England’s incredible global domination continues, much in the style of Genghis Khan, Napoleon or Starbucks

A step up from its previous opponents, England have locked horns with the Tigers. No opposition is as fearsome as horned tigers.

To those of us who have temporary flicked our attention away from the shrieking international cricket schedule, to, you know, take a glance at burning Bangkok, economic meltdown in Europe and impending nuclear war in the Korean Peninsula, the Bangladesh tour has come as a surprise.

It was only five minutes ago that England were wrapping up a famous win against the Aussies. And only seconds ago since we won the T20 World Cup.

But now, England continue metering out punishment to its lesserlings, with 100% English Jonathan Trott putting the Tigers to the elephant gun.

There were a few eager comments regarding Bangladeshis’ ‘promising’ bowlers, in that there were a few balls that were ok. But, let’s be honest. They’re crap.

The tourists nullified England’s foremost threat, Kevin Pietersen, by cleverly giving the ball to the person who bowls left-handed. And, maybe a few more successes might get them back in the game. But generally, its one way traffic, only, less dangerous. Maybe heavy traffic. A no way traffic jam, perhaps.

But, as we England fans can readily impart, there is always hope.

A few more wickets might get the Bangladeshis really going. There is nothing as fearsome as horney tigers.

Surprise! We were rubbish after all

Somehow, England have blagged their way to test match success throughout 2009. They live not so much a charmed life, but a life over-brimming with rabbit foots, newt’s legs and sexts from Beelzebub.

There were perhaps immorally lucky to have escaped in so many matches. The same team was beaten by the West Indies no long ago.

And you remember the West Indies, right?

No. Neither do I.

So, does this display of impetrative bowling and feeble batting mean that England fans can point out that: Most of our players are South African.

All the metaphysical laws of double standards say: yes. Yes you can.

The final score reads: the good bit of South Africa (the bit that, you know, could get a job) beat the rubbishy, whiney part of South Africa.

How very interesting.

James Anderson double hundred anyone?

To set up the same up nicely for Australia with 250 to chase.

God I hate the England cricket team.

So much.

But mostly the press. They made us believe. They made us believe even when Harmicrap was playing.

God I hate them all.

So much.

Here's some Rous Sareysothea to cheer you up.

Why England losing ensures the continuation of time

Another day, another useless England performance. As vital to the universe as the celestial clockwork of the heavenly bodies, the English trouncing denotes the even progress of time.

Spending a lot of my own time with those blighted by the continental disease of Being Foreign, I am required to explain the nature of cricket to them. The thrashing is an event that I am frequently required to account for.

Our forefathers, being far-sighted, all-knowing geniuses, predicted the coming of our saviour: the game of cricket.

Thus, when the Julians and Gregorians were establishing their calendars, they required a divine consistency to propel time forward. Something so over-whelmingly predictable was needed, yet nothing so catastrophically unavoidable existed.

Thus, the Lord brought into existence the England cricket team. Wired into the slow ticking of each clock is the insipid confidence of each blue capped wearing numpty.

It would be with their defeat, that time would move forward. Each enfeebled collapse marked ever hour, the tides turned with every dropped catch and a gutless run rate marched time steadily towards judgement.

Although the Englanders provide opportunities to roll eyes amongst the cricketing fraternity, and extraordinary high levels of mirth for Muggle-like continentals, it is upon their failure that our own success depends.

Laugh all you like, but without our sacrifice of inevitable and constant humiliation, our whole world would come crashing to an end.

Bloody Clog Trotters

There are list of nations that British people struggle to be racist towards. The French and Germans are easy. However, it’s difficult to foster an irrational disdain for a Dane or a Belgian – these are the harmless, innocuous, no-body nation to which we attach no distinct hatreds. Until recently, the Dutch were in that camp.

Of course, we’ve had our differences. The Netherlands was used as a base for a massive navel attack by a Spanish Armada in 1589They did sort of invade us in 1688, permanently disfiguring our constitution. Plus, the all speak infuriatingly good English – in most cases, better than native speakers.

But we can forgive them of this. The English probably consider the Dutch their closest friends in Europe. We both share a taste for watery beer, Big Brother and football hooliganism.

Now we must reassess this relationship.

Recently, there was a game of cricket between England and the Netherlands. England should have won, this is the natural order of things, and the Dutch, not being unreliable southern continental types, should have respected this.

In stead, no doubt due to malignant Australian infiltration, the Netherlands first presumed that they could win, and then arrogantly went on to do so.

The only rational response is irrational, ill-directed, knee-jerk attacks upon the Dutch nation. First of all, throw away your frying pan least any future pancake offend it. Then, you much expunge all that is orange from your house. Finally, resolve yourself never to cough again, in case that someone may believe you are talking Dutch, and the following feelings of association with those cursed wetlands lead to inevitable suicide.

