A Nation Expects - Unfortunately

The Cricket World Cup got underway today to the tune of England's favouritism. Usually such expectation has a debilitating effect on our players but, on this occasion, only the greatest churl would argue that they have not earned the tag by virtue of their prior performances. They have elevated the fifty over game to a point where a total of a mere three hundred can seem inadequate. Their bowling does not convince quite as readily as the brutal batting but, hey, you can't have everything.

 I watched much of the game against South Africa today and at one point in the middle of the South African reply to England's innings, I felt that too familiar deflated sensation of the England fan (in any sport - cricket is hardly alone in letting us down) and was readying myself to write a blog which castigated the attendant mood of confidence. In fact I was wrong by a massive margin. England were reassuringly professional in bowling South Africa out. And if you haven't yet seen Ben Stokes's catch, please gooogle it and wonder at what a man can do. I think I am going to allow myself to be optimistic

All Political Careers End In Failure - But This Is Bloody Ridiculous

So Theresa May has finally admitted defeat and we shall soon have yet another Prime Minister. At her moment of resignation she was dignified and serious - have we ever found her otherwise? But we should not allow our instinctive sympathy for a kind soul to obscure the fact of her ineffectiveness. In my lifetime we have had some bloody awful Prime Ministers (Douglas-Home, Callaghan, Brown all spring to mind) and I'm certain that none of them was saddled with such malign mood music as May. Brexit is a shaming dog's dinner, the Conservative Party is an ungovernable dog's breakfast and, to cap it all, she let that turd Donald Trump hold her hand in public. Notwithstanding such unprepossessing circumstances, it has to be said that she has demonstrated an uncanny knack when faced with a fork in the political road for steering with utter conviction down the wrong way. In all of this she threatens to deliver us into the hands Corbyn and McDonnell, a gruesome pairing which should in any sensible world be unelectable. So, sorry Mrs May, I am not sorry to see you go. Brexit means Brexit indeed.

Much more importantly you will need to know that the Overgraduate has been suffering with that most debilitating of illnesses, the summer cold. I have been unspeakably brave about the whole thing as I'm sure the Groupie will confirm. I do just have to make it clear that this was not Man Flu - which as any fule kno is much, much worse.

Mission Impossible - Fallout - a film of sustained and explosive silliness. It has first Paris and then London being trashed in chases and shoot-outs before repairing to Kashmir for a climax that twins a helicopter chase with nuclear threat. Bloody silly. Bloody well done. 6.5/10. For people who like this sort of thing etc.

For a man who is an avid watcher of Gardeners' World Big Fat Pig is not a keen gardener. It seems to him that if you weed regularly this merely stimulates the bloody things to grow back even bigger. The Pig does of course like a well-kept lawn and is pleased to report that the new Precious Mower is doing a great job, both in standard mode and the alternative mulch mode which he uses when doing the Council's job and mowing the verge at the front of Casa Piggy. As for the institutional uselessness of Birmingham City Council, let's leave that for another day.

Remember you heard it here first: Brexit means never having to say you're sorry.



    

Are Brilliant ... Mark XXV

It's been some time since I last added to this particular unruly thread. You may complain that there is no rhyme or reason to its compilation. You will be right.

It has also been a good time since my last blog of any designation. You may complain, but I doubt that you will. You are discerning people and have other things in your life without having to be distressed about the (welcome?) silence of the Overgraduate.

So what have I been up to? Went to Anglesey/Mon. Went to Newcastle. Watched some rugby. All good stuff.

So what is brilliant?

Treaddur Bay.  Mon's most congenial resort village. Good walking in both directions from the beach car park and good beer and chips at the cafe by that car park. The rest of the food looked good as well but we saved our appetites for the Panton Arms in Pentraeth. No belly pork (the bloke on the next table ordered the last portion) which only slightly took the edge off it.

Treaddur Bay ... brilliant

Indian Pale Ale in many of its guises - a taste rediscovered from my earliest student days.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I've raved about this film on previous occasions but we rewatched it in the company of Daughter Number 2 and however enthusiastic I was in the past, it probably wasn't enough. Quite majestical (this phrase will make sense when you, as you must, see the movie). 9.5/10.

Whitley Bay Golf Club - whereat we played in glorious weather on the Friday of our annual Heineken Cup expedition. OG was not good enough for this track but enjoyed it immensely.

Whitley Bay Golf Club ... brilliant

Rugby Union - despite all the unintended consequences of professionalism and the modern crisis of participation (whither 4th XV rugby?) there is reassurance to be had in the European Finals weekend. Newcastle proved a worthy host and AO, JRS, AW, AS and BH incomparably good company. We've already bought our tickets for Marseilles next year.

Aston Old Edwardians (a sub-set of the previous entry) - a venerable institution not without its problems but the club that has given me most of my friends, many of whom I caught up with in Newcastle.

Another sub-set: the final two minutes of the first half of the Champions Cup final - quite simply the most ruthless and professional set of plays I have ever been lucky enough to witness. Saracens, chapeau.

Home.

England And Its Empires

Sir Philip Sidney, described the English in his Arcadia as an elect and 'only'people, governed both by 'justice and providence'... Half a millennia later, however, the 'chosen people' seem, in Davies's words, to be 'manifestly bewildered'; abandoned by God, divested of their empires both 'outer' [the wider empire] and 'inner' [the supposedly 'united' Kingdom], tempted once again by the European res publica, but troubled by it too.

Ian Ward wrote these words in his provocative The English Constitution: Myths and Realities in 2004. We haven't come very far have we? If anything we are mired deeper in our confusion. Ward's sympathies are disestablishmentarian and republican; mine are not but I must confess I am wavering. The powerful executive that Ward laments has retreated a tad under the successive handicaps of coalition and Brexit but nothing has emerged to fill, even partially, the resulting lacuna. Parliament has flexed its muscles but so used is it to being enfeebled that it cannot manage a decision. All we get is the posturing of Bercow, who, Heaven preserve us, has become a cult favourite in Germany. I can't believe I'm saying this but the Germans may have a point.

Where I am undoubtedly ad idem with Ward is in his denunciation of the venality of modern party politics and the sheer, lazy, crassness of Tony Blair. Cameron has not, by the point when Ward writes, yet hoven into view. Don't start me off on all that again.

We watched a rather silly film last weekend, not that it was unentertaining just that it was, well as I say, silly. It was Angels and Demons, the preposterous sequel to The Da Vinci Code. 5/10. My mate JB (Viperjohn to the virtual world) has on occasion passed the opinion that Dan Brown's novels are great literature. I'm pretty certain he does this to wind me up, God love him. It must be said that he only produces these opinions when we are both copiously in wine. This is the week that he and I would, under our ancien regime, have been in Ireland for the Dunmore Golf Classic. As he wisely said in a text (we're so modern) this week, I don't miss the weather but I do miss the craic. No matter, OG, Viperjohn, Big Willy Mac and the Boy Bacon will be convening in Northumberland for golf and fellowship in the Autumn. By which time my adherence to a strict programme of Pilates and Body Balance will have me playing off single figures. Will it bollocks. 

Weather looking rather grim but no matter, we're of to Mon for a couple of days and next week I'm off with the Heineken crew to Newcastle for the European Rugby finals. It's a hard life but someone's got to live it.