5 Reasons Cricket is Better Than Football

1.The Games Last For Fucking Ages

 

A test match lasts for 5 days which is longer than most relationships I’ve had.  You simply can’t beat the drama of long sporting contests, games with more twists and turns than a one-legged Morris dancer. 

To be fair, you do get that with some football matches but you certainly can’t fall asleep, go to work, lose your job, get a new one, have a shave, get divorced, do a big shop, have another shave, give birth, and then return to the match to see you’ve not actually missed anything.

2.Respect for Officials

Everyone uses Rugby as their example for how a referee should be respected but in the last Ashes tour Ricky Ponting was fined a load of money for talking to the umpire. 

Talking.  Not shouting.  Not screaming. Talking.

Oh, and he wagged his finger at him too.  The filthy animal.
 

3.The Commentary

The BBC’s Test Match Special is where it’s at.  I’ve spent days at a time listening to every single ball.  For this winter’s Ashes tour they’re even replaying the commentary from the previous night so you can listen to it as-live the next day. 

Why?  Because we will listen.  The warmth between former players from opposite sides oozes out of the speakers and when not focussed on the sport, they talk at great length about cakes that people have baked them.  And somehow, it’s fascinating.

Imagine listening to Alan Green or Clive Tyldesley for five days.  Demand for the Samaritans would go through the roof as people jumped off theirs.

I’ve never been to Guantanamo Bay (although I have stayed in a Travel Lodge) but they could do a lot worse than using the above as a sure-fire route to extracting information from suspects.

“Forget the waterboarding, Johnson.  This guy won’t crack for that.  Bring me the Tyldesley / Beglin commentary from the 2003 Group G scoreless draw between Manchester United and Basel...LOOPED EDITION!”

Instant confession. 

 

4.You Can Drink In The Stands

This feels odd when you arrive for most games around 10.30am and dive straight into the ale.  I was looking round for someone to throw me out but all I could see were lots of happy, friendly people drinking pints.  It seemed out of context, responsible adults enjoying alcohol together?  In public?   And  no-one’s been glassed?!?

The closest it came to kicking off was when two stag do’s morphed into a mega-do like a bunch of Jaeger-fuelled Power Rangers and started piling all their empty (plastic) pint glasses on top of each other to ‘feed the snake’. 

Hardly The Football Factory is it?

(By the way, I normally wish nothing but haemorrhoids on stag parties in fancy dress, but to the lads dressed as gorillas who spent half the day chasing their banana-clad stag, I doff my cap.)

5.We’re Quite Good At It

However you argue it, the England football team have failed other than in 1966 when a home crowd and dodgy decision got them over the line.  Two semi final defeats to Germany in 1990 and 1996 apart, they’ve been consistently shite.

Despite being recently given the kind of seeing-to by the Aussies normally reserved for a prison shower, the England Cricket team however are quite good in the scheme of things.  Mainly because there are only eight Test-playing nations and two of them are utter cack. 

And when you break it down we only really need to be better than Australia and everything is okay.

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5 Ways To Dump Someone

1.Try To Make Them Do It.

You need to get creative with this one.  No point just taking up smoking or biting your nails like Chandler Bing.  You MUST commit to behaviour that forces their hand.  Try bringing in dead garden birds as a present for them, or spitting on their food to ‘help the masturcation process.’

But remember you only want to stop them liking you, not get sectioned, so think twice before you do anything too weird and off-putting like shitting in the fridge or wearing Lynx. 

2.It’s Not You It’s Me

“I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together, and you know, that long weekend in Grimsby to meet your parents was a real delight.  But I’m at a place in my life where I’m happy with myself, and I think it would be unfair to lead you on as you're an amazing human being and you deserve someone’s full affections.”

Translation:  “I REALLY NEED YOU TO FUCK OFF RIGHT NOW, JUST PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT, OKAY?”

 

3.Send Them A Quick Text

Texting someone to split up with them is certainly a cowardly way to do it (especially if they’re in the same house and / or room) but it’s undoubtedly effective.  Not only are you able to get your message across in a concise and easy to digest format, but the lucky recipient will have such a low opinion of you following this that they will probably realise that staying with you would be a mistake of Eldorado-proportions.

NOTE: Be sure to check your tariff first as it may be cheaper to simply drop them a quick email.

4.Wait For Them To Die

A more common game plan than you realise, this requires a lot of patience but is often the most rewarding as you’ll get to keep the house. 

Be aware, there’s a high probability that they’ll be using the same tactic with you.  Good luck!

 

 

5.Ignore Them

If you don’t have the guts for any of the above, just disappear off the grid completely.  Get a new identity.  Change your face, get kidnapped.   

