Troubled Striker

Panesar Returns. (An Old) Order Is Restored...

2012-01-27T08:06:00.000-08:00

Few images in sport can elicit the kind of warmth in my chest that the sight of Monty Panesar celebrating a wicket can.

It is an oddly comforting experience to once more be listening to the cricket, willing on a genuinely classy England performer, one who has never given anything other than his very best, while also bristling from time to time at the thinly veiled patronization lurking in every back handed compliment dished out by the dear old chaps in the ancient bastion of cultural diversity that is Test Match Special. Welcome back, Monty.

Rivers; two essentials...

2012-01-26T09:42:00.000-08:00

Last Night...

2012-01-25T02:39:00.000-08:00

A great night last night at the Caught By The River Social Club.
Thanks to everyone who came down and listened, to John for a brilliant stint as anchor and Robin Turner and Charles Rangeley-Wilson for allowing me to share the stage with them.

A new poem went up on the site at the weekend as well...

Read it here if you want.

Cheers.

Troubled Striker Of The Week...

2012-01-24T01:49:00.000-08:00

I often ask myself the question...

"Are we worse now that I care less? Or are we worse because I care less?"

As does the Russian existentialist and once great exponent of the midfielder-forward position, Andrey Arshavin.

The Short Term...

2012-01-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

Andre Villas-Boas' assertion about reserve teams that has been reported in the press today is a salient one; perhaps the relative strength and high level of competitive football that Barcelona and Real Madrid's B Teams play to does have a positive impact on their first team's abilities to bring through players from their academies, but it is also a moot point. The fact is, that the second tier leagues in almost every other European country are almost completely redundant. They're not as widely watched, followed in the press or pored over in the way that the Championship or more pertinently Leagues One and Two are here. Even the Conference has a huge profile compared to anything of a similar standard in Spain or Germany. Although there isn't anything comparable in either Germany or Spain, who have three and two professional leagues respectively. This has arguably created a skewed situation in this country because players who are by definition mediocre (and what I mean by this is relative to other professional players) are disproportionately rewarded, both financially and culturally (big stadia that are filled even in the lower leagues, TV presence at matches, national media exposure) for playing at what is, again speaking relatively, a fairly low level. You can be set up for life playing football in what used to be the third division. While that cannot be good for the standard of player being developed by our game, it is an inescapable by-product of our football culture. As a country we love football clubs, as much as we love football, whatever league they play in; they are old, traditional, familial and the fact that a club as venerable, not to mention recently successful, as Luton Town can now be playing four divisions below the top echelon and filling its stadium regularly is a state of affairs that just wouldn't happen anywhere else in Europe.
The real point though is that Villas-Boas' statement is all well and good, but the short-termist aesthetic peddled in the media and by fans that Chelsea and Man City's moneyed era has ushered in is diametrically opposed to the idea of nurturing young talent at big clubs. You only need look at the media (and fan) reaction to Wenger's last 5 years at Arsenal, where the club is regularly harangued as a failure, and yet in this time has actively pursued a policy based on development of players ahead of forking out hugely inflated transfer fees for established superstars (I hesitate to mention the £50m spent on one Fernando Torres when Chelsea already had Daniel Sturridge at the club, but only hesitate.). So he can't have it all. He can't have 50 million pound superstars warming one bench, and then have the Championship wrapped up by March courtesy of a bunch of expensive youngsters (all signed from the likes of Luton at the age of 15, no doubt...). No, sadly, he can't have it all. None of us can.

The Greasy Pole...

2012-01-18T05:05:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most people have already seen this; it's been posted elsewhere and I'm sure already commented on ad nauseum on Twitter and by far more interesting commentators, with far more witty and insightful things to say than me (I quite liked this piece in The Quietus, for example), but I had to mention it. The cricket was a bit boring, for a start...

EDIT: Just seen two wickets fell in the last couple of overs. I'd stopped listening by then, typically!

I'm pretty sure I'm not actually offended by this article. I think I just feel sorry for Alex James. Is he ok, do you think? He certainly can't write. Unless he's preparing a children's book, and is using his "food" column in his "newspaper" to work out a suitable voice.
In fact his writing is the worst aspect of this whole sorry affair. The whole article reads like a disorientating mixture of children's school report and some archaic, naive propaganda piece. It's horrible. The whole thing is horrible.

I think a man should be judged by the company he keeps, and this picture is as damning a piece of evidence as anything...

We're All In It Together..

2012-01-15T15:16:00.000-08:00

... but not in the actual boat, presumably?

Chris Gayle...

2012-01-13T02:25:00.000-08:00

A couple of summers ago, my family were about to go out for the day. Everyone was getting ready, putting on jackets, shoes, hats. I said I'd catch them up. I wanted to watch the first couple of overs of the West Indian chase against Australia. I thought I knew what would happen. Gayle would get out early, because I was watching and then I'd have to watch Ricky Ponting's tiny eyes crease up in smug satisfaction... wouldn't I?

An hour later I left the house with the biggest smile on my face having watched Brett Lee, still regularly firing them down at 90 MPH, completely and utterly destroyed. Look at his face on about 3.01! They must have needed 5 balls. Let's hope Gayle brings a bit of this to Somerset this summer. I don't think we'll see him over here playing for the West Indies again.

Caught By The River Social Club...

2012-01-04T08:18:00.001-08:00

... I'm delighted to have been asked to read a few poems at the CBTR Social Club's first event of the year. At The Stag pub, in Hampstead, which looks like a great pub, and with a host of other writers and music from Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou. Tickets available here.

Indifference...

2011-12-31T04:21:00.001-08:00

Seems like a while since I wrote anything here. But then in other ways it doesn't... Last time out Jeremy Clarkson was talking shit on the taxpayer's payroll and lo and behold, he's at it again weeks later. Still, I'm probably just over reacting to a joke I don't get, right?

Anyway, there's better stuff than that in the world, and this is a belated, but nonetheless important thank you, big up, shout out and pointer to the second issue of the Caught By The River Fanzine, An Antidote To Indifference; guest edited by the wonderful John Andrews and, I'm honoured to say, including a brand new poem.

But get it for the good stuff, like I say.

You decide...

2011-12-01T04:27:00.000-08:00

I'm struggling to think who I would most like to have a morally courageous argument with this week...

This arse.

Or this one.

Hero of the week? No contest.

Are You Afraid To Die?

2011-11-24T07:49:00.001-08:00

Treecreeper show this Saturday...

2011-11-17T02:35:00.000-08:00

... at the excellent Gladstone, in Borough. A free show and a Saturday night spent in the company of London's most monotonous miserabilists. What's not to like?

