Cricket, Bloody Hell

Well, well, well, the early favourites did in the end win the Cricket World Cup, though not by any means in the swashbuckling manner that their stellar pre-tournament form had suggested. No, it was back to the days of two hundred and fifty being a defendable score and bowlers at least getting some of the glory. Praise be to the person (if he or she actually exists and it wasn't one of those happy accidents) who oversaw the production of the pitches - now I consider it, I suspect that happy accident was involved.

So England triumphant after quite simply the most gripping game of one day cricket there has ever been. Death to the bastard child that is T20 and long live the one day international and its big brother, test cricket? Sadly I suspect not but for a few days we can at least bask in the sunlit glory of England's victory. Now, the observant amongst you will have noted that I was critical of the team when they endured their mid tournament blip. Do I now recant? No, not completely. They are still not the finished article (an unpleasant prospect for the rest of the teams) and some of them betray their membership of the snowflake generation but what they achieved on Sunday was resoundingly good news for cricket and sent the nation to work on Monday with a smile on its face. Our footballers needed extra time in 1966; the rugby team needed the Wilkinson miracle in 2003; our cricketers took it even closer to calamity before winning. What will we have to endure before we can celebrate another global team title?

the final act in a true sporting drama

Drama notwithstanding, I would select as the moment of the match Martin Guptill's immediate and sporting signal of six when his teammate Trent Boult carried the ball over the boundary. I know that television would have made certain that the runs had been counted but Guptill's actions were instinctive and honourable. Not enough was made of them by the television commentators.

Cricket bloody hell. Bring on the Ashes. I've got a ticket for day two at Edgbaston.

By way of a change I am now ensconced in a student hall of residence in Swansea as I await the British Shakespeare association conference. Bulletins to follow and hopefully this time I will manage not to offend any of the great and the good. There's always a first time.

A Star Is Born

The problem with a story that has been told several times before is that the later retelling may lack suspense. This was clearly going to be an issue with Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born. It is a difficulty that the film overcomes by the weight of the underlying performances. Lady Gaga is terrific as the neophyte Ally. Her star turn should not however take anything away from Cooper's own effort as the fading, catastrophic rock star who falls in love with her and passes her rising star on his own way down. I found Cooper affecting, almost too much so - he captures the raw self-loathing and self-destructiveness that characterises the addict.

Worth watching. 7.5/10.

Bring On The Big Grumpy Fat Pig

The Pig was out on the streets this afternoon, quite pleased with himself actually because he managed (very slowly he has to concede) four miles. While he was running (he thinks we can just about call it that - he doesn't jog) he was honing his thoughts on the big issues of the day. Those issues are the fate of European professional golf and the problem with Boris Johnson.

I saw something toe-curlingly dreadful when channel-hopping last night. It was on the Sky Golf Channel and it called itself the Hero Challenge. This consisted of self-consciously miked-up professionals (and remember these poor lost souls will play anywhere if the price is right) hitting wedges into a grid of targets on a green while Vernon Kay (wtf) shouted an asinine commentary to the assembled masses. At one point we got the gem from Kay or his hired side-kick Anthony Wall (for like pigs and men they had become indistinguishable),"You could throw a handkerchief over Matt Fitzpatrick's two balls.' Truly awful - do it if you must but please do not attempt to pass it off as proper sport. Golf is a very silly but beguiling game with an unparalleled lore - don't ruin it. And don't start me on the self-serving banal bollocks that the fantastically gifted Rory McIlroy spews out every time he is confronted by a microphone. I admire him and his game but can't find it in me to like him. As I said Big Grumpy Fat Pig.

in search of an idea, preferably an electable one

Boris Johnson. Again, wtf. I couldn't put my hand on my heart and tell you one thing he seriously believes in aside from the advancement of Boris. But maybe I'm wrong and a great statesman is going to appear from beneath the shambolic carapace. Big Grumpy Fat Pig advises you not to hold your breath.     

Flat Track Bullies Do It Again; The Island; Salmon Fishing In The Yemen; A Crappy Small World

We are only two days away from England's Cricket World Cup semi-final against Australia so it would be wrong of me not to mention that Jonny Bairstow scored another hundred at the tail end of last week - clearly if this is how he reacts to perfectly justifiable criticism then we should lay it on with a trowel. As they say on the terraces (or rather as they used to say when terraces were still permitted) Ing-ur-land, Ing-ur-land. The Big Fat Pig is right behind you boys.

