Tested then gone

The gloomiest weeks of the year were brightened by an England test series which like them all flashed by before I knew it.  When we’re playing away in New Zealand it’s hard to get too involved due to the time difference but starting at 2200 it did mean a few late nights as I couldn’t resist waiting till the lunch break before going to bed.  That said I did have at least one early night during each match when a tumble of wickets had me cursing my way up the stairs expecting to find an England batting disaster when I cam back down in the morning.  Happily I was wrong on two out of three occasions and this reflected how the series finished and to win 2-1 away against the Kiwis is a very good result.

The latest quirky selection will give the selectors something to think about.  Jacob Bethell, aged 19 with 260 runs in the series batting at first drop, including three second innings half centuries against a decent attack.  How can they leave him out now?  If Jamie Smith is going to reclaim the gloves then for me either Crawley or Pope has to make way.  It should be Crawley but can someone else in this squad open the batting?  Another injury for the skipper is troubling and once again I wonder if his bowling is worth the risk and if not we need to balance the side somehow.  Stokes has the technique to open the batting.  The bowlers all done quite well, Carse looks comfortable at Test level but Woakes continues to look uncomfortable abroad.  I like Woakes and hope he gets the opportunities to pass two notable statistical landmarks that are looming.  I’m not convinced about Bashir though despite his regular wicket taking.  If the team’s balance has to change then maybe he could be another that makes way?  Of the eleven that started the first test match of the year in India only five played in the last match in New Zealand and they were all batsmen.  If I were selector there’d be a few more changes before our next match in May.  (In May!?!  We’ve got to wait six months for more Test cricket!!  ICC bastards.

XI for test vs Zimbabwe that will never be picked by anyone other than me

Stokes, Ducket, Bethell, Root, Brook, Pope, Smith, Woakes, Ahmed, Atkinson, Archer/Wood/Carse

Shitstorm

The shitstorm in the middle east won’t go away, now in Syria the “brutal” Asaad regime has been toppled.  We are told that this is a good thing because the Syrian leadership was in cahoots with the filthy Russians and the dodgy Iranians and because Asaad himself was a bit of a bastard.  But honestly, was he any worse than the oil gangsters in Saudi?  And who are the rebels that have ousted the old guard?  Searching my memory, wasn’t it Islamic State (so called) when this blew up before?  Have people forgotten the last time the west celebrated a middle eastern dictator being removed things soon got a whole lot worse.

Fah fetched

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Another one of ‘those’ books that everyone has read and from the same era as ‘on the road’ but this I enjoyed a lot more but I have to admit to being predisposed to like a dystopian fiction.  NB it can’t go unnoticed that this was written in the aftermath of Orwell’s alleged fictional vision.

This is a world in which books are banned and immediately burned on discovery, their owners sentenced to death.  Montag is a fireman a profession in this future which is responsible for this state sponsored incineration censorship.  That in days gone by fireman traditionally doused the flames is now just a whispered myth.  Away from work the population is stupefied by prescription drugs and manipulated by large screens mounted on their walls and if they want to get out they get into a car and drive like Winston Wolf.  All the while people live in permanent fear of war.  This is a short book that reads easily, doesn’t get bogged down and finishes with a glimpse of hope.

But then again maybe it’s all too far fetched, after all it’s not like we live in a world where people spend their free time out of their minds on narcotics; licensed, prescription or otherwise.  Where people are addicted to interactions through a handheld device which drip feeds them bullshit whilst it simultaneously strokes their alter egos until they think the virtual version is the real them.   It’s not like this is the only time any ‘reading’ goes on because most of the time people are staring at screens that drench them in whatever the current desired world view may be.  And we would never point and sneer at anyone daft enough to suggest that the world we are told we live in might actually be something else.  No that couldn’t happen.