Just make sure if you go to the effort of falling down a Chilean mine that you don’t become worldwide celebrities following your release as that will be certain to throw a bollock in the works.

Of course, you could just be honest with them.  But who wants to do that?

 

 

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...about Song Endings

1. The Rock and Roll Finish (Strokus Cockus)

This is the way that real men end their songs. It’s simply not enough to write a melody and a beat, then add some lyrics over the top. That’s for girls.

Normally it’s the drummer who starts one of these. Not happy sitting at the back and keeping to the beat, this is him cycling past a group of hot chicks and popping a wheelie on his Raleigh Chopper. It’s pointless, self-indulgent and brilliantly awful.

The best ones add a verve and energy that’s necessary for the song, because there’s frankly no other way out.

The worst ones change key half way through, refusing to budge like that mould on your backyard fence. If you’re really unlucky, a 4-minute bass solo will sprout up from it like a disgusting, phallic-shaped toadstool.

2. The Fade Out (Disappearus Patheticus)

This is the cowards way out. If you can’t be bothered to think up an actual proper end, don’t just turn the volume down you lazy rotters. (Somewhere in this universe there’s a ghoulish netherworld where Paradise City just peters out with a wet, pathetic fade...)

It’s a good job film directors don’t have the same lackadaisical attitude. What if The Godfather has just faded to black before the end? Imagine The Shawshank Redemption ending with Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones declaring that “Andy Dufresne suddenly woke up and it had all been a crazy dream.”

If you start something, finish it properly. People who fade out their songs are the same people who abandon their kids.

3. The False Ending (Endinga Interruptus)

“What shall we do at the end?”

“Right guys, let’s just keep playing this same riff for AGES. Then when it’s time to stop, we’ll carry on for a bit longer. Then it’ll be definitely time to stop but that’s what the kids will be expecting so we’ll do the opposite and keep playing it! What? No, the same riff! Yeah, that really shit riff that I was just talking about! Keep playing it again and again.”

“Then, we’ll stop. Suddenly. And as we can hear everyone breathe a sigh of relief that it’s over, we’ll start it up again!”

The false ending is the bore at your party who takes ages to leave, and then comes back because he’s forgotten his coat.

(NOTE: None of the above applies if you shout, ‘Wham-bam, thank-you mam’ before the riff to Suffragette City restarts. Obviously.)

4. Fade Out, Fade Back In, Then Fade Out Again (Evilearus Maximus)

Combining two of the worst ways to end a song is an odd choice and always sounds like a stray cat has flounced across the mixing desk.

As Neil Young once famously quipped, ‘it’s better to burn out out than to fade out, fade back in and then fade out again’ although this was probably in reference to his hair dye.

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others by The Smiths actually begins like this and I like to enhance my enjoyment by imagining Morrissey and Marr exchanging Chinese burns in the studio over their disagreement of the final mix.

But I’ll let them off with that because I’m a hypocrite.

5. The Please Mix Me Finish (Biggus Deckus)

I know pretty much every house tune ends with a singular beat but there’s nothing quite as desperate as a spectacularly mediocre dance track that starts to throw all sorts of crazy noises at you as it enters the home straight.

It may as well jump off the turntable and start running hands down it’s body while giving you the eye.

Go on you dirty boy. Mix me. Or I will die.

But there’s something darkly satisfying about leaving the beat to thump itself out into eerie silence like the death rattle of an attention seeking Tamagotchi.

Now, please excuse me while I go and twat a load of cymbals and waggle my head around a bit...



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...about Las Vegas





1. THE BUFFETS

I love food.  The taste, the texture, the smell.  Most of all, I love the quantity.  I’m not a fat man but I plan to be.

Not tubby, portly or big-boned either.  My goal is cut-me-out-of-the-house-while-filming-me-for-Channel-5 fat. 

The only buffets I’m used to are the rancid Chinese all-you-can-eats in the UK.  Comparing a Vegas buffet to ‘Noodle In The Haystack’ on the High Street is unfair, like putting Vladimir Klitschko in the ring with a wet dog. 

We queued for 20 minutes TO GET IN.  Like a theme park, excitement built as we moved towards the front of the queue, eagerly nudging each other as punters staggered out looking shellshocked and bereft of their faculties.

“Did you see him?  He looked close to puking!”

“I know!  This place is gonna be awesome!”

I went off to fill my first plate and got lost on the way back.  Ended up hanging out with some American chap near the cakes who said he was ‘losing his fucking mind’ in this joint.

When you’re full to the gullet with grease and guilt, it’s time to carry on eating.  After all, you’ve only had 3 plates and you haven’t visited the deep fried fat fuck face section yet. 