Ynys Moelfre - where the walk starts and finishes

The Groupie and I had a joyous weekend in Anglesey - great weather for walking and, of course, great terrain to walk in. We did Moelfre to Lligwy and treated ourselves to a pint (glass of white wine for the lady) and a portion of chips on the way home. Bosting.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen starts with a great advantage - the title is enticing. I have not read the book but we did watch the film at the weekend (available on Netflix) and it is perfectly diverting without living up to the promise of that title. Ewen McGregor and Emily Blunt are good but the best thing about the piece is Kristin Scott Thomas as a foul-mouthed government spin doctor. National treasure material. 7/10.

There is an unedifying little spat going on at the moment on the back of leaked memoranda from the UK's ambassador to the USA, in which said diplomat made the hardly startling observation (and here I paraphrase) that Donald Trump is a bit of a twat. Trump has responded to all of this with his customary finesse - that is to say no finesse whatsoever. Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt who is busily losing the Conservative leadership election to the disappointing Boris Johnson (A man lacking any moral anchor I'm afraid) has been an unexpected beacon of rectitude in calling Trump out for his impropriety. And by the way, they should find whoever it was who leaked this stuff (my bet is s die-hard pinko with an Assange complex) and sack them with all pension rights removed. The ability to speak frankly and in camera is the necessary subtext to the negotiation that is inherent in democracy.

Flat Track Bullies Redeemed, As Is The Snowflake Generation (For Now) ... Oh And More Films

My reference to the snowflake generation is made in the context of those flat track bullies, better known as the England cricket team. Only a few minutes ago they completed their return to national approval by soundly beating New Zealand so that they are guaranteed a semi-final place, most probably against India, the very side they beat on Sunday to announce their resurrection. Prior to that victory they (most particularly Jonny Bairstow, bless his cotton socks) had reacted in true snowflake manner to the justified criticism that had come their way after two supine defeats. The poor little loves would have it that they were unlucky against Australia and how dare anyone (especially that nasty Michael Vaughan - what would he know about cricket) criticise their game plans. What tosh boys - you were murdered by the Aussies and you copped nothing more than you deserved from the commentariat. May you now blaze a trail of glory to lift the World Cup. The Overgraduate is firmly behind you but fair criticism comes with any trade, so man up.

Operation Finale dramatises the capture and removal to Israel of Adolf Eichmann. It is a worthy film somehow lacking in real drama, but nonetheless notable for Ben Kingsley's calm portrayal of Eichmann - an essay on the general banality of evil and its suave interludes of charisma. An important story but regrettably not an important film. 6.5/10. 

In similar vein another perfectly passable piece of cinema but not a great one. Christopher Robin is what we might deem a nice Sunday afternoon film - that indeed is when the Groupie and I watched it. A downtrodden (by the exigencies of his employment) Christopher Robin is revisited by Pooh (if this makes no sense to you then you are lucky because you still have ahead of you the joy of reading the Winnie the Pooh books - arguably the funniest things in the English language) and an adventure ensues both in and out of the Hundred Acre Wood. By the end a more than passable amount of fun has been had and the eponymous hero has learnt a lesson that he might have learnt much earlier if he had watched Mary Poppins. 7/10.

The sun is shining on our little land today, a fact I celebrated by taking the Precious Jag for a spin while wearing the Precious Oakleys. They do, quite naturally, make one a better driver.

Of Flat Track Bullies (Again) And the Boasting Of Mystic Dave

I warned you that England's over-hyped cricketers were heading for a fall. I warned you. I get things right so infrequently that you will understand my need to boast.

But, my ego aside, we should just consider what has gone wrong - most particularly we should locate the failing as something other than 'just one of those things'. Manifestly it is not such, because in the space of two weeks it has happened twice, on both occasions at the hands of hitherto hapless opposition. I will tell you what is missing from England's game - nuance. One of my favourite words, nuance. Test cricket at its best (and that is the highest expression of the sport) is highly nuanced. One day cricket (but not that omnivorous beast T20) just about permits of nuance. In recent years and even in test cricket England have had two speeds - full throttle and calamitous crash. Just look at Moeen Ali's dismissal against Sri Lanka - a fall categorically lacking in nuance. And he wasn't the only one.

