Like most wild animals, The Barmy Army are generally best viewed from afar – ideally on television or at the very least with some sort of robust barrier between you and them.
They can also be very funny.
Australians sometimes struggle to comprehend that the same bounce that can make life difficult for visiting batsmen also means that a lot of deliveries will go over the stumps.
Steve Smith frittered his reviews away, failing to learn this lesson. When Australia next appealed for LBW, the Barmy Army did this at him.
A reason why the The Barmy Army are the best fans in the world ????
Steve Smith has used up all of his reviews and they love it…so does Joe Root ????#Ashes
???? BT Sport 1 HD pic.twitter.com/2BBydfXJfM
— The Ashes on BT Sport (@btsportcricket) December 5, 2017
What? There is no humour here. The Barmy Army have the advantage of being shit-faced, so they have no real understanding of the tension, but for the rest of us this is no time for jokes.
Clearly Australia are going to win. If we hadn’t lost that last wicket we would have been fine. But we did lose that last wicket, so we’re going to lose.
Definitely going to lose. Definitely.
Planning to go to sleep assuming England will have lost by the time we wake up – and judging by last night, we expect to be woken around 4am.
Definitely going to lose.
Absolutely no point entertaining any other possibility. That would be at best fanciful, more accurately deluded fantasy.
Going to lose.
Totally game over. They’ve got too many runs. England have lost too many wickets. That’s how it works. We lose our wickets before we get our runs then we lose. And that’s it. We’re all out – game over. That’s what will happen. Not enough wickets left and the runs that are too many. Too many runs and when we’re out, we’ll not have got more than them so that’s a loss. Then we’ve lost. Definitely lost – once we’re all out. Without scoring their runs. I need to sleep.
Dear Uncle KC and contributors,
I have a question on behalf of a confused and bewildered friend which I’d like…I mean he would like…you to answer for me…I mean him.
If someone abandons all hope about something, is it possible (by which I mean logically possible) for that person to regain hope for that thing, or does the abandonment mean, by definition, that hope for that thing can never be regained?
Further (I have a supplementary question), if it is logically possible for me…I mean my friend…to regain hope, is it psychologically or in any practical way sensible for me…I mean him…to do so?
After all, the cognitive dissonance caused when an eternal optimist abandons all hope is quite extreme. Goodness knows what might happen if hope were to be regained, only then for those same hopes to be dashed once again.
In short, should I just tell myself…I mean my friend…that England are definitely going to lose?
Hope can hibernate, lying dormant until such a time as there are green shoots.
[Starts writing blog post].
Hope is Japanese Knotweed.
Hope is a nasty fungal infection.