So you haul yourself back to the counters, wiping chicken skin and cornflakes away from your tear-stained chins, like a shell-shocked veteran being called back for one last tour of duty. 

“Breakfast pizza?  But that’s ridiculous!” you loudly exclaim to no-one in particular, as you slide 4 slices of the shit onto your creaking plate, more to hide the kung-pow chicken and lasagne that you’re eating at 10am than anything.

In the midst of the madness I noticed one man stood still, quietly waiting, his plate empty.  Who was this maverick?  Like the girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List, I couldn’t take my eyes off this pioneer, this beacon of hope.

He was the shape and size of something massive.  But calm and static.  At least his body was.  As my gaze moved up to his sizeable bonce, I could see his lips and tongue were salivating like a faulty prison shower head.  This man was on to something.

I formed a queue behind him.  I could smell what I thought was bbq chicken.  Or was it his arse? 

The guy behind the counter eventually brought out some deep-fried crap fritters the size of my head and I went to sit down and think about what I’d done.
(The crab fritters were lovely.)

       2. GAMBLING

Going to Vegas and not gambling would be like going to Faliraki and not getting a disease.  It’s what the place is built on, along with sand and loads of murders.

The Casinos care about your welfare too, proven by the sign ‘1-800-GAMBLE-AWARE’ placed prominently at knee-level in the darkest corner of the place. 

If you don’t know what you’re doing but want to pretend you’re Bond in Casino Royale, you need to get yourself on the $5 blackjack tables that are advertised everywhere.  Problem is, there’s hardly any of them so when you do find one it’s surrounded by desperate, clueless punters like yourself, all waiting for one of the players to run out of chips, which never happens because they’re cheap as, erm, you know...chips. 

Sorry.

So you end up nervously approaching the $10 table knowing that you could be out within a minute and quietly hoping you can sit next to the guy with the ten gallon hat.  Generally the atmosphere is jovial and friendly although one gentleman became quite agitated with my cavalier and uneducated style and decided to bow out of our game while muttering several expletives. 

Tit.

       3. FREE DRINKS

“Ooh, if you’re gambling they give you free drinks in Vegas!”

This is true if you’re American and accordingly drink at an amateurs pace.  If you’re British you’ll be much more accustomed to necking your second while ordering your third, to maximise the time available to talk utter horse bollocks. 

No doubt if you’re a high roller at the $1000 roulette wheel you can fill yourself up on fine cognac, but if you’re 65% scumbag like me you’ll end up sitting at the 25 cents video poker, craning your neck to get the waitresses attention like a meercat with ADHD.

You place your order and then the real game begins.  Can I make this game last till the waitress returns with my beverage?  I’ve done some awful things to fill this window from classic sporting stall tactics (tying my laces, faking cramp) to actually spunking another $50 away in order to claim my ‘free’ drink.

It’s a false economy folks.  Almost as if the multi-billion dollar casinos are smart to it.

4. HOTELS

Nothing can prepare you for the size of the hotels in Vegas.  Our car pulled up outside and I felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi when he first sees the Death Star.

“That isn’t a star!  That’s the MGM Grand!’

(By the way, don’t try and be all Motley Crue and book a limo from the airport to the strip like we did.  It’s about 3 minutes away.)

We checked in and were given our room keys and a map.  Not of the surrounding area, but so we could find our room.  We got lost and asked someone who told us we were now in the wrong hotel.

In the end we parked our suitcases at a bar and decided to order a drink.  The guy next to me was drinking this mammoth glass of beer so I asked him what it was in my quintessentially English voice that I adopt when speaking to Americans.

“Excuse me good sir!  Could you, pray tell, inform me as to whether the receptacle you are enjoying said beverage from is indeed a litre or perchance a two pint glass?”

He looked at me like I was E.T. and shouted in my face, “THAT’S A BIG ASS MOTHERFUCKER, THAT’S WHAT THAT IS!”

“Two of those please, barman...”

      5. THE DESERT

It’s easy to forget just where you are when in Vegas.  It’s hot and sunny so you need to wear suncream.

YOU’RE IN THE DESERT, REMEMBER?

Don’t walk down the strip without suncream on.  Don’t stay in the desert sun for 3 hours with nothing to cover your balding head.  Don’t drink $3 daquiri’s while proclaiming, ‘God, it’s lovely and warm here, isn’t it?’

THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE IN THE FUCKING DESERT. 

As a Brit I decided to ignore all the evidence of this around me and rather than cover up, simply take on the midday desert sun.   I’m not sure who won, but I had plenty of time to ponder this thought as I spent the evening refereeing a new contest to see which end of my body could project the most fluid.

DESERT ONE, HUMAN NIL.

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