TMFD
30 August 2005
I had one of those meetings today where we do ‘creative work’, this means our meeting environment was filled with TOYS including my new favourite toy EVER viz. GEOMAG. GEOMAG is a simple construction toy consisting of a load of small metal balls and a load of strong magnets cased in colourful plastic. The balls form nodes for the magnets and so you can create SHAPES. For someone like me this provides endless pleasure, I am the kind of person who always doodles in geometric forms and now I could do it in 3-D! In a meeting!! Eventually I had to put the GEOMAG down when I dropped it in the middle of someone else’s presentation. It is now very much on my Christmas list.
Do check out the GEOMAG site linked above which is slightly on the mental side, proclaiming the toy to be “the most intelligent form of entertainment ever seen” and containing a five-page disquisition on the manifest disadvantages of rival product SUPERMAG (boo, hiss).
Tom in TMFD • No Comments
29 August 2005
Sitting watching the Ashes yesterday I turned to Tim and admitted it. “You know those people the newspapers talk about who are suddenly interested in cricket? I’m one of them.” “Me too” he replied. Out of respect for the frayed nerves and fingernails of the real fans I have kept my questions mum, especially as most of them are “So how come that wasn’t out and that was?”. I don’t have to understand all of it to appreciate it – the tension, the ebbs and flows of advantage, the tactical acumen (because it’s slow-moving tactical decisions are easier to grasp for the newcomer than they are in football, I think).
I guess the thing I’ve liked most about this series is the way that so much turns out to hinge on how well the tail perform – the Australian tail in the second and third tests, the England one yesterday. Like most sports, cricket requires a range of specialised skills: unlike most sports, cricket is set up so that people whose specialised skill isn’t batting have to go and bat. Watching football you get this occasionally, when a goalkeeper desperately heads up the pitch for a last corner, or takes a penalty in a shoot-out. But it isn’t written into the everyday experience of the game. It means that the outcomes of great sporting events can turn on the unusual and joyful heroism of people who aren’t especially good at something* gritting their teeth and doing it anyway.
*relative to specialists, not to the rest of us.
Tom in TMFD • No Comments
25 August 2005
I wish football journalists and commentators would stop talking about strikers “dropping down the pecking order” at their clubs. This dreadfully scratchy expression appears at least 46 times a day on the BBC’s football website.
I believe it is reckless and irresponsible, as Europe struggles to contain the threat of bird flu.
PJ Miller in TMFD • No Comments
Couple of notable things about last nights Everton / Villareal game. First, ITV2 screening this big tie seemed to have a bit of an aspect ration problem. At 4:3 the screen was taller than it was wide. At Widescreen it did not fill the screen. Therefore the match appeared to be taking place between two teams comprised of characters from Lowry paintings.
And talking of paintings, the walking representation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, was refereeing. Apparently the Italian league have bent their age rules and extended Collina’s contract. David Moyes seems unhappy about this and even the commentators suggested that Collina had “Duncan Ferguson’s card marked”. This would be a terrible abuse of power, but hold up. If you were going to “mark the card”, and prejudge the motivations of hard to see challenges, then Duncan “I’ve spent a bit of time in chokey” Ferguson is exactly the kind of player you would pick. You can’t have a hard man reputation without the ref’s picking it up too…
Pete Baran in TMFD • No Comments
23 August 2005
One of the happy upshots of the Bosman Ruling which we have been living with for almost ten years, is the effect it has on players prices near the end of their contract. Take Clinton Morrison (Birmingham wish someone would) the Republic of Ireland striker. Bought for a club record of £4.25 million three years ago, he is certainly not at the end of his playing career. But his contract is up next year, and Birmingham have just realised that if they don’t sell him now, he will go on a free transfer.
Therefore the pack of clubs hovering are in an interesting position. Southampton, Norwich and better the devil you know Crystal Palace have all brandished chequebooks. But are also taking their time? What does this remind us of? Why, its record collectors returning week after week to the Music & Video Exchange in Notting Hill, waiting for a record the really want to go down in price for them to buy it. more »
Pete Baran in TMFD • 3 Comments
19 August 2005
The most repeated joke doing the rounds yesterday at the Grange ground in Edinburgh was that the only thing stopping Scotland from being a Test side was the impossibility of ever having 5 days without rain. Not that that has ever stopped England mind, but as light rain turned heavy, turned light, turned heavy again, and the groundsmen performed ever more complicated formation movements with the covers, and the day wore on, it seemed more and more appropriate. And painful.
