YesBut that was the last week in May

Finish the work in 48 weeks, that's a laugh, he’s been trying to open that umbrella for nearly five months.

Monday was Spring Bank Holiday, as I explained in Monday's blog the London Tourist industry employs shamans to do a rain dance to ensure the weather is so ghastly that it forces tourists, in order to get out of the rain, to dig deep in their pockets and pay to get into cinemas, theatres and other tourist traps (sorry I mean attractions). Just for the fun of it, last Monday the shamans while dancing also did a gusty wind chant!

Somehow amongst the rain England managed to beat the West Indies at cricket. For the benefit of USA readers, cricket is a sport played between two teams each with 11 men dressed in white. They hang around for five days while another two men dressed in white coats decide whether the “light” is good enough to play. If “bad light” is declared both teams go into a pavilion to play cards, watch TV, listen to MP3 players, and play practical jokes on each other. If the “light” is declared good, one team throws a ball at two of the other team members, until “bad light” is declared again. A “Test Match” played between two countries is even more effective than a rain dance at ensuring bad weather.

I’ve nothing to say about Tuesday and Wednesday, I’m not sure if this is because nothing of note happened; or I was so cold on Monday I got hyperthermia and slept through the next two days.

Thursday morning I decided to stick my head out from under the bed covers. It looked dark and grim, ducked back under the bedclothes, turned over and went back to sleep. It was only when Mrs YesBut forced me out of bed on Thursday afternoon that I realised the woollen cap I had been wearing to keep my head warm in bed, had slipped over my eyes, and the sun was shinning outside.

On Thursday schools in England were given the legal right to search pupils who are suspected of carrying knives. That news surprised me, I thought they had always had the right - evidently not, it seems if a teacher thought a pupil had a knife they would have to notify the police who would come to the school to search the suspect. Mind that might not have been a bad idea, I wouldn’t like to be a teacher searching one of these young thugs for a knife - “so you want my knife, here have it” right in your heart!! What went wrong? Where are the long lost days when the only dubious object in a schoolboy’s pocket was a length of string, a whistle, a packet of itching powder and a frog?

So President George W Bush has just discovered Global Warming, and is urging countries to agree on long-term goals for greenhouse gas emissions. The mans a genius. That’s why he beat Al Gore - poor Al could never get his head around problems affecting the environment Next thing he’ll discover Saddam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction.

Next Wednesday I will be posting the first blog in a series on memorials and public sculptures. Yesterday Westminster Council said they were going to place restrictions on further statues being placed in central London. That shouldn’t place too much of a restriction on the blog, there’s already +350 in Westminster, then there’s the rest of London, UK and the World.

It was forty years ago yesterday that the “Fab Four” Beatle’s iconic LP “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released. It remained in the number 1 position of the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks, it topped the UK Albums Chart for 27 weeks and the Australian Albums Chart for 30 weeks. This year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awarded it the “Most Definitive Rock and Roll Album”. They just don’t make records like that anymore.

I thought at least last night Brazil would brighten up the week for me by beating England at football (soccer). The Scots, Irish and Welsh just love it when England lose. But they only managed a draw. But at least Brazil scored in the last minute, just when England had thought they had won.

The British artist has set a $100 million price tag on his “For the Love of God” diamond encrusted platinum skull. It is the highest price asked for a work of art put on sale by a living artist. The piece cost $30 million to make, the purchase of 8,601 diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats accounted for a large proportion of the cost. But if a scull is worth £50 million what is YesBut’s Images worth?

Why not participate; click here and leave your suggestion of a caption for today’s YesBut’s Image.

That’s News to me.

The ITV has won the rights to televise live FA Cup and England football matches from August 2008. From that date football will cease to exist! The BBC lost the rights to televise cricket Test matches live and suddenly, as far as BBC Television News was concerned no Test Matches are played. Sky has the rights to the ICC Cricket World Cup, how much coverage, apart for the murder of Bob Woolmer, has BBC News devoted to reporting the event? Zilch.

Writing Saturday’s blog, I looked up coverage by Middle East news organizations of the British sailors captured by Iran. To my surprise I saw their main concern was reporting on the 19th Arab summit. I say surprise, because there had been no reference to this meeting by the British television news organisations. This I find astonishing, when you consider the main topic of the summit was to reach a way to settle the Israeli-Arab conflict. It’s recognised by all, apart from Blair and Bush, the lack of the resolution of the Palestine-Israel dispute is at the heart of the Islamic militant movement. Solve this dispute, and the risk of Islamic terrorist attacks in Britain and USA will be diminished by 99%. Yet the meeting was unreported.

Over a hundred people are killed in an Indian train crash and there is no mention on British TV news. An 84year old woman dies in a train derailment in Cumbria, and there is saturation television and newspaper coverage.

Newspapers print stories they think will sell newspapers. The BBC broadcasts stories it thinks . . .? Well its difficult to identify the BBC’s methodology, it claims to have more reporters in more countries than any other news organisation; but it tends to follow than lead. How many scoops does it have each year? Not many, if any.