Richard Buckner, The Social

2011-11-14T04:40:00.000-08:00

I'm completely honoured to be playing tonight at The Social, in support of the wonderful Richard Buckner. His new album is so great, and he's really just getting better and better. A true writer.

So come down to The Social tonight to see him.

Henry Roy Donne 1926 - 2011

2011-10-27T03:04:00.000-07:00

November...

2011-10-25T06:40:00.001-07:00

Here is the Events page of my new website, with details of a few live things going on in November.

I'll do a post about each one closer to the date.

Hopefully see someone, somewhere...

An Antidote To Indifference...

2011-10-13T01:59:00.000-07:00

... I'm very proud to have a poem included in the inaugural issue of the Caught By The River fanzine, pictured above. The rest of the magazine is very much worth reading, and can be bought here.

Decemberism...

2011-10-07T04:35:00.000-07:00

A two day cold snap, burning autumn foliage and listening to The Decemberist's The King Is Dead is even more enjoyable than it was earlier in the year...

It's National Poetry Day...

2011-10-06T03:20:00.000-07:00

... and so it seems appropriate to draw your attention, not to me for once, but to a genuine poet...

Here's my review of Alice Oswald's new book on Caught By The River.

Branchage Film Festival

2011-09-19T03:29:00.001-07:00

Looking forward to heading over to Jersey in a couple of days to read some poems. I'll be reading some of the Sideshow work as part of the exhibition over there, and also reading some other work before the screening of Werner Herzog's Cave Of Forgotten Dreams. I'll try and get some recordings of some kind done to post here, video if I can.
Here's to the coast.

Treecreeper show at The Wheelbarrow tomorrow...

2011-08-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

As those who exist virtually on Facebook might already know, Treecreeper has a show tomorrow night at The Wheelbarrow in Camden.
A new venture from an old friend of ours Jay (sometimes know as Beans On Toast), who used to run The Flowerpot and Nambucca before it burned down.

A free show, with plenty of good music and good times. And our roadie Cooper's birthday as well, so could be a good one.

I'll be the fat, greying guy whinging on stage. Come and say hello...

Independent Online

2011-08-12T04:56:00.000-07:00

The Independent Online has put up a gallery of the images and poems from the Sideshow exhibition, which has also been up all week at Wilton's Music Hall.

Pretty excited about it, check it here.

All is Greed

2011-08-09T04:48:00.000-07:00

It seems the rioters have damned themselves in the nation's eyes by having the nerve to target luxury goods and aspirational consumer objects in their lootings. The fact that this is just a mirror to the sort of greedy, grasping, materialist society that an irresponsibly managed free market, gluttonous financial and corporate institutions and a gross over exposure to advertising has created seems lost on most commentators.

The rioters should presumably all be nice, easy stereotypes for the media to swallow and regurgitate for our simple understanding. Some dreadlocks would be nice, people, and some placards spouting vague anti-globalization messages next time, please.

Of course robbery, thuggery and seemingly un-ideologically motivated violence couldn't possibly be representative of the kind of dull, aching, aimless anger that you see on the streets every day, could it? It's just common-or-garden criminality, right? I mean, these youngsters don't look like they could spell "insurrection"...

Instant Karma

2011-07-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

... I have to say there's a definite sense of justice (or would karma be a more appropriate word?) to proceedings at Trent Bridge today. I've grown increasingly sick of the crowing, self congratulatory articles I'd read about our world beaters in the press since the Lords test, not to mention the assumption in just about every piece written this week that swinging conditions would surely render the Indians mere cannon fodder to Anderson and the now brilliant again Broad. No thought, of course, that the Indian bowlers might also utilize the swing available. Vic Marks in the Guardian today of course, the honourable exception. Let's see what the World's Bests Pace Attack™ can do. I think they'll get a bowl today...

Wilton's Music Hall

2011-07-13T04:27:00.000-07:00

Here's the first clip from a film of me reading some poems.
These were shot by the excellent Rebecca Coley, as part of the London Comedy Film Festival's Transformations season.

SIDESHOW at WILTONS (Toothless Mouth) from rebecca coley on Vimeo.

Music News

2011-06-15T04:31:00.000-07:00

Adam and I will be playing an acoustic show at The Gladstone in Borough on Saturday night.

Should be a nice evening - it's a great little bar. Last time I played there was with the late Larry Jon Wilson. RIP.

Also, there's a whole load of new action on the Trash Aesthetics label front... Richmond Fontaine news, Treecreeper, etc etc... check it all out here.

From Rainfall

2011-06-12T09:48:00.001-07:00

From Rainfall

Floods. And a change in
everything we saw.
The landscape now seems fluid
and rhythmic, where before
it had been as solid
as the knowledge
that God
loved everybody.

Oxford In The Summer...

2011-06-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

Friday night was really, really great, thanks to everyone for putting it on, and for the people who came and listened to the readings, it was an extremely pleasant experience. The magazine looks great as well, and anyone wanting to get one can do so, here.
There should be some pictures and stuff on the Sideshow site in the next day or so...
Cheers.

Structo Launch At Albion Beatnik

2011-06-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a manic few weeks, I've not written enough on here, or anywhere else for that matter. Everything hurts from playing too much cricket and getting old. Oh well.
Anyway, anyone in the Oxford area tomorrow night should come down to the launch of the very fine Structo magazine's latest issue in the equally fine Albion Beatnik bookshop in Jericho. I'll be reading some poems that will be featured in the new issue, amongst plenty of other brilliant stuff. See you there, maybe.

Homegame 2011...

2011-05-11T03:49:00.000-07:00

Big thanks to Caught By The River, Fence and whoever owned/rented the crazy house for having us at the weekend.
But mostly thank you to everyone who listened with such patience, clapped like they might have meant it, and came up and spoke to me after the reading.
You made my day.
Cheers.

Home Game

2011-05-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

I'm reading some poems in the Caught By The River curated poetry event at Fence Records' Home Game festival on the Sunday.
I didn't think my presence was really expected to help try and sell tickets for this. And anyway, it sold out really fast, but if any readers are up there, come by the fishing hut and say hello.

Balcony TV

2011-04-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Here's Bird Artist and a small, awkward interview from our recent Balcony TV appearance...

Edward Abbey and HS2

2011-04-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

I wrote a piece about Edward Abbey for Caught By The River, which they posted today.

I really don't want to be a nimby about that whole HS2 thing. Probably, with the evidence stacked up properly in front of me, I'd see the sense. I just walk in those woods and love them and its hard to think about everything changing... but that's what happens isn't it? Things change.

Suits You

2011-03-31T05:34:00.001-07:00

Match Of The Day. Broadcasting as living proof that you "are what you wear". Way more expensive than you should be. And shit.

