"The bigger they are..."
Cricket is a game of grace and balance, delicacy and dignity.
Well, maybe not always...
Inzy's ill-fated impression of a hurdling elephant aside, the highlight of the Third Test so far has been Ian Bell's third successive century, hit not only with welcome force and confidence, but even more surprising swiftness.
And the reason for such form? Well, it can only be down to the Warwickshire batsman having just joined the blogging brigade.
Some superb "banter" there from the boy Belly/Bellie (you'll see he's ambivalent on the precise, "proper" spelling.)
Almost enough to forgive the suggestion a series average of 17 meant he "played my part in last summer's defeat of Australia in the Ashes", when he might of course have been justifiably confined to a downstairs seat on that open-top bus...
Well, maybe not always...
Inzy's ill-fated impression of a hurdling elephant aside, the highlight of the Third Test so far has been Ian Bell's third successive century, hit not only with welcome force and confidence, but even more surprising swiftness.
And the reason for such form? Well, it can only be down to the Warwickshire batsman having just joined the blogging brigade.
Some superb "banter" there from the boy Belly/Bellie (you'll see he's ambivalent on the precise, "proper" spelling.)
Almost enough to forgive the suggestion a series average of 17 meant he "played my part in last summer's defeat of Australia in the Ashes", when he might of course have been justifiably confined to a downstairs seat on that open-top bus...
"That'll be cash on the barrelhead, son..."
Several things worry me intensely.
Rats, for one.
Nogbad The Bad, for another.
Witchy Fiona Phillips, above all.
But perhaps the most anxious experience of the last few days was the 100-yard, two-minute stride down Kensington High Street with a couple of thousand pounds clutched tightly to my thigh like a war wound. It was a simple transaction, literally from one bank to another, to hopefully help finally finalise my long-delayed first flat (half-)purchase. After all, a sudden hefty cash injection should, surely, be enough to inspire my solicitors into showing slightly more than the merest smattering of a scintilla of a sprinkling of an inkling of interest in the deal...
Well, anyway, I reached the second cashier without being mugged, run over, blown up or blown away, and having handed over the relevant readies, that’s me flushed out for the foreseeable, and condemned to a schedule of at least six-day weeks here, there and wherever’ll take (and pay) me.
But there are other money-making means – and, yes, thy name is eBay. Can’t quite see myself matching in Machiavellian entrepreneurship the friend who leapt early onto the charity-wristband bandwagon, by buying up batches and selling at (marginally) higher prices than the often-out-of-stock charities – before realising the buyers’ desperation was such, he could simply sell them a link to the relevant website for the same cost, only occasionally receiving angry feedback from the few who felt duped and not abashed enough to keep quiet.
No,, my more modest eBay exploits extend simply to flogging my used tickets from some recent kickabout in Germany. Quite why so many people want to clamour for souvenirs of an experience they didn’t actually, er, experience remains beyond me. Yet there were always armies of ticket-collectors crowding the exits at the end of each match, and still they keep coming, this time online instead of in-yer-face. Perhaps even more baffling was the person, hours after the final whistle and Italy’s departure with the trophy perched precariously in hand, hanging around at the media exit of Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and begging for each departing hack’s Press accreditation badge. With which to do what, to impress whom? After all, the pass he wanted bore not only my name, but my (predictably-vacant-looking) photo, for Zizou’s sake... I’m not sure who he’d have been fooling... Besides, I needed it to wangle the following day’s final few hours of free train travel.
That souvenir I will keep. But the used tickets now can go to a more appreciative anorak, especially since I no longer need post-match proof of attendance should there be a summons from one of Fifa’s over-cautious and actually-incorrect ticket inspectors.
Even more oddly, some of the higher bids at the moment seem devoted to the France-Switzerland game, one game best-avoided by any stretch of the imagination. Unless the ticket will be brandished as a symbol of heroic endurance...
Still, eBay – its Press officers may be among the most unnecessarily eager and persistent PR people on the planet. But it is indeed addictive.