More press hype?

Was the murdered Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer the primery target or was he used as a warning to others?

It is supposed hoodlums lost a lot of money when Parkistan was beaten unexpectedly by Ireland. Would that be sufficient reason to have the coach murdered? For what benefit - punishment or to prevent him disclosing information?

To fix a match isn’t easy. It takes a number of players, both bowlers and batsmen to participate in throwing a match. Why go to all that trouble? With spread and spot betting, match fixing is unnecessary. It’s much easier to fix small aspects of a game: the number of wides bowled in an over, the number of catches dropped. Easier to arrange, and less likely to be detected.

There is a lot of speculation over what Woolmer knew, and what he was going to disclose in his next book. Without casting dispersions on the dead, he had a history of being touched by the shadow of corruption. Woolmer was the coach of South Africa when the team was captained by the late and disgraced Hansie Cronje (he was banned for life in 2000, for his involvement in match fixing - he died in 2002 in a light aircraft plane crash).

Lets assume he was murdered to prevent him disclosing information in a book he was yet to write. The book wouldn’t be published the next day, or the next week or even the next month. Why murder him in the full glare of the ICC Cricket World Cup? It doesn’t make sense. He could have been disposed of after he returned home to South Africa and the hit made to look like a robbery that had gone wrong.

Lets assume he was murdered as punishment and a warning to others. If that was what was intended, the reverse has been achieved. “Match fixing” and all the other scams have been placed in the forefront of attention of the cricketing authorities, the police and the press. If two wides are bowled in an over, that bowler will immediately be under suspicion. The murder has probably frightened off players from participating in spread betting fixes.

The murder is likely not to be associated with match fixing or spread betting. One thing that can be said with confidence, no England player can be accused of corruption - they are so bad, there’s no need for them to throw a match.

Would you believe it England have beaten Australia.

Call me a cynical grumpy old fart, but I must ask did England beat Australia or did Australia let them win?

This was the first match of the best of three final. If Australia had won they might have had a reasonable crowd for the second game, but that would have been it. As it is now, the final will go to three matches and almost guaranteed sell out for the next two games.

You might say “Give England credit for the win”, but look at the evidence England were 15 for 3, McGrath dropped the simplest of catches which would have made it 35 for 4 and England would again be Walking Dead.

Or is the answer, if England play Australia enough times then they might win one game.

What is the above all about? Just Cricket.

Fifteen Seconds of Sporting Fame

One of the Message Boards I post on has the thread “Sporting Claims To Fame”. Yesterday I posted the following:

Do you remember as kids, you would selected two teams to play cricket, there were always two kids left at the end: one with a physical disability, the other who couldn’t bat, bowl, run, catch or even stop a ball. The later was me. I suffered from the Sporting equivalent of dyslexia.

Well by pure chance I arranged a game of cricket with another gang of boys. There was a big debate, whether I should be included in the team. Some of the boys said yes because I had arranged the game, the others said no way. In the end I was allowed to play, not because I had arranged the game, but because the only alternative was a girl!

Our gang batted first; as usual I was bowled out first ball.

The captain knew I couldn’t catch or field, so it was pointless telling me where to field. Rather I was allowed to wander around day dreaming.

It came to the last two batsmen in with one run to get. The ball was hit hard to square leg. I still can hear the silence and incredulity as the fielders looked expecting to see the ball fly over the boundary. But there was no sign of the ball. All eyes passed back over the projected trajectory of the ball, until they saw me standing there with the ball stuck in my outstretched hand. As if in slow motion their faces changed from disappointment to elation as they realised I had caught the ball. The silence was broken by my “how’s that?“.

You would think that that would have been the start of a great cricketing career. But it wasn’t. Everybody knew it was a fluke, and I was never picked again. So I retired at the peak of my, albeit short, cricketing career.

Toys for Big Boys

I hear the odd mutter coming from my wife’s direction, to the effect I’m spending too much time on the computer. But if you have a new toy, you must play with it. Since the Broadband was connected yesterday, I’ve had great fun looking up web pages that previously took, what it seemed, an age to download. Photos would emerge jerkily, line by line. Now they pop onto the screen instantly - great.

Thought I would be in trouble and my wife would pull the plug on the computer, then my son-in-law came to my rescue. Previously playing with my new toy, I had created a web page for my granddaughter and had emailed the link to her parents. After seeing the page, they decided to call us on Windows Messenger. As soon as my wife saw my granddaughter she became an instant fan of Broadband - so its big toys for girls and boys. Glad something had a happy ending.

A group that’s not feeling so happy is the English Cricket team which was not so much beaten but trounced by Australia 5 tests to 0. The first Whitewash since 1920 -21. Two years ago everybody wanted to be seen with the England team when it won back the Ashes. I wonder whether the Prime Minister will invite the players to 10 Downing Street when they return home? I think not. He’s desparately looking for one success before he resigns as Prime Minister. You never know next year we might see Tony on Celebrity Big Brother.