Albion Beatnik

2011-03-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write something about this place for ages, but for one reason or another never got round to it. Anyway, a visit on Saturday re-affirmed my resolution to do so. The Albion Beatnik is a small, perfectly stocked independent bookshop in the Jericho area of Oxford. A nice little street anyway, with good pubs and all that stuff, but the bookshop is really worth a visit. Big selection of Beat stuff, all nice US pressings, a really good poetry section, second hand books, good coffee and tea, and a real genuine bookshop owner as you'd want them to be; crazy long curly hair, glasses, air of easy intellect and love of jazz.

Nice.

West Ham and the Justice In Sport Quango...

2011-03-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

...Just watched the highlights of the West Ham game. Have to say I feel sorry for the team and Avram Grant on the basis of what I saw. It looked like a piss-poor refereeing performance and pretty much a non-footballing performance from Stoke who, as well as overstepping the boundary from cynical into outright cheating on a couple of occasions, I don't remember seeing actually pass the ball TO EACH OTHER . ALONG THE GROUND, once in the whole segment.
Looks like the Central Authority For Justice In Sport has clocked off for the summer. And on their usual date as well, fellow Arsenal fans will no doubt have observed... still, they did a reasonable job this winter in Australia, so I won't begrudge them their annual March to August holiday...

Sondry Folk...

2011-03-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

...this is a brilliant little website, which I urge anyone to visit. Literary ramblings, art, design, clothes. all that good stuff and written by some cool and interesting people. I've just come across this, but it looks very, very good.

They have also been kind enough to do a little piece about the Sideshow exhibition, which you can find here.

Strawweight

2011-03-07T05:51:00.000-08:00

It’s not a weight you hear of much today
in fighting, since they closed up all the booths.
Gone like a day’s work, or an old folk song.
Once, amid the gaslights, Lonsdale Champions and
mahogany drawers full of dead butterflies
he’d netted and collected as a boy,
he smoked in pubs and learned the local songs.
Now he sits and waits for me to come;

To listen to his stories, make his tea
and hear about the gradual decline
from fast enough his fist blew out the lamps
to faculties eroded by some other folk process.
The morning came, we went to see a football match,
he could not sing, and twice, forgot my name.

A New Poem...

2011-02-22T13:42:00.000-08:00

... up on the Caught By The River site.

Beatnik x Macbeth...

2011-02-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

... equals an event on Sunday night where I will be reading some poems from 7.50. There's going to be fine music as well, and a whole bunch of other stuff happening. Here is the website of the good people putting it on. I believe there is some kind of Facebook event thing as well. See you there.

2011-02-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of photographs of the bar from Tuesday, courtesy of Danny Mitchell.
Cheers, Danny...

Sideshow Review

2011-02-18T02:51:00.000-08:00

Great review of the Sideshow exhibition here from Amelia's Magazine.

Last Night

2011-02-16T05:59:00.000-08:00

Great evening. Had an absolute blast, thanks to everyone for coming down.
Anyone who might ever read this and wasn't there, I'll be posting some photos and a couple of the poems as well, once I eaten my hangover off.

Also, check out the Yarn website, and go to The Social and see the exhibition, the drawings are really great.

The End

2011-02-02T04:16:00.000-08:00

I had been working there for a couple of years when it started. One day I was writing something. I can't remember what it was. Maybe an email or maybe a letter. Anyway, my head had been feeling very heavy on my neck in the mornings for a few days. My neck felt like it was made of plasticine, and thin, so that the huge weight of my head was making the neck loll around, out of my control. It would break soon, I thought, and the head roll to the floor. Peace at last. Then the next day it was worse. I felt faint, and I couldn't focus on the screen in front of me, and then, in the corner of my vision, I saw a movement on the desk. I looked straight ahead, and again - a shifting, oozing mass of black snakes was manifesting itself right at the edge of my desk. I could not turn my head towards them to look, but I could see the mass, moving over and under and on top of one another, more like one constantly slithering puddle of SNAKE than multiple, individual reptiles. The mass was oil black, like the feathers of a starling, iridescent with green and purple flashes when the light fell on it a certain way. It shone against the dull black paint of my desk, which was no black at all. This was black, I realized - yielding into the air all colours at once, and yet yielding none. The mass began to grow in size, swallowed the phone, the pot of pens, the rubber bands. I moved slightly to my left, dragging my keyboard away from the reach of the thing. Still I could not look. A girl who worked across from me was watching. She had a look of disgust on her face. Of fear. I had not spoken to anyone at work for a good few weeks. Not since I had been late one day and then later on forgotten to fasten or zip up my trousers after going to the toilet. I came back to my desk with everyone looking at me. I had leaked down my front, and I was hanging out as well. I could have sworn I'd put it back in the pants, at least. I had been drunk the night before, and had insulted another member of THE TEAM. The daggers were out for me. And now these fucking snakes. I'm finished here.

Cuts and crackdowns...

2011-02-01T03:48:00.000-08:00

Reading about the Immigration Minister's plans to "crackdown" on bogus students from non-EU countries coming to stay in the UK and insisting that research has revealed "unpleasant" abuse of the system. How are we supposed to decode the use of that word?
It's a worrying use of a very, very loaded word in the context given. I can't honestly say my experience of life in general, or at college needed any kind of crackdown. I find myself wondering exactly what people like Damian Green actually see when they walk down the road? Presumably the streets around Whitehall and Westminster are even more full of white, British people than the ones I walk on, which seem pretty full of white, British people to me.

I found this word curious as well... "That's clearly an area where the current system is too generous."

Generosity seems to be the one thing this coalition is intent on showing absolutely no sign of. Unless you are a banker, of course.

I'll tell you something...

2011-01-21T17:15:00.000-08:00

... if anyone thinks any opinion of mine is worth anything at all. And that is this: Bruce Springsteen is a fucking GOD. That is a F.A.C.T.

Illogical sports comment! Shock! Horror!..

2011-01-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

I can't help thinking that commentators who are putting forward this notion that British athletics somehow does not merit a stadium such as the Olympic Stadium past the games themselves as the sport is not followed or participated in by numbers big enough to justify it, and so Tottenham should absolutely be able to just tear up the running track, have got it all the wrong way round. Surely the point of that horrible marketing speak LEGACY is that the new stadium, extra facilities and Olympic excitement will all hopefully re-generate the sport?
It all seems fairly simple to me. I have got to stop listening to Talk Sport.

Blessed rage for order...

