Scarlet

Scarlett with clothes on

Scarlett O'Hara's nude photographs have been hacked and are now viewable on every street corner.   Fantasy Bob perplexed, he is an avid fan of the great movie Gone With the Wind but he cannot recall seeing mobile phones in use, far less any nudity particularly of its heroine.


The US Civil War is the background to the story of Gone With the Wind.  The Civil War was the cause of many tragedies, one relatively unacknowledged is the impact it had on the development of cricket in the US.  Before the war it was estimated that over 10,000 Americans played cricket; in 1859 the National Cricket Association had been founded and George Parr's All England XI has visited America and Canada as part of the first ever such international sporting tour.  In 1860 the Gentlemen of Ireland toured.  The racial politics that led ultimately to the Civil War also affected cricket - for in 1858 black professionals in California left for Victoria in Canada following state legislation on slavery.

So it was all bubbling nicely even though base ball was developing at the same time.  But the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 put a damper on the game's development.   The war uprooted men from their homes and leisure was scarce. Pitches fell into disrepair and it also became very difficult bring cricket gear and equipment from England.   By contrast, the simpler structures of baseball suited war-time. It was quick, easy to learn, and required little in the way of equipment or facilities.  The Civil War also ended the touring by English teams for the duration.   Instead, English tours focused on Australia (the first one in 1861 and later on in 1863) thereby popularizing the game down under.  

Not thinking of cricket

After the war, while there was a bit of a resurgence of cricket, the dam had been breached and it was baseball that became the national sport. Even then the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball’s first professional team consisted mainly of cricketers. In fact, when Red Stockings and Athletics toured England in 1864, they played both baseball and cricket.

Gone With the Wind is a truly great movie, with huge performances by great actors and a wholly wonderful score by Max Steiner.  But now FB understands it better.  The film opens with the following narration:

'There was a land of cavaliers and cotton fields called the old South.  Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave.  Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...'

The conventional reading is that this a lament for a past way of life of deference and servitude where everyone knows their place.  How wrong can you be?  It is clearly a lament for the loss of cricket as the US's national game.  FB is grateful to Scarlett O'Hara for baring her all and drawing attention to this piece of history.

Frankly my dear, there'll be no Test cricket from now on.......

Swanee

Swann waits to be told
 if he is to get the captaincy

Fantasy Bob shares the national rejoicing in the elevation of Graeme Swann to the position of captaincy of England T20 team for next week's matches against W Indies. No one is exactly sure why these matches are occurring but that should not detract from Swann's honour.  He is the fifth skipper to lead England this year and will bring his extensive leadership experience gained from the Northants 2nd XI and Midlands under 14s  to the fore. 

Swann's merits go beyond his top notch offspin and his committed batting, since he is the recognised jokester and tweetster supreme of English cricket.  Would he continue the clowning?  Swann told reporters that, 'I  think [the jokes] will stop to a certain extent who see me on the field realise I'm not that funny out there anyway - I'm as grumpy as anyone - so I'll probably have to lighten up if anything.'  This could be Fantasy Bob speaking - not the funny bit obviously, but the grumpy bit definitely.  Few would have thought it possible for FB to be outgrumped - they may be about to be proved wrong.  Whether Swan will tweet his fielding changes to his players rather than use more conventional means of communication remains to be seen.

A song about off spin

So good luck to Swanny next week.  In 1919 George Gershwin presaged this great event by writing his song Swanee.  This was Gershwin's first big hit and is most strongly associated with Al Jolson.  Legend has it that Gershwin and lyricist Irving Caesar wrote the song on the bus home through Manhattan.  No one knows how they came to fix on an English sportsman who had not been born yet and who would play in a game with which they were hugely unfamiliar as the subject of a song.   That is one of the great mysteries of art.  This is also Gerswin's only cricket song.

