First Test – The Gabba, Brisbane 25-29 November 1994 Day One – Morning Session

I’ve been inspired people. So very inspired. A few weeks ago Adam Hurrey of @footballcliches fame wrote a blog post detailing his exploits playing Sensible Soccer using an online Mega Drive emulator. And what a post it was, with the quirks and whizz-bangs you’d expect from full-blown breakdown match-reports of England’s 1994 World Cup qualifying campaign (which was of course, in real life, as the football cliché goes: ill-fated). It gave me an idea. Cricket. On the Mega Drive, match reports, completing an Ashes Series… There was only one game of choice: Brian Lara Cricket. The best cricket game that’s ever been made and probably will ever be made (if the current makers of the biannual Ashes Cricket are still making Ashes Cricket 2021). Anyway, here we go.

It’s 1994. England haven’t won the Ashes since the tour down under in 1986-87, and Ian Botham and Gladstone Small’s heroics in the innings victory at the MCG Boxing Day test seem a long way off; with Australia winning two series on the spin. Mike Atherton, having come under fire during a ball tampering controversy the summer series against South Africa, retains his place as captain. To assist Atherton a new man is placed in role of ‘head coach’, the unknown Nick Hayhoe and he is immediately vilified by the national media; with the Daily Mirror describing him as ‘Doughnut Hayhoe’. Hayhoe insists in a press conference down under that he will win the Ashes.

The selectors produced no surprises in an England line up that seemed to be in a clean bit of health, with no obvious injuries or illnesses affecting the squad. Darren Gough, hailed as the new Fred Trueman by some in the British press, received the nod as did spinner Phil Tufnell. It would seem that Devon Malcolm could be the key man in attack for England in order to keep up with the fierce one possessed by the Australians; especially on a Gabba pitch that was asking more questions that it was answering. With Mike Gatting playing well in the previous summer’s home series, and keeper-batsman Alec Stewart already looking in good nick, the mood in the England camp was unusually buoyant. For Australia, Gatting’s old tormentor Shane Warne was the first man on the selection sheet, as were Healey And Hughes. A loss in the series away in Pakistan seemed to do little to damage captain Mark Taylor’s optimism.

In a good toss to lose, England won; and Atherton chose to bowl first, perhaps making note of the cloud cover above the Gabba. Gough was first to bowl, in an opening tandem with fellow pace-man Malcolm and nearly saw a run out in just the third ball of the match; with Tufnell’s quick throw almost beating Slater to the striker’s end. But he was home, and Australia were underway. But, almost inexplicably, the following ball he miss-timed a pull shot completely and top-edged it to Mark Ramprakash standing at cover; who caught the ball with an almost bemused expression on his face. The Gabba fell silent, as if their pre-match absinthes the night before that are available in many of downtown Brisbane’s bars had caused what they had just witnessed. Malcolm in the next over, on the other hand, did not start his Ashes series down under in the best way; with Boon creaming an attempted bouncer behind deep-backward square into the stand for six runs.

The following ball, Boon decided to give his captain a sprinting warm-up, calling a run off a ball that had just been poked to mid-off. Tufnell did not fail with his throw and it smacked into the middle stump with Boon adrift by several yards; an absolutely farcical run-out. England in the ascendancy.

Boon and Taylor attempted to steady the sinking ship, but the latter continued to play some rash shots, twice almost edging deliveries from Gough that went straight through the gate and spooning an attempted sweep shot that only just landed short of the man standing at fine leg. And, almost inevitably, with the two men determined to up the scoring rate on a pitch that was obviously becoming a minefield, Malcolm got Taylor. Taylor seemed determined to play anything wide of off through mid-wicket, and he feathered one to Russell, who took a smart catch, down low to his left; with the ball now starting to swing around corners. Australia  now 43/3, a high run rate, indeed. But leaking wickets, perhaps determined to have a bowl themselves. Just before lunch, with Hayden and Waugh sticking to the tactics of upping the run rate, Defreitas – in his first over in the attack – trapped Hayden LBW in somewhat controversial circumstances after television replays seemed to suggest that he’d got bat on ball before it thumped into his pad. Nevertheless, up went umpire Randell’s finger. Atherton jumped for joy in the slips. Next over, the last over before lunch, Waugh mistimed an attempted drive to cow-corner and was caught by Tufnell at mid-on. Then, three balls later, the exact same thing happened to Waugh; who’d smashed 23. Malcolm could hardly believe what was happening. Australia at lunch on the first day of the first Ashes test were, almost inexplicably, 79/6.