2011-01-19T07:13:00.000-08:00

i
Try and picture the inside of your own head. Does it have colour? If so, what colour ? What is it all made of? Not the brain itself, you understand, but all the stuff inside the brain. It is just out of your reach, no matter where you grasp, and you are like a drunk reaching vainly for a lampost to prop himself up. And all those half formed ideas that you barely understood loll out of the ooze. You read the page and it means nothing. It is all anger and fear. Headache stuff. There is no light in there - which is why you yearn for holidays in the sun.

ii
But try describing any of this to a friend. They will say, Ok, mate. They will not want to know and they will tell you that the inside of their head looks like a Disney cartoon, with animals anthropomorphized and gloriously congenial to one another. There is no hint at the murder and savagery of life here - females with big brown eyes and long eyelashes, and all rendered in solid blocks of colour, definite and easily understandable.

iii
Sometimes, though, it clears. And you feel like a Saturday night party.

Sideshow

2011-01-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

I'm really pleased to have some poetry and short stories involved in this exhibition of paintings by a guy from Jersey called Jason Butler. His pictures are great, and I'm honoured to be working with them.

Anyway, the first exhibition event is at The Social for the opening night of Yarn literary festival, the paintings and poems will be up in the bar for a month, but on the 15th we will be having a launch night with music, readings and other good stuff, so go to the Sideshow Blog to find out details...

See you there.

What would Jesus do...

2011-01-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them..." Sarah Palin

I think this is one of the most dangerously misguided, and even downright stupid things I've ever read a politician say. While it is obvious that Sarah Palin was going to issue some kind of statement of defence, given the flack she's been getting in the last few days, I cannot believe the myopic, irresponsible bullshit coming out of the right wing media in America. Irresponsible is exactly the word - nothing "begins and ends" with individuals of any kind in a society; criminals, businesses, teachers, students... anyone. That is what society means.
But then, what the fuck am I expecting? Thatcher already told me that society doesn't exist. And then went about systematically destroying it, just to make herself correct.
Sometimes I actually pity myself for still thinking that anyone in positions of power, or aiming that way (pardon the pun), here or in the US might still, somewhere deep down, give a shit about actual human beings. And yes, that does include the perpetrators of criminal acts as well. Sorry, Sarah et al, but they too are under your jurisdiction. Or will be if you have your way. God fucking forbid. It may pain you to the core, but you have a responsibility to them as citizens as well.
Sarah Palin said she prayed for guidance, well how about this...

How about she reads the fucking Bible a bit closer, and asks herself, "What would Jesus do?"...

Not all that is wrong...

2011-01-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

One of the things I hate most about the modern world in the west, with its technologies, TVs, computers, Iphones and the rest of that crap is that we never look each other in the eyes anymore. I'm sure there is a hugely important chunk of human nourishment that is missing from our lives since we stopped looking at each other - eating at a table together, drinking in pubs together or dancing together face to face. Now we sit on sofas, facing the fucking TV screen. I see the top of a head of hair. Fuck, it could be anybody there watching Poirot with me. Then at work we sit in rows, facing the same way. Long gone the days of interaction there, either.
I know there are all sorts of reasons why people feel so fucked and alienated and lost and miserable and able to meekly swallow the bullshit and worse that we are handed every day by the people entrusted with our welfare, but maybe this is just one little thing that we could change that might mean we start to remember what a human being actually is. We could start actually respecting that idea again, and not blithely accepting different human beings to ourselves being killed all over the world by and for our own Government.

The Ashes...

2011-01-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

A piece on the cricket for Caught By The River...

One Saturday

2011-01-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

One Saturday

Sat drinking in the pub, long
afternoon moves into short evening

and we are hazy and feel happy.
Cold bright winter sun,

shrill voice of laughter,
and pique of beauty in the starlings, even.

At the bar, you stand close to me and
we hold hands again, for a minute.

In bed, you come across something by Bukowski.

I wish I had written that for you, I say
Well? Why don’t you write me something?

And we are like before -
together in this great, beautiful, murderous city

and when you close your eyes to sleep,
I can again feel my breath upon your naked back.

Juniper review

2010-12-17T04:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a great review of JUNIPER, from The Oxford Music Blog - much appreciated!

The Ashes '10

2010-12-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

I managed to watch some of the last test match, a few early morning beers with my brother in Wakefield enabling me to catch a bit of play. Unfortunately, I haven't seen or heard anything of last night's action, just read about it today - it sounds like another good day for England. What does strike me, though, is just how muddled the Australian selection process has been during the series. I couldn't believe they dropped Hilfenhaus after the first test - he was their best bowler by a country mile in England during the last Ashes, and only injuries, it seemed to me, prevented him from cementing himself in the side subsequently. It appears that the Australian plan for him after recovering from those injuries has involved giving him a couple of games back to get his rhythm again, and then, after seeing him get thrashed around in a test where no bowlers exactly covered themselves in glory, he was dropped. And dropped in preference for a bowler, or bowlers, whose sole criterion for selection over him was that they weren't playing in the first test. Then, however, the Australian selectors really showed their credentials as elite sporting strategists; a lot of analysts and journalists saw the selection panel doing exactly the same thing after the second test as yet more proof that they had lost any semblance of a clue that they might have once had. They were in disarray; recalling Mitchell and Hilfenhaus, and dropping Bollinger and Doherty. But I took a different view - I personally admire their consistency in pursuing a policy of devout inconsistency. One game, boys, and you're out. Then you're in again. Then out. Then in. Then it's all over. It is a policy that has been honed to perfection in English elite sport for generations.

The only thing I hate about this series so far is I can see Warne and McGrath's smug faces as they watch just how important they were to Australian cricket. Those two always win, no matter what happens in the grander scheme of things. In '05, Warne was the best player in the series, no matter what those Andrew 'Fredbull' Flintoff® DVDs tell you. And McGrath's injury probably played a bigger part in the outcome of the series than two or three England players contributions did. Somehow, even if Australia lose, their stock rises. And Liz Hurley as well...? Well, when you're hot, you're hot...

The Hill. The Sky. The Window.

2010-12-14T07:01:00.000-08:00

The Hill. The Sky. The Window.

Outside it is getting light,
the view organizing itself
into a day like any other.
I am sat opposite my wife,
who is talking about her sister.
I had been unable to sleep,
and had got up and gone downstairs,
with my wife following
shortly after, expressing a
concern that was
equal parts artifice and affection,
urging me back to bed.
All that is hard to muster though,
these days. But the thought
did cross my mind.
She looked good still, stood
in a white bathrobe in our
kitchen.
Instead, I made coffee and tea
and we sat at the table by the window and talked.

I said Look at the hill, the sky, the window.

Anything at all can make sense sometimes.

May's Mantra

2010-12-13T08:27:00.000-08:00

Reading the Guardian's live political blog today and it reads like Theresa May has nothing else to offer than criticism for anybody who refuses to explicitly condemn the violence of the protests. "Appalling" violence, apparently. Cause? meet effect.

