Saturday, December 28, 2013

Sports News*


*more accurately, 'Cricket Bullshit with Kenny Rogers'

It has been a day of relative inactivity at our house, mainly because HB had a boys' night last night (phone call, 9pm: "We're going to the pub and we're going to get kicked out!") and is feeling the after-effects.  

Luckily, there is cricket on!  


 
I don't like cricket.

 OH NO!

 I love it!

I really like cricket, except when you're watching it in a group of people who know things about cricket, and you have to pretend that you, too, know these things.  This is highly achievable with other sports, like rugby, but for some reason very tricky with cricket.

With rugby, no matter how limited your knowledge, you can get by with a portfolio of vague-yet-sporty phrases to trot out at opportune moments.  Reliable favourites include "Great hands" and "good at the breakdown."  What do they mean?  No-one knows.  You can say them at pretty much any point during rugby, though.  (Except when someone is kicking.  Don't say "great hands" when someone is kicking.  Don't say "great feet" either, that isn't a thing.)

My delightful colleague Button and I recently watched some rugby in a group and, after some practice beforehand ("If it goes up in the air and they catch it, that's Good Under the High Ball.  If they don't catch it, that's Patchy Under the High Ball") managed to thoroughly impress everyone by saying things like "Looks like they're going to have to play their running game."  

We guess this is as opposed to their 'casually sauntering' or 'carefree skipping' game' but we aren't sure.  Great hands though.

Ooh, patchy under the running hands lineout ball!  
Hands try ball ball ball!

It's harder to bullshit your way through cricket because there are so many different cricket words, and unless you know the difference between leg side and off stump and cover point and square leg and gully and mid-wicket and cow corner and third man and second slip and mid-off and silly mid-off, well you're fucked, aren't you.  And then just when you've learnt leg side from off side a left-handed batsman arrives and everything swaps around.  

"Looked like it was swinging down leg side!" you say excitedly, and everyone looks at you in confusion and says, "It was clearly plum" and then no-one talks to you for a little bit.  Insider tip: you can tell mid-off from silly mid-off because one of them is in a different place.

Second insider tip: there is no actual cow at cow corner.

Button and I watched cricket once - I think from memory it was a fairly dull test session. We had very little cricket knowledge to bust out, but luckily we were able to improve our cricket knowledge by intently studying the bowling form of Dernbach.


"Dribbled down leg side."
"Stick to the cricket please, Button."

Here's an unrelated picture of Brendan McCullum.


Moving on to other, equally sexy sports-related news: I bought a pair of awesome boxing gloves on Boxing Day (that's why they call it that), and now I'm a not-to-be-fucked-with boxing machine. 


Minutes spent boxing: 0
Minutes spent admiring myself in mirror: yes
Minutes spent being grumpy when HB wouldn't take a picture of me wearing the gloves: also yes.

Tried them out with the punching bag for the first time today; thought it would be good to have some motivational music, not unlike Rocky, and popped iPod on.  iPod correctly assessed my level of boxing prowess and played Lucille.  

At a bar in Toledo- jab!
Across from the depot- jab!
On a barstool, she took off her ring- jab jab RIGHT!

I'm hoping that if I keep this up I'll become so conditioned that every time I hear Kenny Rogers I punch someone in the face.
Do you know when to walk away, Kenny?  
Do you know when to RUN?

And that was sport.  Back to you, Rachel.


4 comments:

Chris Rees said...

Haven't read the whole thing yet, I'm just off to do a 19th century style oil painting of that 2nd cricket photo. That is magnificent.

Unknown said...

I don't understand this game. And don't think I want to. Missed you, Ally. V from *uncorked (been a while!)

Anonymous said...

stop seducing me with the cricket & put something else at the top of the page

IT IS ALLY said...

Chris - it's great, isn't it! Lookds like something from Cricket: The Musical. (Which features songs including 'On a Hat-Trick of the Heart' and 'She's my Golden Duckling.')

V - Been a while indeed! Nice to see you :) Cricket is great, you can go to make a cup of tea or use the bathroom, safe in the knowledge that probably nothing exciting will happen, and if it does they'll replay it intermittently for the next hour.

Anon - DONE.