Lunch Day One

More to follow soon

Justice

Today's news has been dominated by the fact that the families affected by the Hillsborough disaster have at last received some justice as a report has been published looking into the aftermath of the disaster (and the police cover-up), and by the fact they have at last received an apology from David Cameron on behalf of the nation. I was going to write something in my post today about the part the Sun played in the whole thing, and it's subsequent boycott in Liverpool (a boycott that still continues to this day), but I think I'll just repeat what Danny Baker tweeted earlier,

By the way, Kelvin Mackenzie - you disgusting little fucker.
— Danny Baker (@prodnose) September 12, 2012

Minaj

Recently I was flicking through Freeview and stumbled across the music video for the slightly Gilliam-esque titled 'Pound the Alarm' by Nicki Minaj. The video, and the song, as can be expected are an absolute abomination. The song is just your standard post-dubstep affair, that someone has created on an Apple Mac in a back room somewhere in LA; while the video is pretty much a porn film, to the extent that it almost feels like a self parody of modern music videos that also come as close to being porn as they can. Minaj thrusts her breasts around in such a manner that would have, as our nans would say, someone's eye out if she wasn't too careful.

The music industry has always had it's silly bits. The 'bands' that have no musical integrity whatsoever, and just exist for the music industry to make a fast buck. Back in the old days they would play on Top of the Pops, have a one hit wonder then fade into obscurity. Some did sustain themselves yes, think of the Bay City Rollers, but mostly they just faded away and, even if they did sustain themselves, they are just looked back on as 'oh wow I can't believe I used to own all the Bay City Rollers LPs'.

But something interesting has happened to the music industry over the past 10 years. This 'crappy' bands have now started to dominate. Music is, of course, a lot down to personal taste; but it is obvious that the industry has faced a huge decline. Illegal downloading has effectively killed it off, and the industry only has itself to blame for failing to change with the times (DRM on music that you actually have bought legally, for example). Rock music has almost fallen completely by the wayside, and has become underground; leaving old bands that have been around for years as the ones touring the festivals and stadiums (the headliners for Reading this year were The Cure, Kasabian and The Foo Fighters). Turn on Radio 1, and I bet you won't hear a rock song. Hip-hop too, for example, has declined in quality; as the industry realised it's popularity in the late 2000s and tried to bastardise it - often fusing it with dance music or R&B where it becomes popular in nightclubs. Proper hip-hop is still popular, but it's falling away; being replaced by 'star' names like Rihanna, Minaj and the like, who take it and turn it into something that people insist on calling a 'tuunee!!'.

The industry had to do this to survive. With no cash coming in from record sales, and with a big bill to heat the swimming pools, it had to look at other ways of getting it. Hence the reason that music videos are now more important than the song, and that 'stars' have now become cults (think of Lady GaGa and Justin Beiber's Twitter followers). Sadly this has seen a decline in 'proper music' written and performed as an art, with no intention of being a money making exercise. Not all all is lost, however. Despite all of this, it is still there; you've just got to look hard for it.

LibDem

When New Labour finally hit the wall in 2010, and Gordon Brown realised he had to call a general election as he couldn't eke out any more days as PM under current constitutional rules, I had only just turned 18. Imagine that! Voting at 18! I felt as though I'd finally made that final grimy step into being a proper adult, who voted and everything (little did I know that University was going to push me back down those stairs, but there we go). So off I went in my sixth form free period to the local primary school, where I handed my card to the unsmiling man, walked into the booth and marked an x in the box on the piece of paper next to where it said 'Liberal Democrat - David Chappell'.

After the coalition was agreed I felt immediately like a fool. Having been whipped up in Cleggmania, I never though that the man, of whom we all agreed with and who was the saviour of students, would cross over to the darkside. I mean, I'd nearly actually joined the Liberal Democrats as a member only a few days before; what the hell was I thinking? Then the media started laughing at him. He'd became Cameron's bitch, serving him tea while Dave got on with the important task of running the country. He was a sell out. Judas.

Or was he?

Having aged two and a half years since that bonkers May week, I can now look back with a strange hindsight. I had voted Liberal Democrat, and y'know what? I think I'll do it again and before you break out the pitch forks and flaming touches, I'll give you two reasons:

Now we all know the Tories have taken command of of some kind of cuts Death Star, destroying public services and vaporising vital benefits; wrecking thousands of people's lives without even giving the slightest hint of punishment towards the institutions that got us into the predicament in the first place (you know who). They wheel out the same old 'well we need to banks to prop the economy' nonsense even though it's pretty obvious to a four year old that the cuts aren't working as we've fallen back into recession. 

We also know that their ministers are deeply unpopular. Gove? Prick. Osborne? Posh twat and rightfully booed at the Paralympics. Lansley? Hated by NHS employees and for good reason.They seem to lurching the nation from one fuck-minded idea to the next, without barely noticing the effect it's having (devaluing GCSEs, destroying the NHS, putting a homoeopathy advocate in charge of health). But let's just think for a second, the Tories didn't actually win the election outright, so the LibDems are in that cabinet room too. Imagine how bad things would be if they had free reign. I'm not saying they've really gone on to achieve much (stop sniggering at the back about the voting referendum), but they are there and they're stopping things getting really getting out of hand. Really they are. Cameron also knows that if he does something to upset them and they leave, then he's going to be in a right mess.

My second reason why I'd vote LibDem again is much more simple. In 2010 my constituency had a swing away from the Conservatives for the first time in a long time, due to the LibDem vote. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I'd actually been quite cleaver in voting tactically in a constituency that would never vote a Labour MP.