Thanks

2010-12-12T08:58:00.000-08:00

To everyone or anyone who came out to see the 'Creeper last weekend.
We had a great time; so thanks for putting us up, putting up with us, or any other variation thereof that might be relevant.
Special mention to the city of Wakefield and Mark Olson for being especially positive, friendly and just all round great.
Thank you.

Did Someone Say Feminism?

2010-11-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

Forty years to the month after The Female Eunuch was first published and EVERY SINGLE review I have read of the Warpaint album mentions the fact that they are an all female group. Progress is a wonderful thing...

A Simple "What The Fuck??"...

2010-10-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Some days, I'll be reading The Guardian, and then maybe a good post on a funny sport blog, or maybe something on Mark Eitzel's website. I'll have a good talk about something with my brother, I'll write something I like. I'll see a good bird. I'll take a few wickets. Life will feel good. I feel like it kind of fits.
Then other days, I will see something like this...

Cool Brands

And worse, I'll read about it in the paper I buy and read because it sometimes makes me feel like I might be ok.

Like I say, what the fuck? Do any of those things on there need any more affirmation? Are they really cool? How would you feel about a guy who turned up at your party on a Harley Davidson, with a bottle of Dom in his hand, Iphones, pods and pads sticking out of every available pocket on his Vivienne Westwood motorcycle leathers? He wouldn't take his Ray Bans off indoors, and he would bore the shit out of you talking about his collection of Ferraris and Aston Martins before extolling the virtues of Google Chrome and insisting you all have a game of golf on the Wii. I'll tell you what you would think of him.

Firstly, you would ask what football team he played for, then, you'd tell him, firmly, to fuck off.

More Old News...

2010-09-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well. What started out as a great morning sports-wise after watching Arsenal purring around the Emirates like a Rolls Royce last night, with the additional excitement of a big plate of fried chicken in front of me (what an evening!), has turned into an afternoon of semi-mourning with the news that Andrew Flintoff is retiring from all forms of cricket. Now, I have my issues with Fred, not least of which is him living as a tax exile in Dubai, which is where, let's not forget Peter Ebdon lives, for Christ's sake! Snooker's own policeman! You can do better than that, surely, Fred? What do you do - meet up once a month for a game of golf and discuss your tax saving quotient? Maybe once a week email Geoffrey Boycott on Jersey and laugh at how little he is saving each year compared to you boys? But taking that one factor into account as well as having an agent called "Chubby", wearing ridiculous diamond studs and embarking on a shameless friendship with James Corden, last summer at Lord's when he bowled it looked like he was playing a different game to Broad and Anderson - that is how unplayable he was. He made the Australian batsmen look like they'd never faced anything like it. And that look he gave each time he ended his follow through! Almost in the crease with the batsman, looking at him like he wasn't even deserving of a fully fledged insult. Just the look. Like he didn't really understand what the batsman thought he was doing there. He was great that day, and I almost forgave the diamond studs and dinners with Piers Morgan. Almost.
I think more sad than Fred's retirement, which, let's face it, has been coming all year, is that this really feels like the end for a certain type of cricketer - the big, drunk fast bowlers. And the unkempt genius batsmen. The gloriously amateurish fielders that made cricket great. Now it's all hair gel, trion bracelets, wedding ring necklaces, and nicknames ending in "Y". Well groomed footballer types that accidentally find themselves playing cricket.

Jesus. Bring back the drunks.

Ifs And Buts...

2010-09-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

So, looking like a solid start to the season by the Arsenal but I always have high hopes until about November, when a couple of sloppy and terribly unjust defeats to the likes of (in the old days anyway) Bolton or Hull would have me as depressed as the weather. But I know this season is going to be different. I know it. The new signings look really good, just the sort of players we needed, and from a human point of view I am glad that Wenger didn't buy a keeper. I would love it if the narrative of Almunia's time at Arsenal had a Mad Jens ending, with him turning great over the course of a season, and everyone loving him. Yeah, maybe. A real shame about yet another injury to Robin. He's a great player, but I worry that his career is never going to match his talent due to the injuries. He looks great in that number 10 shirt as well. Anyway, here's to that Autumnal feeling of hopeful expectation. Maybe this year it will last beyond fireworks night. Maybe even beyond Christmas... yeah, maybe.

Old news, but I had to have my say...

2010-09-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

I had a good couple of emails with a friend today who is a sportswriter, discussing the spot fixing and how hypocritical some of the reaction has been. It doesn't take a genius to work out how cricketers are going to line up politically on the whole, and I suppose the dubious bombast of idiots like Darren Gough and Michael Vaughan is as depressingly predictable as the fact that this has happened to Pakistan.
There has been some balance to some articles I have seen written on the whole situation, but what I can't understand is how people can react with such vitriol to these things? Where is people's empathy? I know that some ex-pros must have more insight than anyone into the whys and wherefores of how these things work, but surely they can see that it is the gluttony and greed that have permeated the game on every level that is the root cause of all this, not some isolated cultural marker in Pakistani culture. The fact is that those players just can't sell their arses to whatever cheap deodorant company comes dangling a cheque in front of them this month. Or peddle their inane dronings daily on the world's most drivel filled radio station. Where was this uproar at Stanford? Or Modi? It's too easy to sit here in a culture of comfort and start passing judgement from some standpoint of sporting integrity. The moral vacuum in all sport is what enables all this, and that should be remembered by everyone who goes out looking for Pakistani scapegoats.

Recent Personality Report Card Results...

2010-08-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

Must try harder.
Sorry.

Eagles In California, Tigers In London

2010-08-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

A new piece of writing on Caught By The River...
http://caughtbytheriver.net/

Photo by Danny Mitchell.

Port Eliot Festival...

2010-07-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

Was a truly great time, by any standards. The show went off pretty well, I thought, the only shame being Greg not being able to play, having cut the top of his finger off the week before. Anyway, yeah, I enjoyed playing, and we sold a few CDs, so that was great. Thanks to anyone who came to watch, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is thinking of going next year...

http://caughtbytheriver.net/2010/07/port-eliot-2010-view-from-the-other-side/

http://www.porteliotfestival.com/

Kieswetter Needs Stronger Package...

2010-07-15T00:56:00.000-07:00

According to Andy Flower, England Keeper Craig Kieswetter needs to improve in certain areas... "by the time he plays for England again, he'll need to have made his package stronger,"

Time to dig a few of those spam emails out of the old junk file, Craig... you can get the relevant medication pretty cheap these days.