Do I feel a chump for spending five hours sitting in the rain until the match was finally declared cancelled at about 4pm? Yup. We were convinced that Cricket Scotland would find some way of squeezing in their statutory 10 overs to avoid having to refund the 4000 strong crowd (but give or take 1000 hospitality tent punters who presumably ate, drank and schmoozed their way through the day exactly as if Scotland and Australia had actually been battling it out with willow and leather.) Thank heavens for Deuchars IPA is all I can say.
The Scots propensity for laying claim to everything under the sun was in full evidence (Kant — Scottish, as my university tutor used to say): apparently they’re responsible for the modern game because bloke who captained the bodyline tour was Scotch. Excuse me while I choke on my balls.
But it was all good natured. My companions, more used to Easter Road, couldn’t imagine a football crowd sitting it out for that long with no promise of a spectacle. Nor would they have nipped out for sparkling wine and — I shit you not — caviar from the Stockbridge grocers. The best photo opp. was the point that the bloke dressed as a pint of IPA met the see-you-jimmy-hatted gang with the blow up kangaroo. Kids played, well, cricket behind the stands put up for the occasion. So someone was happy. Biggest spontaneous boo of the day went to the announcement that the First Minister was on the premises: Jack McConnell attracting more opprobrium than Caladon — fuck-awful cod-opera singers, imagine G4 off that there tv show doing Flower of Scotland and other sentimentalist fuckwit classics.
Disappointed though? Yes.
byebyepride in TMFD • No Comments
18 August 2005
we demand a PICTURE
UPDATE: ok now the story has a picture (which haha totally undermines the CLEVER YET KOMIKAL lead graf) so the story must be savoured for other reasons viz the quote from Daily Post art critic Philip “i don’t get it” Key
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in TMFD • 2 Comments
17 August 2005
As extolled by this ILx thread. In many ways it is symptomatic of a cricket thread that the first five posts are on a complete tangent about a doll. At time of writing it had made an impressive ninety, lets hope the thread makes its century. Worth it for the list of sledging alone.
Sledging of course being the name the gentleman’s game gives to being offensive about ones opponent’s wives, culture or race. Sometimes I think cricket professes its superiority to football on the grounds of politeness far too much than is strictly defensible.
Pete Baran in TMFD • No Comments
16 August 2005
Okay, the Australians forced a hard earned draw with England in the Third Test. They will be pleased with that, and not pleased that they ever got into the situation. There has been much less noise from the Australian camp, even though they stymied England’s opportunity to pull ahead in the series. And rightly so. They will be worried that Vaughn and Strauss are now making big scores. Their top order batsmen are getting battered and out by the English strike bowlers. But they will be most worried about how spot on England’s tactic were in the third test.
I did not expect to win at Old Trafford. Even when we got to the final day. Bowling the Aussies out to order is not been our strong point, and their tale has wagged more than their front end. That said I was very impressed by the maths done by Vaughan on the declaration. Yes, it would have been a record breaking final innings if Australia had beaten us, but despite scoring well it was always slightly out of reach. We maximised bowling time without ever putting ourselves in danger of losing. This kind of captaincy seems to be at the heart of England’s resurgence. Confidence and cleverness.
Last week on Test Match Special there was much talk of the most exciting finishes ever, after England’s two run victory. Not much was made about how exciting a well fought draw can be. But what yesterday reminded me of was test series, Ashes series even, of the Nineties where getting a heroic draw was the highpoint for England. It is not a situation Australia have been used to, and while they got the draw, the fact that the final day required a lot of effort for a neutral result will sap them. The crippled mouse may yet find a mouse sized, manga style robotic power suit…
Pete Baran in TMFD • 1 Comment
11 August 2005
Football seasons, eh? They seem to start earlier and earlier every year.
This year, the combination of (a) the season starting at the height of August, and (b) my team playing at a level at which an uncovered away end is by no means a rarity, has driven me somewhere I wouldn’t normally go: Boots.
See, two hours spent standing in the hot summer afternoon sun leaves me at risk of unsightly and uncomfortable sunburn on my rapidly balding pate. But I can’t be rubbing any old suntan grease into my head because there’s still (just) enough hair to go greasy and look horrible.
Surely capitalism can provide for this urgent need? Yes, it can: Boots Soltan Hair and Scalp Sun Protector. A boon for slapheaded bad football bores everywhere. Hey! Sometimes the p0rn0graphy of minimally differentiated products throws up something I really, like, need! Or want, I suppose.
While you’re here, here’s a Cement Industry Heritage Centre Update: I’ve heard nothing back from Lafarge. When I have any cement-related business to do I’ll take it elsewhere, and I urge you to do the same. Hmph.
Tim in TMFD • No Comments
« Older