Misses the mark - lacks nuance?

So here it is -  nuance matters. Cricket is a game of nuance, or at least it ought to be and as I have said in this context too often, pop will eat itself. And whilst we are on the subject it should be noted that Mark Antony should be played with nuance and it is this necessity that makes Antony and Cleopatra potentially so beguiling. As a critical aside, and not that anyone will care, the BBC Antony and Cleopatra, marginally misses the mark.

So you see, sometimes I am right. Sometimes I am wrong. And sometimes it rains.   

Of Films, Flat Track Bullies, Imbeciles And Other Annoyances

I think this has been the longest I have gone between posts on this blog. Do you know what, I just haven't been in the mood. A torpor has settled over the Big Fat Pig and he projects a general dissatisfaction with the way the world is comporting itself. Can you blame him? Brexit, bloody Brexit, Trump, bloody Trump, The weather, the bloody weather.

For heaven's sake man, pull yourself together; catch yourself on (as they say in the brilliant Derry Girls, and as they also say in the Irish family into which I married); more prosaically get a bloody grip: etcetera, etcetara [please insert exhortation of your choice].

Because when you actually remove the the self-indulgent dark glasses through which you view the world, there is still plenty of stuff to lift the heart. Mind you, none of it comes from the political scene where we have the gruesome spectacle of a Tory leadership contest in which most seem reluctantly to concede that Boris Johnson is the least bad option. All of this in a galaxy where no one has yet landed a death blow on the relic that is Jeremy Corbyn. You couldn't make this stuff up.

The Pig has endured watching Trump being entertained (royally and well) by the apparatus of the British state. Trump spent his time on the journey over thumping out tweets aimed at that political pygmy Sadiq Khan. What a ridiculous man (Trump not Khan, but then when you mention it ...). The Pig has come to the troubling realisation that Trump has done some politically good things (principally being the first man willing to get into a staring match with an immoral China) but that anything good is dwarfed by his lowering of the tone of public life to a previously unimaginable level. Were I an American (and I can think of plenty worse things to be) I would hold my nose and vote for a mediocrity like Joe Biden - this a man who was found out plagiarising no less an icon than the Welsh windbag himself, Neil Kinnock. I mean, Neil bloody Kinnock - seriously?

But what about those films I hear you ask. Two good films have cheered the Pig recently - you might call them comfort viewing. The Full Monty is not quite a great film but it has a very good run at it. It exudes humanity and dignity, which is pretty good going for a film about unemployed blokes getting their kit off for money. 8.5/10.

The second revisited favourite is, like The Full Monty, a movie that proves that short can be sweet - neither is over ninety minutes. Stand by Me is based on a short story by the copiously talented Stephen King. That source material makes for a beautiful film, locus for the directorial extraction of compelling performances from its juvenile leads. This is a work of art. 9/10.

All of which above writing has cheered the Pig up. Now, I promised you flat track bullies. I am just a little concerned by the hyping to clear favouritism of England's cricketers in the World Cup. They may go on to win but can we just remember that we have yet to meet any of the other likely three semi-finalists and, in amongst the glory have lost to a quixotic (this is a polite way of putting it) Pakistan. The old grouch in me feels a tumble from on high coming our way. I'm only saying.

2nd at Sedbergh - where's Pete gone?

As I swing into cheerfulness (it's good this bipolar lark) I will record a public thanks to BH, the organising force behind last week's QMT (it's a long story) golf tour to Appleby. Bad golf was played, good beer (and a little bad actually) was drunk and there was high drama with debutant tourist PJC conspiring to fall into the river at only the second hole of the tour from such a height that he broke his hip. Decidedly not funny, but definitely the stuff of legend. The local emergency services did him proud - rather reassuring in these austere times. The Pig's golf was modest and the weather was challenging. A great trip. Best beer, Timothy Taylor Landlord on the last night.

So now I feel a lot more cheerful - the power of the written word, even my own.