Getting Old

2010-07-14T07:37:00.000-07:00

I am feeling old. I am looking old. My hair is greying, and I find myself feeling and doing things that are just older. The last thing I bought for myself was a tartan blanket. Today I ordered a long sleeved polo shirt. A few weeks ago I found myself uttering the following sentence... Well, I do love a good Trojan origin myth.

Got to embrace it I guess, but does the world really need another grumpy old bastard? Maybe I could cheer up with age?
Yeah, maybe.

Underwhelmed...

2010-07-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Feeling fairly short changed by the Dutch last night. I was hoping they would show they could play the Spanish, not at exactly their own game, as their midfield just lacks the class of the Spaniards, but with a swift, slightly more direct, yet still attacking brand of football. Like I say. Short changed. I'm not buying this Spanish moral high ground stuff, though. They were acting up as well, waving cards at Howard Webb every time they were tackled by a Dutch player. They were as petulant and dirty as anyone else last night, and any team with Puyol in it had better have a good lawyer if they are going to hurl accusations of "Anti-Football" about.
My best moment of the night? Alan Hansen saying that it would have been a travesty if the Dutch had won, a victory for football etc etc... well, I'll remember that Alan, when you are smirking like the c*nt you are about some moronic clogger from Stoke or Bolton dishing it out to the Arsenal next year. What do you know about preserving the vestiges of some notion of footballing purity? You were a DEFENDER. And a Scottish one at that.

A New Poem

2010-06-30T04:08:00.000-07:00

The Osprey

Late in the day
it was an osprey
first, then two
bald eagles that
flew over as we
put the dinner
things out on
the picnic table
outside the cabin.
We stood watching,
before we set out the
dinner places. The meat,
the wine and the bread.
I couldn't shake
the feeling that we
were somewhere
entirely foreign.
I felt it strongly
all night in that
cabin in the wood.

I Shouldn't, But...

2010-06-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

I said to myself I wasn't going to write anything about the football.
I watched the cricket instead. I honestly cannot get excited, sad, happy or feel anything at all in fact about this bunch of idiots. They are a truly unlikeable bunch. How did a German team become more likeable than an England team? John Terry, Ashley Cole, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand, that's how. I bet the Germans even speak better English than they do...

How Did One Man Turn Portugal Into Australia?

2010-06-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

I remember a time when Portugal were full of cult hero type players. Rui Costa, Nuno Gomes, Vitor Baia even Figo (before he did the unthinkable). But now everyone I know wants them to lose. It must be because of him. He even rolls his sleeves up like Ricky Ponting. And everyone I know likes to see Ricky Ponting lose as well.

Harmison Still In With A Chance... Just Not With The Media

2010-05-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

"Harmison, 31, has not played international cricket since England beat Australia at The Oval last August to regain the Ashes and set the tone for England's ignominious last tour of Australia by bowling the first ball of the series straight to second slip."

I just read this on the BBC Sport website, and I just cannot believe that people who are paid to have interesting opinions and insight into sport actually peddle this garbage. I mean, does anyone actually think that one ball "set the tone" for a whole test series?
I shudder to think what Steve Harmison must have done to some of the journalists in this country to make them feel like they do. He must be a bad, bad man. Maybe he didn't celebrate every wicket with the kind of chest beating ostentation of Fred, and maybe he doesn't have great hair gel like Stuart Broad. Maybe he doesn't go on Twitter and show everyone what a "funny" bloke he is like Graeme Swann. Graeme Swann, remember. That's a fucking cop's name if ever I heard one.
I've never had less warmth for an England team than I have for this one. They stink of Australia. Cops. Thatcher. Everything that is bad and soulless in the world.

Bad guys and Barca...

2010-04-29T03:41:00.001-07:00

So it's official then. The bad guys do always win.
Apart from when they fight each other. Then Jose fucking Mourinho wins.
I hoped I would wake up this morning and find that last night's result was a horrible dream. But that never happens. You always wake up and it's real. You're alone. Arsenal lost. He won. The washing up is still in the sink. It is not Saturday. Stuart Broad will always be more popular than Steve Harmison.
Fuck it all. Fuck it all.

Moving and a poem...

2010-04-16T08:27:00.001-07:00

I have been moving, so really busy,
just listening to Richard Buckner non stop.
Wrote this about it...

Reason

The reason I haven't got one
I said to her
Is because she took it.

JUNIPER news...

2010-03-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

It looks like May 17th is going to be the date for the release of the second Treecreeper album, Juniper.

It's been a long time making it, which is ironic because it contains some of the most ludicrously simple music ever made. Oh well.

We will be doing a London launch show, details of which will be announced shortly, but we have confirmed a show in our hometown, Aylesbury, on May 29th at The White Swan.

Adam will provide a solo acoustic support slot, so it's going to be a fucking great party.

Messi is quite good at football, isn't he?

A New Poem

2010-03-16T05:48:00.001-07:00

Lucy, Guitars.

I think about the day
we spent looking for
Cooper's Hummingbird
and the memory is as polished
and shiny and beautiful
as that guitar itself.
About how she looked
when I told her
that I had sold my first
good guitar that day,
the day we met, and how
we drank the money.
Then barely a month later,
drunk again and cocaine now
as well, off that brand new
dark brown back.
But mostly, I think of how she came
through the fuzz and rain
like a ghost of thunder,
played Segovia and Greensleeves,
and how she slept.

Intents And Purposes

2010-03-01T08:13:00.000-08:00

It was sickening to see Aaron Ramsey's leg injury while watching the game on Saturday.
I missed the tackle, but watched it back on Match Of The Day.
On one hand, It's hard to criticize Shawcross, and I felt hugely sorry for him when he left the pitch in tears, but equally I just cannot understand this prevailing logic that "...he obviously didn't deliberately break his leg..."
Well that goes without saying, doesn't it? Who would? That doesn't mean you don't know you are going to hurt someone with a challenge, or at the very least don't care if you do. You could only break someone's leg like that if you went in with absolutely no regard for the consequences, and that is what Wenger is saying. Shawcross was so late it was untrue. Especially for someone who is essentially paid to be able to tackle other players. And now about to receive international honours for doing so.
The point is, these are supposedly professionals and if it is the case, as they constantly harp on about, that they all have the utmost respect for each other "as professionals", then surely one would never make that kind of a tackle on a fellow professional. I hear people in pubs and on Sunday league pitches boasting about breaking people's legs and unfortunately there is that streak running right through the game in this country. Right up to the very top. Ask Roy Keane, or Alf Inge Haaland for that matter. While neither Shawcross' tackle or personality seem to be comparable to Keane's and his moronic act of cowardice, the fact is that not caring about the consequences of a reckless lunge is tantamount to the same thing. As the saying goes "To all intents and purposes."
Anyway, mostly I just hope the boy is alright, and returns in red and white like it never happened.

