Let’s delude ourselves further

There are some difficult questions in life – how many times does a person need to sneeze before the need to say “bless you” dissipates. I reckon it’s about three consecutive sneezes, any more and you need to wait until the fit is over, whereupon you can say something hilarious like, “going for the record, eh?”

Another toughie might be: Michael Clarke – what’s that all about?

Michael Clarke has a dicky tummy. He’s in India. And people are worried about this. He’s in India, people, India.

Anyway, let me formulate an answer to my original question. Michael Clarke, Shane Watson and all of their ilk, although universally recognised as rubbish, still take runs, steal catches and sport womanly good hair. But they are nevertheless essentially crap.

This is the sort of thing that you need to tell yourself when the Ozzlers pulverise your childhood heros again, pounding them into a crusy, lump dust that floats uncomfortably up your nose.

Let’s look at these players:

- Matthew Hayden
- Michael the Hussey
- Stuart Clark

The list is ended. I put it to an Australian that I met in a bar in Berlin’s red light district, that these players are essentially crap, but it’s only their complete bastardliness that results in success.

His response wasn’t especially cogent. He started mumbling about how England were dead lucky in 2005 and why hasn’t she got the clothes, she needs them, I mean look at her. And, to emphasise how strongly he felt about this, he knocked over his oversized beer all over me.

That’s how Australians feel about the rest of the world. Foreigners are to be treated with poorly co-ordinated contempt, no matter how legless you are.