Public Information

Fantasy Bob has spotted an opportunity for cricketers to help the present emergency. 

He noticed how Indian spin bowler Ravichandran Ashwin  joined the campaign to stress the seriousness of the Indian Government's lockdown. 

Ashwin exploited his infamous Mankadding of  Jos Buttler during last season's IPL to plead with his countrymen to stay in their crease on penalty of something worse than being run out.

Because all of a sudden public information and public service announcements are back in vogue.  The Chief Medical Officer solemnly intones in the space where only 2 weeks ago daytime TV viewers were being seduced by the delights of a Fred Olsen Cruise.   Social media platforms are awash with keep safe messages.

The clock has turned back.  FB is of the age that he can remember the hayday of public service announcements.  When ITV was a new kid on the block, each ad break would feature exhortations to the watching public across a range of worthy subjects.  Learning to swim (one such ad was fronted by Rolf Harris - a rather uncomfortable thought in the light of more recent revelations); to cross the road safely; to wear something white at night; to get the strength of insurance around them; and perhaps most famously to hear Jimmy Saville urging us to clunk-click every trip.  FB can't help wondering whether it was an accident that Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris were engaged in these advertisements?  No wonder they went out of fashion.

Crossing a road Keegan style
 (the jacket would make any driver
slam on the brakes)

Sportspersons occasionally lent their celebrity to these advertisements - Kevin Keegan helping lads cross the road safely, David Wilkie (in the skimpiest speedos) encouraging kids to swim, even Jimmy Hill asking drivers to think once, think twice think bike, reminding drivers that a motor bike might be in the blind spot.

But FB can find no trace of cricketers being used in such campaigns.  He has a vague memory that Ian Botham had a spell on road safety duties, but he has been unable to trace any record of it. FB must be mistaking a zebra crossing for Shredded Wheat - an easy mistake to make.

Now Ashwin has shown the way.  It is a new age.  FB looks forward to the likes of Joe Root or Ben Stokes lending their celebrity to help their fellow citizens.  Stay at home, says Stokes who knows what dangers are out there in the streets at night; don't flirt with danger, says Root who knows to well what happens on following temptation outside the offstump.