Juniper sleeve

2010-02-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

Just thought I would post this, it's the sleeve art for Juniper, and it's a picture of my Grandfather fishing. I think the photograph was made by my Grandmother, when they lived in the Lake District.

A new Caught By The River poem...

2010-02-22T03:45:00.000-08:00

A new poem up on the Caught By The River site called
The Things You Tell Me.

Divided By A Common Language

2010-02-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

We have a track from Juniper on this great compilation, which is coming out on the 15th March, on a brand new label, called Clubhouse Records

The rest of the track listing is really great, so get over there and have a listen.

I'll post a link to a Buy The Bastard Now page when I have one.

Peace.

Oh yeah, also, how good was the Superbowl? Much better than watching Arsenal getting bullied by Drogba again... can't wait for him to retire.

Some Musical Stuff

2010-01-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

First of all, a concert:

I will be playing a solo show on March 13th, in Pilton, Barnstable in Devon.

The show will be in Pilton Hall, details here...

www.myspace.com/willburnssongs

www.myspace.com/treecreepermusic

Secondly, here is a link to a Radio session Adam and I did before Christmas while up north recording our new record. That's Adam that say's "That was wicked, wasn't it?" , not me. Just want to clear that up...

http://www.elfm.co.uk/post/2009/11/cannonball-radio-2/

The new Treecreeper album is all done, and there should be some news on what will happen to it next shortly. But it's good, apart from my singing, obviously, and will be called Juniper.

I Hate Nicky Campbell (and other things)

2010-01-28T03:12:00.000-08:00

Two days ago, driving into London, listening to the radio, the BBC no less, and the phone-in was about the news that Sarkozy and the French government want to ban the wearing of the niqab. How I feel about that is one thing, and maybe I will come to it, but of more immediate annoyance was the stupidity with which this BBC radio phone-in was handled. I honestly could not believe what I was hearing. They only had Muslim people on defending the wearing of the niqab, and while I was listening, only men as well. Maybe no women called about it, but I just can't believe that such a coincidental affirmation of "our" media's current agenda actually occurred. That fucking toad Nicky Campbell would have been rubbing his hands together with glee if so.

This wasn't my real issue, though. My main problem is just the casual acceptance that all this discussion of Islam is somehow acceptable because of the terrorist attacks in the last few years. Nicky Campbell practically asserted this view. He is paid by us, and he is espousing this view that ever since 9/11 every aspect of Islamic culture is now up for debate and scrutiny. It's bullshit. The two things are not related... I mean, when I was younger, people weren't discussing whether certain Catholic practices should be banned because of the threat of the IRA. Catholicism wasn't constantly being discussed as this "otherness" that was an inherent, insidious threat to British culture. If the IRA can be distinguished from Catholicism as a whole, why does our media insist on perpetrating this drip feed that Islam and terrorism go hand in hand. They are doing the same with Islam and the oppression of women. Who is complaining about Nun's habits? Not Sarkozy, that's for sure. And not Nicky Campbell.
Am I just so naive as to want a media that doesn't push a racist, jingoistic pro Judeo-Christian agenda? Is that too much to ask for, especially from an organization that we all pay for, whatever our religion? Fucking religion. Fucking BBC. Fucking Nicky fucking Campbell. Fuck... (walks off kicking stones)

Elvis (a bit late)

2010-01-27T05:08:00.000-08:00

I have this theory. It's not absolutely thought through, but here it is anyway; I reckon that every boy brought up in the West has this deep-seated sense of melancholy, a small kernel of sadness that no-one can quite figure out where it came from. This begins sometime around the start of puberty, and can be a very real, conscious strickening of the spirit, or it can be a ghostly pervasive blues that you don't even notice. But it's there in all of us, and it comes about because one day, and you can either realize this consciously or it can slip into your psyche unchecked, but one day we all come to the realization that we are never, ever going to be Elvis Presley. Some try, like Gram. But it can't be. He nailed it. And it will never be the same again.

Another Saturday Night...

2010-01-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

Another Saturday Night

We are dressed and
in the front room
waiting for the cab.
Time yet for anything
at all to happen.
Living this way
I feel everything
could just fall apart
at any moment.
You
start unzipping your dress.

A Bad Day

2010-01-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

... was only made worse by watching Paul Collingwood's cringe-worthy interviews. His ridiculous insistence on beginning every sentence with "Look..." or "Listen..." a la Michael Clarke (and the rest) is horrific . He must be far too old to be picking up Antipodean vernacular habits like some idiotic gap year student... "eh"?

The Next Decade

2010-01-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

I normally hate the segmentation of cultural life into arbitrary compartments like decades but the ten years just gone, I will never call it that name, really felt like a time when I was attached in a big way to a certain few sports people. I guess I was the same age as them, and they came through while I was watching and reading about them, while the players that have taken their places just seem like they don't belong to me in quite the same way. They seem like kids, their clothes make no sense to me, and their haircuts look alien. I bet the music they listen to will just seem like noise to me. Will I ever feel like I did about Steve Harmison, or Thierry Henry again?
There were people before them, of course, people like Dennis Bergkamp, Paul Merson, Courtney Walsh and Wasim Akram, but they were men as I was a boy and they seemed magical and other-worldly. Now my age has over-taken the people who I watch playing sport and the existential mortality that comes with that knowledge has somehow diminished my bond with them.

Whatever, here's my five men of the last decade....

Steve Harmison - Wides, homesickness, drink, more wides.
Robert Pires - Hair, chin beard, cheat, better than Henry.
Zinedine Zidane - Headbutts, red cards, and a perfect footballer.
Shoiab Akhtar - Genital warts, extreme pace, drugs, bans, the lot.
Andrew Symonds - Drink problems, loads of sixes, rows on the pitch, fights in the bar.

Here's to the next batch of troubled, angry, depressive, drunks that actually make sport worth watching.

An old poem

2009-12-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

I found some old notebooks the other day and they had some poems in.
From years ago, here's one I liked and couldn't remember writing...

The Light

She turns the light on
when she enters the
room. Seriously, it
is as simple as that.

A poem about the ocean. And other things.

2009-12-11T02:35:00.000-08:00

Sea. Breakfast.

We were eating breakfast
and I was looking out
of the window at the ocean.
I came here from nowhere
near the sea. I come
from a land of little rivers,
woods and fields.
This thing is something else.

The End Of The Year

2009-12-11T01:34:00.000-08:00

... is fast approaching, and here are my thoughts on the year just gone, as published by the Caught By The River site. A year I won't forget in a hurry, that's for sure...

