THE BRITISH THREAD II

I admit it was rather a fanciful comparison Mac but it made the point I think and it was intended to be memorable.

Edited highlights are not really about the sport being covered. They are more about sequences of dramatic moments which have minimal context.

Watching every ball of a five day Test match is an educational experience as well as being, for lovers of cricket, entertaining. With EH it is just entertainment. Or filler. The commentators, who are all vastly experienced professional cricketers and, in the main, ex-captains of their respective national teams, present a picture of the game, and of life itself, which is incomparably superior to anything a school can teach. It is a question of submersion in an albumen.

And, by extension, it has applications to all live sport and to the workings of the production team and to relationships between people.

I have seen edited highlights of the Tour de France and they are hopeless compared to watching the whole of it live. I find EH boring and the full coverage fascinating.

Over the last few weeks I've been reading a few pages a day of a biography of Sven Goren Eriksson. I'm about a third of the way through it and it is quite apparent that those who get their football from Match of the Day know next to nothing about the game. MotD is all about great goals, moments of stupidity and short attention spans. It's voyeurism really.

The biog probes the inner workings and I love its Wilson of the Wizard style.

As you get older Mac you will find yourself needing to spend more time on the sofa and becoming absorbed in these things, which are essentially works of art, is one way of enjoying that time.

As a result of entering rjb's American football "Pick-Um" game last season, which I won, I watched those games shown live on our TV. I learned a great deal about their game and about the American way of life which I could never have learned from seeing a series of exciting disconnected touchdowns and their commentators can't lay a glove on our cricket commentators who I consider to be national treasures. They export civilisation.

You're right there, bud. Neville Cardus, John Arlott. Elegance and understatement.

Did you like it when Brian Johnson got an uncontrollable fit of the giggles when Ian Botham was pirouetting around his wicket?

No--I thought it puerile and neurotic. I was glad to see the back of him.

I like Cardus though. I have a few of his books. I much enjoyed his description of his house festooned with airing lingerie when he was a young lad. His Mum and her friends seem to have been rather gamey.

I'll be away for a few days chaps.

Going to Portmeirion with my granddaughter for a couple of days, then who knows, may even go to Llandudno...

We will be living it large. I will be taking my laptop, and if I can figure out how to get on-line using hotels wifi, I'll send you a post card. Failing that, I'll ask a friendly Welsh person.

x

Have a nice trip smorgs, your granddaughter will love you for it.

Ydych chi'n siarad Cymraeg, smorgs? As far as I've learnt from one of McTag's friends, that's quite essential to get things run

Ah Wales, the Land of Song. And bedd-y-brekky.

Portmeirion, eh? I hope you don't feel like a prisoner there.

Haha! Geddit? See what I did there?

Thanks Dutch, McT, hope that doesn't mean 'look you, fancy a blow-job?' Walter...

x

There may be one or two, but I wouldn't count on finding any in a huri.

She might not Dutch. I once went to Landudno, the butt of Ludo jokes, and at the southern end of the promenade there was a sort of backwater in an inlet in the bay in which was firmly lodged vegetable matter from the sea, kelp and all that sort of shite. It was about a hundred yards across and as many to where the fresh seawater was, and it stunk fit to take the smirk off Bill Clinton's face. It was a hot day and a gentle breeze was in the wrong direction for those who ventured that way. And there was an attractive hotel/pub down there. All the windows were closed. It was truly dreadful. I thought at first it was merely a temporary waft like you sometimes get of sewage but I soon discovered that it hung heavy in the sweaty air.

The massed kelp did show signs of civilisation though. There were a number of cheerful little brightly coloured packaging items from which the contents had been removed. I won't mention used condoms because everybody always mentions them and I tried to avoid cliches when I can. Not many. A few hundred maybe. They wouldn't be rotting any time soon.

I assume smorgsie's grand-daughter is a kid so I think she or he would prefer Blackpool and having a go on all the rides. I know it's "common" but people should remember that things are only common because they've been selected in by the species as what it is best adapted to.

I fell in love in Blackpool. I had previously thought the idea silly. I still feel a pang of shame that I stood and watched her get on a coach back to Glasgow. Had I been able to understand broad Glaswegian I would have jumped aboard and my destiny would be completely different from what it has turned out. But we had a week together.

I can still remember the last wan wave of her arm as the coach went round the corner and vanished forever into the mist. And the heat and pulse of her young fresh body as we smooched under the central chandelier in the Tower Ballroom after a few glasses in Yates's Wine Lodge.

How romantic spendy...

Took her to Blackpool last year - she loved it!

They've done up the front now and you can hire bikes. We staid at The Big Blue, we did all the rides (well not me personally, I stood at the side in my 'kiss me quick' hat, waving on each rotation). Went on the dodgems though, 'till 'big boys' started messing.

I know what you mean about LLandudno, I'm sure I've posted on it before, it had proper gone down hill last time I went. She's 11 though, and into history, so a trip up the Orme to see the early minings may be in order.

Me and me sister once spent a week in Rhyl and both got eye infections which the GP said was from the sewage. We went on a guided coach trip to the slate quarries, past a scrap yard which the guide announced on the mike was 'the women's car-park'. Although wearing a bra at time, it did upset my feminist sensibilities. Then announcing a bridge was built by 'InDigo Jones' sealed his fate, from then on we adopted a policy of non-cooperation throughout the trip and didn't give a **** how many 'men went to mo', and knew that those green bottles should have gone in the recycling bin. Of course we cheered when they did, just ever so slightly too much, we laughed when they did, just a tad more maniacally, much to their chagrin. They were only too pleased to see the back of us, when they dropped us outside the Graig Y Don.

There's a lovely place in Wales, I think it's spelt Cwm. Someone told me it was pronouned 'quim', then someone else told me it was pronounced 'cum'. Either way, wouldn't mind retiring there...

Boradda (spelt like that or whatever)

x

You two should rent yourselves to the English (and Welsh) Tourist Board to help then drum up some custom.

I was wondering how the French commentators pronounced the name of the winner of the Tour de France.

I suppose, better than most English speakers s ... and you'll find quite a few persons with the very same in France, too.

France was once populated by Celts, so that is not surprising. Look at the rivers which more often than not have Celtic derived names.

Contador is Spanish and originates from Latin ('contra'). - Do you think that the Celtic language(s) had an influence on Latin?

A couple of years back, when my daughter was working in publishing and I was marginally employed, we would IM much of the day.

One week, at our respective computers, we watched the entire first season of Supersize v. Superskinny.

We liked it better than American reality shows. I wonder what happened to a man named Desroy who weighed more than 28 stone and who began each day with what I would call a soup tureen full of oatmeal and who took a break daily after working for three hours to eat a full English. Every night, he ate a bag of crisps while watching tv . . . not a personal size bag but the sort people bring to parties.

I have never looked at a bag of crisps/chips the same way since.

"Working in publishing" is a rather generalised expression although I think most of us know what "marginally employed" means.

Supposedly, if one imagines the languages as a tree, the Celtic languages developed after the Romance languages. They do share some common roots.

How sweet of you to insult my daughter!

She is a loser all right who speaks seven languages and plays eight instruments. She attended Harvard, the Sorbonne, the University of Cordoba and graduated from Smith where she was regularly on the Dean's list. She was also scouted by Wilhelmina Models.

Let's see. You use a fake name to write stupid stuff on an internet forum.