Oh and my third bonus reason for voting LibDem again is this: look at Labour. 

Olympics

The idea of national pride in the UK has been so fractured over the past fifty years that we have lost sense of who we are. The Britain that people like the Daily Mail will try and push you is a green and pleasant land, where people still work in pits and car factories. Making things. We used to be good at making things, they say. We drink tea and have a queen. We used to have an Empire and a massive Navy. Spitfires and maypoles. Stiff upper lip and all that. But the fact is, we lost this identity years ago; and since it was still being pushed to us as the general idea of ‘Britishness’ we’ve grown to loathe it, and hence ourselves. Even worse, this concept has been seized by hateful organisations such as the BNP and EDL in an attempt to falsely convince us of who we are. Throw in a complete economic crash, riots and the election of a Conservative government with a man who many believe was found originally as a lizard like creature on one of Saturn’s moons in charge, our sense of already thin national identity had become rock bottom. But then we had an Olympics.

Cynicism before the Olympics was very high, Lord Coe and his bunch maintained they were going to put on a hell of a show but still they were often shot down. As the old cliché goes, it’s easy to look back with hindsight but it is possible to see where the critics were coming from.  Exactly a year previously rioting had broken out in London, the worse the capital had seen for years; public spending was (and still is) being slashed left right and centre and, worst of all, in the weeks leading up to the games a number of minor disasters occurred – including the G4S scandal.

But during Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, as we sat and watched and tweeted and texted each other in awe, all that washed away. We fell in love with ourselves again. But this time it wasn’t the tea drinking, stiff-upper lip Britain of before; this was modern Britain. Proper Britain. This was the Britain I was always proud of, but no one else seemed to be. A country where I can openly criticize my government (or call my leader a lizard creature from one of Saturn’s moons) without fear of repercussions. Where we allow thousands of migrants and refugees to leave their harsh lives behind and make a new fresh start. Where all religions, ever since Victorian times, can be openly practised and preached. Where good healthcare is not a privilege of the rich, but a right of everyone. A Britain that has created some of the greatest art, literature, poetry, music, theatre and film the world has ever seen. And a Britain that roared with pride at a Somalian-born, Muslim immigrant winning his second long distance gold medal of the games.Farah was asked at a press conference at the games by, I think, an Australian journalist why he chose to run for Britain instead of Somalia. What he said back will surely become part of British sporting folklore, ‘Look mate, this is my country. This is where I grew up, this is where I started life. This is my country and when I put on my Great Britain vest I'm proud. I'm very proud.’

And these words, spoken by a British, Somalian-born, Muslim who has become a national hero for me sum up every reason why I, yes, actually do feel proud to be British after all.

A Day Without Opinion

Way back in 2000 (yes it was twelve years ago), I can remember watching a breakfast television news report. It was probably on something really meaningless because, let's face it, at the turn of the millennium we had a Labour government that seemed to actually be doing something...well...good, no one had heard of quantitative easing, 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan hadn't happened yet, rock music was still in the UK Top 40 and everyone was doing jolly well for themselves - not aware of the fact their reckless spending and accumulation of debt was going to force us all into financial oblivion. I was only 9 at the time, so my vision of 'the year 2000' (as it was still then known) may be a little skewed, but I also know it was meaningless because it was on GMTV; sadly now defunct.

Anyway after the news report had finished, the presenter then asked us, the audience, to text in 'our thoughts'. Wow...wait hold up! You want our thoughts? The general public? That's taking a bit of a gamble isn't it? And thus one or two people text in with some odd opinions, as they a. had a mobile phone capable of text messages (this is 2000 remember) and b. had nothing else to do at 7.45 in the morning.

I bet you had one of these didn't you? My highscore on Snake was something like 430. 

Now let's hit 88mph and come back into 2012, and all of a sudden everyone is commenting everywhere. Twitter is the main culprit of course, and you can't get up in the morning without checking your smartphone and having several vaguely famous people's opinions shoved down your throat over whether or not David Cameron's cat is evil...or something. Frankly, Twitter, and loads of other online forums and blogs, are fantastic. (On a slight side note however, it does worry me how lazy journalists seem to relay everything that has been said by someone on Twitter - especially if it is even remotely controversial).

But the problem with all these opinions is that your mind is constantly bombarded with them all the time, and simply cannot cope. The worst culprits for this are the online newspaper comments pages, from The Guardian, to the always entertaining and enraging Mail Online. And that's before we even dive into online forums, the murky waters of YouTube and countless other websites where Web 2.0 long outlived its cliche.

So how about a day where we can just switch off? Just for 24 hours shut Twitter down, so that random people can't abuse random celebrities (how to they actually get away with that?). Just one day to close down YouTube comments so that you can watch the video to A-ha's 'Take on Me' in peace without all the probable racist, homophobic and idiotic comments underneath. A day without having to be enraged by a Daily Mail online post that's been linked to you.

Yes we'll hate it. And I'd be one of those howling the most. But after just one meager, insignificant day (say some random Thursday in February so it doesn't clash with anything significant) thinking just for ourselves, we'll probably feel a lot better for it.