The Tailors

2009-12-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

Adam Killip, who plays guitar for Treecreeper, also has his other band The Tailors, and their second record came out a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I would put up a little post about it, just in case anyone cared to have a listen.
The album is really great and Adam's one of the best singers I have heard. He's a great singer, truly, and I get jealous hearing what he can do. He writes well too, and these are a really good set of songs. Poppy, rootsy good shit, kind of like good Wilco or Guided By Voices. Here is their myspace. Check them out.

On Losing

2009-12-09T05:29:00.000-08:00

I am the quintessential version of the person that will be standing by the side of the road, and have a bus drive through a puddle right next to me, coating me in wet slime from the street. This happens a lot. Definitely more than it should.
Today I was walking along and I stood on a loose paving slab, it tipped, throwing a slop of shitty, muddy rainwater filth all over my shoe and leg. It was a busy street and I could feel their eyes on me. I hate these kind of incidental personal humiliations, and yet they always seem to happen to me. Bummer.

Top 10 For 2009

2009-12-08T04:30:00.000-08:00

These are my albums of the year on the Rough Trade website...
Go and buy some of them from there, maybe...
here

Referees, referrals, replays...

2009-12-08T02:58:00.000-08:00

There has been a myriad of opinions recently concerning replays, referrals, referees in the goal, umpires in the stumps and whatever other idiotic ideas fans and commentators are coming up with, but I can't help but feel that these things are not actually needed. I mean, don't we need bad decisions? Isn't that part of the drama? Sport is supposed to be an essay on life - full of all the injustice, excitement, joy and heartbreak that life entails. It's not supposed to be infallible, pristine, or even fair. Just like the people who participate; the more human, the more vulnerable, the better. The fragility of balance is what is important, and that relies on not knowing what is going to happen...

Le Hand Of God - Gauling

2009-11-20T00:52:00.000-08:00

Poor old Thierry, or Terry as he will now be known, having tarnished his reputation to such an extent that Fifa have asked him to relinquish all his Gallic sophistication privileges, first of which comes the French name and second his accent, which we understand he will hand in today, in return for a more humble West country grumble a la Ian Holloway. But does anyone truly feel sorry for The Cheat®? Listening to Danny Kelly's insane ranting on Talksport on Thursday evening, wherein he blamed everyone and everything for this latest Sodom and Gomorrah moment in sport's own Sodom and Gomorrah, football, but mainly, from what I understood, Arsene Wenger, I couldn't help feel like I was missing something somewhere. Yep, that's right, the man who ACTUALLY DID offer Sheffield United a replay when Arsenal were adjudged to have taken an unfair advantage of United kicking the ball out for a throw, has now been blamed for the actions of a 31 year old man who has not played for him for 3 years. People like Kelly in the media make me hate football. They really do. But for a minute, when I looked at that smile of Titi's as he celebrated that goal, I remembered, just for a moment, how much I used to love it. Smile, Thierry, you are the man!

Home

2009-11-18T09:31:00.000-08:00

Some photographs of the village I now (and, I suppose always have) call home. A different proposition to London with its streams of neon, and nights full of faces and bodies. But I like the trees and the stars at night.

Poor People To Watch Ashes Again

2009-11-12T07:55:00.000-08:00

In 2005, I was one of the multitude that followed the Ashes with the fervor which that series seemed to somehow magically inspire in almost everyone I knew. I remember the morning of the 4th Test at Trent Bridge, watching it and having to leave to get to work, and thinking how when I got out of the other end of the tube journey, England will have lost, and the summer would end up the same as every other Ashes summer I had known.
I got off the tube at Leicester Square, and started to walk to the shop. My mobile rang. It was my girlfriend, and she was describing something that I could only have dreamed up.
She was describing Steve Harmison's final wicket, and I could not believe what she was telling me. I made sure she had it all right. Harmy was bowling, right? Yes, Will. He didn't take the catch, no? No. Definitely? Definitely. I got to work and went to the BBC site, and there it was...

MS Kasprowicz c† GO Jones b SJ Harmison 19 (30)

I could not believe it had ended like that, and I had not watched it.

I was reminded of that morning today, when it was announced that the Ashes could be protected as a free-to-air event from 2013. That summer, everyone knew who Freddie was. It felt so wholesome having this monument to the drama and theatre of sport available to everyone. EVERYONE. It was an absolute and joyous rejection of football and Sky and the cynicism of that horrible money drenched den.

Sport is the greatest literature there is, it reflects the nobility, desperation, pain and joy that is the very crux of the human condition in a way that no art ever could. It's visceral and exhilarating, and the more of these generation-defining moments everyone can see, the better, surely?

Boxing

2009-11-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

I couldn't watch the fight at the weekend, but I wanted to. I read about it the next day, like too much modern sport. I was out at a friend's party, celebrating his wedding anniversary.

Here is a poem that I was put in mind of by this apparent dichotomy.

I also wrote something about it today, and I will post it here, for once.

Valuev

Valuev looked heartbroken
in the photo I saw on Sunday.
I had been reading, like
everybody else, about this
circus freak that had
never even been knocked down,
let alone knocked out.
Now I am reading about
Haye's perfect fight. Well,
some of them are saying that.

And I am thinking about
Valuev's belt, shining in
the hands of this cruiser-weight
from London. And the fact
that he wrote poetry for his
wife, so they said.

The Sporting Life

2009-11-06T04:22:00.000-08:00

Last night I was out with a friend. We were drinking in this pub in the village, and the place was dead. Dead of anything. No people in there. No sport on. No music playing. But we drank Guinness and the conversation came. We talked about sport, and politics, and the evolution of the English Language, and how Tolkien's work is concerned with this. We both liked Tolkien. So did the girl behind the bar. Yeah, it was that dead. Finished the night with Makers Mark and ice.
I walked back down a broad, tree-lined street and felt at home.

Expenses

2009-11-05T04:03:00.001-08:00

I was listening to the radio yesterday, listening to the recommendations being made to parliament as a result of the inquiry into MP's expenses. After, they had a couple of MPs on, talking about what had been said. I think my biggest problem with this situation as it stands right now is the degrading sense of indignity that pervades these conversations. These are our legislators, our leaders, our ambassadors, they are supposed to "be" us, and I just don't want to hear a fucking grown woman moaning about how "they" have designated her as living close enough to Westminster to not qualify for rented accommodation when it takes three whole hours for her to get home on the train. These people sounded like the wealthy students I met at college who were always the most vociferous when moaning about the cost of their fees, I hated that shit then, and I hate it still. For fuck's sake, get a grip. Grow up, take it on the chin, suck it up. You fucked us. All of us. And now you are getting fucked. That's capitalism, I'm afraid. It's your game, it's your ball. And if the trains are shit at that time of the evening...
That's your job, isn't it?