@realjohnboy,
Objection Mi Lord.
I hold all sport in high regard. If there's big money at stake or pride you can bet the best are selected and in a nation of 300 million the best are good at whatever it is they do. I have no doubt that some of those NFL players I saw are the fastest waddlers in the whole wide world, which the scientists claim is round. And I wouldn't mind betting that they can eat more syrup pancakes at a sitting than effemm can eat in a month.
I am trying to understand the finer points of the game. If there are 70,000 screaming fans jumping up and down beside themselves and temporarily bereft of their senses, as a sociologist, I simply have to take it seriously. With 16 events of a similar nature, and national TV coverage and bookies being involved, over a few months it is obvious that it is important.
My government "seriously considering" reducing its Trident submarines from 4 to 3 is a triviality beside such momentous forces.
As to cricket, I have set out on a few occasions to draft out an explanation for American sports fans, because it doesn't seem right that they should be missing out, of our fascinating summer game but I have found that I get bogged down very quickly with the "toss" which precedes every match. It is a cliche of English academic excellence that cricket cannot be explained to those who have no experience of it from their earliest years, much like marital relations with which it is connected, and the only solution is to watch it no matter how stupid it seems, until you get the hang of it which nobody I know has yet done.
I'm here to learn. And to win. And second best is to piss all over Tico.