Gershwin went on to true greatness - as will Swanny, if he is not there already.  He was 21 when he wrote Swanee.  He died tragically young 18 years later from a brain tumour.  In those years his work fused classical and jazz traditions and delivered a string of highly distinctive hit songs that are still as fresh and inventive as the day they tripped off the piano in Gershwin's apartment.  He is the David Gower of song writers with grace, flair and easy talent to burn.    His influence on Amercian music and popular music remains profound.  The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song was inaugurated in 2007 and is given to a composer or performer for their lifetime contribution to popular music.  Paul McCartney was the most recent recipient.  Previous winners were Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.  Brian Wilson has just released an album of his interpretations of Gershwin standards.  Form is temporary but class is eternal.

George Gershwin gets to grips with scoring

Here is FB's Gershwin First XI

Summertime
The Man I Love
Embraceable You
They Can't Take That Away From Me
Lady Be Good
I Got Rhythm
Love Walked In
Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
Bess You Is My Woman Now
Someone To Watch Over Me
But Not For Me

Test Match Quality.

Tales of the Unexpected

Fantasy Bob supposes there are huts, and there are huts.  He does not have, nor has ever had, a hut. But he recognises that huts must be special places, for their huttiness if nothing else. 

Roald Dahl's hut - a snip at £500,000

Roald Dahl was not principally known as a cricketer, although as a schoolboy he excelled at several sports.  But he excelled even more at writing a long series of children's books and darkly quiry short stories.  Dahl had a hut and it is in the news.  There is a campaign to purchase it and rebuild it piece by piece as part of a Roald Dahl museum.  Apparently an appeal for £500,000 is being made to secure the services of this hut.  Despite FB's ignorance of the going rate for units of huttiness, this seems to him a bit steep - for a hut.

Masterwork

Nevertheless FB accepts that Roald Dahl is worthy of everyone's esteem and he wishes this appeal well.  Like most parents he has been eternally grateful for Dahl's works which have spellbound kids for many years.  It is a pity that Dahl did not give the world any tales about cricket which seems a fitting subject for his dry and unsentimental humour, perhaps his hut did not provide him enough space to practice his bowling action. 

FB's own favourite of Dahl's was the BFG - The Big Friendly Giant - which contains excellent jokes about farts. 'A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans?”  An audio book of this tale relieved many car journeys in Master FB's younger days that would otherwise have been filled with serial and repeated inquiries as to 'Are we there yet?'.  So the hut where this delightful tale and its companions started must be a special place - and its magic must be worth capturing.

FB has no hut in which he composes the masterpieces which appear on this blog.  But many other inspirational huts can be viewed in the hope that some of the creator's magic will rub off.  Gustav Mahler actually had 3 composing huts, so committed to huts was he. George Bernard Shaw was another huttophile and he famously named his hut London so visitors would be told on turning up in the hope of a net with the great man that he had gone to London.  But huts weren't for everyone, for example Richard Wagner was definitely not a hutty person - he couldn't compose his music unless surrounded by red velvet.

Mahler's composing hut at Steinbach

Perhaps the greatest hut based artist living these days is  Carlton's doughty but nameless groundsman.  Week by week the wickets he produces compare with any Renaissance or Romantic masterpiece. 

At the go-ahead Edinburgh club's Grange Loan HQ, there is a hut and there is a garage where this artist's masterpieces are devised.  Unassuming places though they are, they are no less worthy of recognition than the Dahl or the Mahler hut. They are still places of artistic endeavour but next century they will be places of pilgrimage. A blue plaque of some sort would seem to be the minimum recognition.  FB invites his readers to send him donations to make this a reality.  No donation is too large.

Que sera, sera

Doris Day's new album

Fantasy Bob pays tribute to Doris Day who at the youthful age of 87, has become the oldest artist to have an album in the top 10 featuring original material.   Good on you Doris knocking all the Gangsta Rap performers off their pedestals.  Not for nothing are you the biggest female box office star ever.

Sadly Doris Day's career had no contact with cricket.  This is remarkable since she was responsible for the song that sums up the batsman's feelings as the ball thumps against his front pad and full throated appeals are sounded all around.  'Que Sera Sera.  Whatever will be, will be.'  For some reason fatalistic batsmen did not take up the song, but the song did become the anthem of the poor misguided souls who form the band of supporters of the Scottish football team.  The song first featured in Alfred Hitchcock's film 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' - but given the Tartan Army's embrace of it, the film could be retitled The Men Who Knew Nothing At All.'

