Disaster in Dubai

I have always been a lover of cricket, right back to the days when I saw Cyril Washbrook, Brian Statham and Roy Tattersall at Old Trafford but sometimes the England cricket team can make you want to weep and abandon the game for good. Today has been one of those days. England playing in Dubai against Pakistan lost the second test by 72 runs. Set to score 145 to win they were short by 72. They were all out for 72. This was pathetic beyond belief. Nine of their players — I cannot call them batsmen — compiled a grand total of 13 runs between them! Andrew Strauss was far and away the highest scorer with 32 and Prior made 18. The third highest scorer was Cook with 7. Of the other eight men who walked out onto the field kitted out as though they were going to play cricket, only one scored more than a single run. Four of them scored nil.

I was not there to watch this débâcle but let me quote someone who was. Geoff Boycott may be a bit of a misery guts but he does know a thing or two about cricket — and he has been around for a long time. Here's what he said on Test Match Special :

"I've seen some bad performances over the years but that's as bad as I've seen. I couldn't find any excuses and I wouldn't want to. They had to change the batting order, but to not be able to make 150? That was as bad as you could get. Rehman is an orthodox left-arm spinner, but he's not Hedley Verity or Derek Underwood. Monty [Panesar] bowled two people out by pitching leg and middle and hitting off, but I didn't see any of that from Rehman. They were missing straight balls. And Morgan? If he's a Test player, I'm going to eat that famous hat. You'd have to see it to believe how bad it was."

What can we say? A team that a few months ago was lauded as No1 in the world plays Pakistan on a dry dusty pitch and instantaneously becomes rubbish. They can complain about pitches and the weather and the bowlers but a test team that is incapable of doing better than this is still rubbish.

Michael Vaughan thinks this team has a problem against spinners. What, all of them? No, it's rubbish batting — if you can call it batting, even.

Mark Smith on the TMS In-Box said "I resign as an England supporter. This lot do not deserve fans."

He's not wrong.

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The Euro Is Dead! Long Live The Drachma!

Well, I suppose that we could have expected some great bad news on Friday 13th. And the bad news is just the bad news that we would have expected. Standard & Poor, the ratings agency has down-graded the ratings of nine countries in the euro zone, including France. Effectively Portugal with a BB rating is just one step above junk bond status, France and Austria become AA+ which is not too horrific but it will increase borrowing costs. Talks about the Greek debt have stalled again and a man in the city said it is now considered 99% certain that Greece will default. It has been 98% certain for months and getting worse by the day. Why? Because the leaders in Europe, in spite of hours and hours and hours of talks at meeting after meeting have not come up with a plan to tackle the debt. Cans have been kicked down the road so many times now, we can hear them rattling along day and night as the cacophony grows louder and louder.

The only countries in the euro zone still granted an AAA listing are Germany, Holland, Finland and Luxembourg — and they certainly are never going to bail out the rest of Europe.

Every day that passes makes the possibility of a solution that preserves the euro in its present form more and more of an impossibility. And the sooner the politicians start to plan for an orderly dismantling of the whole euro zone — and, if I had my way, the whole of the European Union. Why are the leaders in Europe so useless that they cannot spot a turkey when it hits them in the face. This not just any turkey, it's a dead turkey that is now rotting as it decomposes spreading the stench of decay across the world.

Friday 13th is Black Wednesday only worse!

The Blight of Religion

I have been quiet for some weeks over Christmas and yet there have been so many events worthy of comment. There is always the euro crisis — something that will grind on until at least one country slides out of the euro zone. On Monday, newspapers were getting excited and markets were falling because of worries about Hungary. Apparently, there is great concern about the authoritarian proposals of the current government which are not acceptable in the context of membership of the European Union. OK, but is it so critical to the whole world?

Religion provides a constant stream of frightening rubbish as yet more rules are dreamed up by obsessive gurus whose reversion to extreme interpretations of religious scripts become more and more ridiculous. Last week it was fundamentalist Jews in Israel objecting to women travelling on buses with unsuitable clothing. Various Islamic movements want all women to be deprived of all rights and made to venture outdoors only when completely covered with black sheets.

In the UK we have five Islamists in court for distributing anti-gay literature and demanding that all gays be executed.

In America every presidential candidate has to pander to the Jewish population — and thus be incapable of taking a sensible line in controlling Israeli excesses. Now, as the Republican Party tries to extract a candidate for this year's presidential election from the collection of nutters so far to have put themselves forward, many are becoming concerned that Mitt Romney is a Mormon. That should create a few more tensions if by chance, he is elected.

This week we have the news that the Amish community in America is in turmoil over the matter of beards and hair. It sounds like something from Gulliver's Travels — little enders and big enders. Apparently their nutters have decoded that somewhere in the Bible there are instructions that suggest men should have beards [I think] and women should not cut their hair at all. This has created a break-away movement and much consternation is this secretive community.

Tensions everywhere have been heightened in recent weeks and again and again it is religion that is at the core of the disputes.

There may be a God but he/she has a tormented idea of fun.

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