Did you know Jarvis Cocker is a keen eBayer?
He will, of course, only carry out transactions using common Paypal.
Ask nicely, though, and you might just find him sorted for Visa and Switch.
Rats, for one. 
Nogbad The Bad, for another. 
Witchy Fiona Phillips, above all. But perhaps the most anxious experience of the last few days was the 100-yard, two-minute stride down Kensington High Street with a couple of thousand pounds clutched tightly to my thigh like a war wound. It was a simple transaction, literally from one bank to another, to hopefully help finally finalise my long-delayed first flat (half-)purchase. After all, a sudden hefty cash injection should, surely, be enough to inspire my solicitors into showing slightly more than the merest smattering of a scintilla of a sprinkling of an inkling of interest in the deal...
Well, anyway, I reached the second cashier without being mugged, run over, blown up or blown away, and having handed over the relevant readies, that’s me flushed out for the foreseeable, and condemned to a schedule of at least six-day weeks here, there and wherever’ll take (and pay) me.
But there are other money-making means – and, yes, thy name is eBay. Can’t quite see myself matching in Machiavellian entrepreneurship the friend who leapt early onto the charity-wristband bandwagon, by buying up batches and selling at (marginally) higher prices than the often-out-of-stock charities – before realising the buyers’ desperation was such, he could simply sell them a link to the relevant website for the same cost, only occasionally receiving angry feedback from the few who felt duped and not abashed enough to keep quiet.
No,, my more modest eBay exploits extend simply to flogging my used tickets from some recent kickabout in Germany. Quite why so many people want to clamour for souvenirs of an experience they didn’t actually, er, experience remains beyond me. Yet there were always armies of ticket-collectors crowding the exits at the end of each match, and still they keep coming, this time online instead of in-yer-face. Perhaps even more baffling was the person, hours after the final whistle and Italy’s departure with the trophy perched precariously in hand, hanging around at the media exit of Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and begging for each departing hack’s Press accreditation badge. With which to do what, to impress whom? After all, the pass he wanted bore not only my name, but my (predictably-vacant-looking) photo, for Zizou’s sake... I’m not sure who he’d have been fooling... Besides, I needed it to wangle the following day’s final few hours of free train travel.
That souvenir I will keep. But the used tickets now can go to a more appreciative anorak, especially since I no longer need post-match proof of attendance should there be a summons from one of Fifa’s over-cautious and actually-incorrect ticket inspectors.
Even more oddly, some of the higher bids at the moment seem devoted to the France-Switzerland game, one game best-avoided by any stretch of the imagination. Unless the ticket will be brandished as a symbol of heroic endurance...
Still, eBay – its Press officers may be among the most unnecessarily eager and persistent PR people on the planet. But it is indeed addictive.
Did you know Jarvis Cocker is a keen eBayer?
He will, of course, only carry out transactions using common Paypal.Ask nicely, though, and you might just find him sorted for Visa and Switch.
"Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days..."
Hmm, the generation game takes another twist and turn. After an enthralling evening simply cradling, molly-coddling and camera-snapping young nephew Harry when he came to call the other night, just a few hours into the early morning came the news my Great-Uncle Reg had, yes, this time actually died, having been knocked down and yet got up again so many times, and so many times indeed since I unfortunately, prematurely wrote him off a few months ago... only for a little more respite. My mum's was onto the M1 to the Midlands almost within minutes of that unwanted phone call - I assume the rest of us shall follow in the next week or so for what should be a quirky yet grand old soldier's funeral.
And I do hope Harry comes too...
And I do hope Harry comes too...
"We're blue without, can't do without, our dreams just won't come true without that certain thing called..."
