentary team is, I can’t see the line-up lasting too much longer. They might be hanging out for Elyse Perry to retire, but that might be a while.

** You know the irony about that whole “Gunna have a beer? Eh? Eh?” incident? Warnie is not really a beer drinker, as far as I can gather from the too-many biographies I have read. Too challenging for his palate, I guess. I would imagine he is a bourbon and coke man, maybe scotch and soda, the odd red wine. Not a big drinker in general I think. Most of the pictures of Warnie "drinking" alcohol show him pouring it over his head or attempting to fit his mouth around the whole rim of a glass, in the manner of, respectively, a toddler and a 12 year old. This didn’t stop the 99 Not Out beer designed for him by Moa from being a really excellent beer and by far the best value beer on the market when they started remaindering it.

In case you were wondering about the pie:

I think it speaks for itself.

Nine-inch nails

Power. Control. Composure. Parramatta. You read that right. Drop an Eel in the middle of Auckland and it turns into a Cowboy. I suppose it makes sense that a club with the reputation of finding it hard to stay the distance has made the short form of the game its own, and Mr Batsy says Mr Norman perhaps takes opposing teams out for a night on the town the day before a match, but let’s not be snide. It’s a new year, a new game, everyone looks as bright as a new penny under the Auckland sunshine (?) like it’s the first day of school. New clothes, new shoes, new haircuts, everyone looks a bit “different” after the holidays - older or fresher? a different training regime? or nothing more than the new haircut? I will have to stop calling Clint Gutherson “Hipster Boy”, for example, as I now believe “a Trendy” is the more correct term. Then there’s the one who you realise isn’t just different but actually a new boy. He came to Parramatta because the burden of having to introduce himself as the I Luv CoffeeBurleigh Bears Co-Captain had become intolerable.

The future, and the Auckland sun (I’ll say it again, ?) was so bright
I had to draw the lounge room curtains against the glare so my eyes could adjust to the new order and ease in to the rhythms and flows of the winter code. I’d made the effort of course for a look in on He Who Must Not be Named, who didn’t feature much in the end, grubbering one to the Trendy for a try instead of grubbering it to himself, and leaving the big run to How Much Can a Burleigh Bear. I had a whole $4 on a Parramatta win (against the Dragons, this whole thing was against the Dragons by the way), the dregs of my 2016 investment in the NRL season, now a magnificent $6.53. I imagine my final winnings will be a play off between compound betting and shortening odds, but I’m all in.