Tough luck, Tom Watson, at the Turnberry Open, but if you wanted real-deal sporting thrills and spills this weekend you should have been at Congham, Norfolk for the World Snail Racing Championships (The French are also-rans: they eat their competitors.) It’s bright and breezy July morning, and instead of taking the 13 or 82 bus I’m going to walk to Lord’s; a final pilgrimage of a five day test.
Albion Underground regrets to announce significant delays to the arrival of the next wicket on the Victory Line.
This is due to engineering works not following on and proceeding as expected, although we are doing as much as we can to rectify the situation by deployment of a new ball.
However Albion Underground would like to make [...]
I tell a lie. Yesterday there were kids at the ground. About a dozen seats down from me in the upper tier of the Edrich stand after lunch a young boy gripped and polished his brand new MCC ball as though he was opening the England attack from the Nursery End. Never mind the ball was doubtless made on the Indian sub-continent, probably by a boy or girl about as young and quite possibly for the sweatiest of sweat shop wages.
ethereal, a slight aromatic
adrift in time, fainter than dew
left after blades flens sward
before its possibility
earlier days’ traces linger;
stale ales, linament,
sweat and certified under-arm deodorant
fails to mask an exotic musk,
rare even to memories, dreams
beyond experience
sniffed with leather
when it edges their bats
or pummelled by ours;
with luck to taste on lips
as they lick fingers
before each dries with anxiety
you’ll [...]
At ten-thirty today I’m to be interviewed by Ronnie Barber of BBC Radio about what words poets don’t like. Any that end in -ly except sly, since they’re adverbs which means the verb isn’t doing its job well enough, and generally used by politicians and the like to evade rather than seek truth and meaning [...]
It is one of those days: from the top of a 13 bus observe the increasing pavement rain dapples down the Finchley Road. Nearly didn’t get this far as a silver Honda Jazz driven by a bitch of a silver-haired hag tried to total me crossing the road just because she wanted to turn right [...]
Brother Ben,
Life brings its own frustrations.
Eyes beseech the heavens
Leaves all in place as before.
Thy task is to dismiss by thine own labours
Without pleas to those with especial powers
To do thy humble work towards dismissal.
Here endeth the elders’ epistle:
Success shall come,
You leave no margin for error,
They shall succumb,
Thy will be done. ‘Tis enough,
Virtue is its own reward [...]
Play starts too soon,
too soon play starts.
Check pads, bat, box ‘n’ gloves
are where you last left them,
stretch legs, arms, tendons
and tie up laces again.
Re-adjust eyes to the light,
roll-up sleeves not too tight,
hitch up your whites
but try to forget
how play ended last night
for today’s the deepest of breaths
that flutter by -
- nervily.
after original ‘If I were [...]
On the way here a bus advertised the remake of Taking Pelham 1,2,3 where a runaway NY subway train has to be, well taken. Which is the task facing the England attack, Taking Aussies 1,2,3.
to stand in judgement upon others
to view impartially
to assess the evidence
in the blink of a moment
before accession or denial of appeal
without expert witnesses
cross-examination
advice taken in chambers
whatever’s laid bare in camera
our aim is simple
to make most perfect the verdict
from the most imperfect of tasks
until all decisions are good
however badly they may be taken
on the occasion of [...]