The Doris Day Appreciation Society

Whip crackaway

In FB's view, which counts for nothing at any time, Doris Day's other immortal hit is the 'Deadwood Stage' from Calamity Jane with its chorus of whip crackaway whip crackaway.  This song in praise of the dominatrix belied her innocent girl next door image. 

Among her long long list of movies, FB greatly enjoyed her co starring with Frank Sinatra in the greatly soppy and sentimental Young at Heart.  They just don't make movies like that anymore.  Tragic.

Doris Day has also been a long time and committed campaigner against cruelty to animals.  it is due to her that many movies feature in their title the legend 'No Doris Days suffered in the making of this motion picture.'  Regrettably her campaigning has not managed to stamp out the manifest cruelties imposed on incompetent batsmen such as FB.  Are they not properly to be considered members of the animal kingdom?  Come on Doris - there is still work for you to do. 

Overlooked

Once again Fantasy Bob has to come to terms with being overlooked for a position he seemed destined to fill.  No sooner has he got over his extreme disappointment of not featuring alongside Lulu and Edwina Currie in Strictly Come Dancing - or to put it another way, the mild disappointment of not featuring alongside Lulu and the extreme relief of not appearing alongside Edwina Currie - than he has to deal with the frustration of being ignored by the ICC Panel whose selection for the world ODI XI based on performances between August 2010 and 2011 has just been announced.

Lloyd says no to FB

FB accepts that the fact that he did not play any ODIs during the period in question, or indeed at any time in his ever lengthening career, may have swayed the panel unduly.  Nevertheless he hoped that they might adopt an imaginative approach to selection particularly since this XI will not have to play anyone so there is no risk of FB not being able to deliver.  FB suggests that his selection would have been a boost to senior cricketers everywhere who week in week out have to put up with the energy, athleticism and complete inability to score displayed by assorted junior members in their clubs' lower sides.  The ICC awards seem to ignore such important considerations.

Instead, the panel, headed by Sir Clive Lloyd and including Paul Adams, Mike Gatting, Danny Morrison and  Zaheer Abbas, played it safe and went for a majority of Indian and Sri Lankan names.   The chosen XI is:

Amla - average of 60.61 not good enough

Tillakaratne Dilshan, Virender Sehwag, Kumar Sangakkara, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (capt & wk),Graeme Swann, Umar Gul, Dale Steyn, Zaheer Khan, and 12th Man - Lasith Malinga

Not a bad side, and FB would be pleased to welcome most of them into his All Star 4th XI should they have a free weekend next season.  But even in this selection there are some surprises - particularly the omission of Hashim Amla who has carried all before him this year.   Strangely, he was also nominated as ODI player of the year, as was Gautam Gambhir who also failed to make the final XI.

No place for Sachin

There is of course the usual outburst from all Tendulkar supporters who are outraged at his omission from any award.  They have also complained that their hero failed to secure a nomination for the Mann-Booker prize last week.  Outrageous.

Tendulkar did make the ICC Test XI which was announced 2 weeks ago.  It is predictably and justifiably dominated by English players - 5 in all. 

Pre hair weave

Alastair Cook, Hashim Amla, Jonathan Trott, Sachin Tendulkar, Kumar Sangakkara (capt/wk), AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Dale Steyn, James Anderson, Zaheer Khan (12th man)

The only issue FB has with this selection - accepting that his own Text performances did not justify serious consideration - is with Sangakkara as wicket-keeper since he gave up keeping in Test matches several years ago.  On present form Matt Prior should be behind the stumps.  Batting Kallis at 7 seems a mild insult to such a great player - could it be a punishment for his hair transplant?

Who would be a selector - even of teams that aren't going to play.