... The Boyfriend manages both to have a most sumptuous cake, and scoff it repeatedly, in great greedy mouthfuls of fruit and sponge, dollops of chocolate and cream. Just as, though in a very different way, Clint Eastwood expertly treads that fine line between challenging genre cliches and yet indulging in them at the last as well (for example, and especially, the climactic shoot-out of Unforgiven), Ian Talbot's Regents Park Open Air Theatre production of Sandy Wilson's Fifties pastiche of Twenties musicals manages both to make fun and to joyously dive in...The first rain of last week may have, typically, fallen just as we arrived for a pre-show picnic of Pimms and chocolate biscuits ("Skies may not always be blue..." indeed), but it held off for the performance - luckily for Summer Strallen and Michael Rouse, whose intricate, passionate and high-kicking dancing for "Won't You Charleston With Me" was one of the evening's highlights, and all the better for an unslippery stage...
The giggly girls of Madame Dubonnet's School For Young Ladies on the French Riviera, with their shrieks of flirtatious glee or comic shock-horror, had everyone grinning (well, almost everyone - Sir Trevor McDonald a few rows along looked rather serious and studious), and my three female companions delighted in mimicking the mannerisms all evening, all the way back to Euston...
And the songs, from one of the few major musicals I didn't really know much about beforehand, were just sparkling, especially the eponymous theme tune, the old lech's pleading "It's Never Too Late To Fall In Love", and the keynote "I Could Be Happy With You" (sung by clear-as-a-bell young belle Rachel Jerram as perfect Miss Polly Browne, and a less-impressive (though this may be due to the character) Joshua Dallas as her rather square-of-jaw, square-of-manner beau Tony Brockhurst.
They all play it oh-so-terribly-terribly straight - which only makes the whole show just irresistibly frivolous and arch enough - and tempting enough to ponder a repeat trip "Sur La Plage", at the Regents Park Riviera...
"Bye bye, birdie..."
So, goodbye Carrick, hello Zokora. Farewell Bunjevcevic, greetings Berbatov. So long Mido, maybe welcome back, er, Mido...?
And goodbye Chirpy - hello... Road Runner?
"Old" Chirpy was perhaps a little bland, but benign - a cheery, indeed chirpy mascot who you'd never catch brawling with rival pigs (a la Wolves' Wolfie) or snatching another mascot's oversized head and dropkicking it into the crowd (after the fashion of Swansea's infamous Cyril The Swan).
This "New" Chirpy, though, making his White Hart Lane debut for today's Tottenham triumph over the latest Italian "champions"...?
Well, he just looks rather glum and even evil...
This, however, is even more unnecessary and embarrassing. The whiff of weak lemon cordial seeps strongly from the screen...
And goodbye Chirpy - hello... Road Runner?
"Old" Chirpy was perhaps a little bland, but benign - a cheery, indeed chirpy mascot who you'd never catch brawling with rival pigs (a la Wolves' Wolfie) or snatching another mascot's oversized head and dropkicking it into the crowd (after the fashion of Swansea's infamous Cyril The Swan).
This "New" Chirpy, though, making his White Hart Lane debut for today's Tottenham triumph over the latest Italian "champions"...?
Well, he just looks rather glum and even evil...
This, however, is even more unnecessary and embarrassing. The whiff of weak lemon cordial seeps strongly from the screen...
"When the temperature goes right up, and the weather is sizzlin' hot - Mister Adam, for his madam, is not..."
'Cos it's too. Darn. Hot.
... so much so, that I merely smiled, nodded politely, then got off at the wrong stop the other evening, instead of spearing with a harpoon, plunging a wax-seal knife into the neck, rushing with a speckled swamp adder, or even simply bidding a terse "Good day to you, sir", when targeted on the Tube by an utter nutcase jabbering on about how the same man created both Sherlock Holmes... and Conan The Barbarian.
... so much so, that I merely smiled, nodded politely, then got off at the wrong stop the other evening, instead of spearing with a harpoon, plunging a wax-seal knife into the neck, rushing with a speckled swamp adder, or even simply bidding a terse "Good day to you, sir", when targeted on the Tube by an utter nutcase jabbering on about how the same man created both Sherlock Holmes... and Conan The Barbarian.
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