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We used to moan about winter. Winter didn’t give a shit.
In fact winter didn’t even know we were there because it was night-time. It’s always night-time in winter. That’s the main thing we used to moan about. After about 15 years of raging against the tilt of the Earth, we realised that we weren’t achieving much and so we resolved to try and make the best of things. Darker beers and Sunday roasts is pretty much all we’ve come up with, but at least it’s a start.
The point is, there comes a point where you just have to accept that things are out of your hands and that you’re only succeeding in making yourself more miserable with your constant complaining. There’s a lot of ranting about Alastair Cook these days; about how he can’t bat at any great pace, how he only ever seems to score 32 runs and how this means England can’t win the World Cup. But you can muster as much outrage as you like – nowt’s changing.
England supporters are beginning to delight in their team’s failures, gathering a big stack of evidence to support their rightness about Cook’s wrongness. But what for? For a massive, gold standard ‘I told you so’ come the World Cup?
We’ve always had a general philosophy that if you’re playing for England, we’ll support you. Sometimes we forget, but we’re going to try and keep that sentiment in mind for the next couple of months. The Cook battering’s kind of become a thing in itself and even if we agree with many of the sentiments, it’s getting a bit tiresome and it’s not really achieving anything.
We like the World Cup, we’d like to see England do reasonably well and Alastair Cook will be the captain, so we’re kind of hoping he finds some mediocre form and can at least do his bit. If you set the bar low enough, you’ll realise there are occasional nice days in winter.
I don’t like ODIs, Cook, or the World Cup, so I’ll continue to moan until the Tests start again in April.
And I’d rather have a gold ‘I Told You’ star than England win the World Cup. I don’t want Cook doing anything beyond opening in Tests and anything that facilitates that end gets my approval.
I really don’t give two hoots about the World Cup. I didn’t even care in 1992. But it will be funny when we lose to Scotland. That’s all I’m really looking forward to.
I will probably continue to moan during the Tests, too, as is my wont.
I am firmly rooting for The Republic Of Elbonia. Of all nations, that’s the one that’s given me my morning laughs via Dilbert. If they don’t win the World Cup, I’ll assert it’s only because they weren’t given the chance. I’ve grown from supporting one’s own country (parochial) to being global (but liberals piss me off too) to being aligned along the imaginary axis. There’s no problems here, because it’s all ‘i’.
The Republic of Elbonia attack is surely populated by chuckers.
If you want something proper and important to moan about instead, India picked their 30 probables for the World Cup today.
Now, plenty of old heroes left out, Sehwag and Yuvraj among them. But most pressingly, how on Earth can you be a probable is there is theoretically more than a 50% chance that you won’t get picked?
And they can’t be possibles because all the other players are technically still possibles as well.
India yesterday named their 30 slightly-more-likelys.
Don’t give up, KC. That’s just what winter was waiting for. You need to campaign not just for removal of the tilt, but for a circumstance where the axis of rotation always points to a fixed position located a considerable distance “north” of the sun along a line perpendicular to the ecliptic. That way the North Pole will always lean towards the sun, and we will have permanent summer. More importantly of course, Australia will have permanent winter.
Imagine the effect this would have on society. Our cricketers could play and practice at home for 12 months of the year , whereas the Australians would only be able to practice indoors. And as a bonus, all the problems with global warming would stop, because the ice would increase at the South Pole. It would melt at the North Pole, of course, but that’s where it is already floating and thus not having any effect on sea level (thanks Archimedes). So that’s two things it would be good for.
I realise that this scenario would require a constant external moment being applied to the Earth, but surely if rocket science is useful for anything at all, it is for this.
How hard can the application to the Earth of a constant external moment possibly be? It’s not brain surgery, after all.
Permanent summer, or permanent daytime? Or both?
Just permanent summer. Let’s not get ridiculous.
Christmas.
Oh yes, sure, it’s fashionable to be a grumpy old git who doesn’t like Christmas, or who condemns it for being massively commercialised, but hey – massive roasts! Pigs in blankets! Mulled wine/cider! Excessive amounts of chocolate! Glitzy decorations!
Just stay away from relatives outside the immediate nuclear family and you’re good.
The last line is solid year-round advice. No reason to follow it for just Christmas.
No need to restrict…
…”massive roasts! Pigs in blankets! Mulled wine/cider! Excessive amounts of chocolate!”…
…merely to Christmas/winter.
No, I’m afraid as I get older I find myself increasingly irritated by things such as winter and stubborn/lunatic cricket team selection.
Fine analogy, KC, but not one to cheer up your more seasoned readers.
Unlike explosives, families can be both nuclear and conventional at the same time. However, when considering the mess they make of your house, families and explosives are very similar.
Ged, considering that I get most of my mulling from pubs, which are not inclined to mull outside the Christmas season, I will defend that particular point.
I will also add log fires (for those not in London), the office getting slightly more relaxed and party-ish, and laughing at people who have forgotten their umbrellas, to the pleasures of winter.
You’re going to the wrong pubs, man!