The Ties That Bind



The
much coveted
Primary Club tie

 Fantasy Bob used to be a man for a tie.   For as Oscar Wilde remarked,  'A well tied tie is the first serious step in life.' A bit of colour and a Windsor or Albert knot was just the thing.  FB's wardrobe groaned under their weight, he had a tie for every day of the year and more.  Others might call this a collection.  But ties no longer seem so important, and these days, except in the most formal setting when a tone has to be set, he has all but forsaken the desire to don the neckwear.  FB is forced to agree with American journalist Linda Ellerbee who put it sharply 'If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties?  How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?'   So FB's once outstanding collection has been dispersed, mainly to local charity shops, except for a few essential remainders including that denoting membership of the Primary Club.

Nowadays FB's ties are as rare as a tied result in a cricket match.  It looks like everything is going to conspire to prevent India from winning any match this summer as the rain brought a confused end to the match at Lords in a tie.

A wet end to the 4th ODI

That tie was the 25th tied result in ODIs.  By some coincidence the most recent one was also an England v India match - their epic encounter in the World Cup in February.  2 ties in a year is becoming a habit.  Indeed England seem to be the tie specialists since out of the 6 ties in ODIs that there have been since 2003, they have been involved in 5 of them.

While this strike rate is still quite low, there have been nearly 3000 ODIs, it is still a more frequent occurrence than in Test cricket where there have been only 2 ties, both involving Australia and overall 60 in First Class cricket.  In addition, a Zimbabwe v England Test in 1996 was a draw with both sides having exactly the same number of runs.

Just as FB has never played cricket wearing a tie, he has never played in a tied match.  But some of FB's colleagues at Carlton were involved in tie this season when the 2nd XI ended up even with local rivals Watsonians.  Scores were even on the last ball with Watsonians having one wicket in hand - there was a run out of the last ball to tie the match.  Thrilling or what?  FB understands from the go ahead club's management team that they are thinking of designing a tie to commemorate it. 

Lulu

Fantasy Bob recognises that some among his 3 readers will find it hard to differentiate the Rugby World Cup and Strictly Come Scrumming, for both have just got underway.  He has every sympathy for their understandable confusion.

 Fantasy Bob suggests that perplexed readers should use the amount of sequins, false eyelashes and orange skin as a general guide to which competition they are watching at any one time.  These generally suggest the English Rugby XV is not on display.

A rare bird -
Scottish try scorer

Scottish cricketers will of course have their usual roller coaster experience in supporting Scotland's rugby team in their efforts.  From disaster to triumph to disaster is their usual trajectory.  This was evident in their first match against Roumania which they eventually won through the unusual tactic for Scotland of scoring tries.

England also looked unimpressive regularly tripping over themselves in the military two step with Argentina who tangoed with purpose.

Nevertheless English commentators have already decided that their besequined XV has won the tournament before it starts simply by playing Jonny Wilkinson.

Fantasy Bob has never watched Strictly Come Scrumming so he understands nothing about its format.  FB did  hold out hopes that he might be invited to appear on it this season - his Dashing White Sergeant at the Carlton ceilidh in May must have got him in the eye of the selectors, but it was not to be.  He was pipped by a number of people of whom he has never heard masquerading as celebrities.  FB has no idea which club these celebrities play for.

I'm a Tiger

But for once FB notes that there is some Scottish interest in Strictly Come Scrumming for the ever young Lulu is among those in the cast.  FB has heard of Lulu who is now old enough to be her granny, but is still going strong.  She shot up the charts in the 1960s with her celebrated version of Shout.  Big hits followed soon after including To Sir With Love and The Boat That I Row.  She won the Eurovision Test Match with Boom Bang a Bang - a classic of German leider Schubert's setting of a Goethe text.  But her biggest hit was 'Where did my Scottish accent go.'

Lulu also promotes a best selling range of anti-aging products.  FB is in discussion with her agents about the possibility of a sponsorship deal with his all star fourth XI several of whom could certainly use some anti-aging to make them more lively in the field.

Lulu also won the coveted Rear of the Year title in 1983.  No winner of that title has gone on to play a meaningful role in the Rugby World Cup.

So come on Lulu. Come on Scotland.