Also remember this:

The Dutch are rubbish at everything. Whereas England are only rubbish at certain things, and only those things that we choose to be rubbish at.

Damned Dutchers.

jaja

As a total foreign in the world of criquet i find quitefunny the idea that england has lost it against the Dutch. Poor ductch people, evryone laugh at themin westearn europe, cuase they are so funny, and look, now they win, poor english, i have been recently in london, and poor english, (specially atheist) look so depressed quite qite funny, thanks to the Dutch for such a funny weekend here.

What England can do about being shit

Everyone, at one point in their life, has looked themselves in the mirror and thought "nope, shit".

Even those that haven't, and want to "excel" and "achieve", usually go on to become generally regarded as "shits".

So, now comes a reflective moment for the England cricket team, and all they can see is shit. Puddles and puddles of gooey, poorly bonded shit.

People criticise the critics: "why must you be so critical?" say they. Well, here's the official AYALAC guide for being less shit:

1. Bowl as if you had played before

To become good at something you either need to pay someone else to do it for you, or to practice. England broke the record for the worst bowling performance ever in Port of Spain - second most extras conceded in an innings.

Apparently, in a list the worst bowling performances ever, England feature in over 40% of them.

I know. I did an excel spreadsheet. That's how you make blogging look like work - for you amateurs out there. In any case, this statistic is a sign. Rather like an omen of the second coming, a shitty sign.

2. Get rid of the rubbishy players in bring in less rubbishy ones

No really, it works.

3. Rule the team with an iron fist

England's main problem is the emergence of a private life for the players. That the players think of something other than cricket has become "acceptable" is not only a sign of weakness in the ranks, but indicative of the broader corruption of society generally.

Sex lives of all players must cease. For the good of the country.

A threat of mutilation for dropping averages wouldn't go amiss, either.

4. Cheat

England, for too long, have played fair, following the spirit of the laws and generally behaved in the cricketing way. It's time to follow Australia - not to Australia, obviously, who'd want to do that? Horrible place; full of spiders. No, we must relearn the science of cheating.

This goes beyond the dark arts of Murray Mints and jelly beans, we have to start thinking about creative use of the equipment at hand. After all, the cricket bat originally started life as a weapon.

We must use the resources available to us to prevent the opposition from freely scoring runs, or from running freely.

5. Replace the team with robots

By my reckoning, its four years since the mysterious Merlyn came into being. Which makes is qualified for the England team. That it can't run or operate effectively in the field only marginally disadvantages it against players such as Owais Shah.

It is claimed that the machine can bowl every ball known to man, which is some claim; there are a lot of men and therefore a lot of balls.

Although the inevitable mechanisation of the England bowling unit leads us to interesting possibilities: perhaps the future is all about technology in cricket.

Maybe we'll witness giant bowling guns fire 500 mph death balls at Mega-Slogotron 5.0; gawp at stratospheric sixes; and delight in lighting quick catches in continental-sized fields.

Although watching a batbot getting hit in the robo-goolies would be significantly less amusing.

Let’s do the time warp again

Do we all remember the 1980s? I know that, generally, remembering anything is inadvisable, and that last century’s eighth decade brought with it special kind of horrors such as Norman Tebbit and white trousers, but it’s worth re-engaging those battered grey cells just for a fleeting moment.

When attempting a reminiscence, be sure to skip over the files labelled “what you said last night whilst drunk” and definitely avoid the “early sexual experiences” folder, and drill down to that unique cringing pain given to you only by the England cricket team.

Ah. You are with me now. Deep within the tortured recesses of your undoubtedly abused brain, you find a potent catalogue of angry scars, each wound marking the next spineless England series, rather like an entombed prisoner counts of each day of his squalid march deathwards, you have commemorated each disastrous slump with a little piece of inward death.

In recent years, however, the scratches have dropped in frequency and intensity. Perhaps there may even by happy bellybutton marks filed somewhere in some forgotten happy part of the mind.

But oh, how quickly the stinging pain of reality re-unites the soul with the throbbing misery of memory. Strangely, as a device to unearth long repressed agony, the England cricket team proves more adept than Freudian hypnotherapy. And, for those mentals out there, a great deal cheaper.

The difference between England’s humiliating tours to the Caribbean in the 1980s and current embarrassments is the anticipation of obliteration, but now the feckless Englanders swaggered into the Windies with the hubristic and frankly hilarious expectation of easy victory, resulting in a predictable outcome.

It’s as if the disintegration of the team’s leadership, collapse in key player’s form and Twatford gang-groping never happened. England sauntered off to the one of the world’s leading tourist destinations with the intention to toss of the third world country before getting down to the real dirty with Australia later in the year.

By, OMG!!1 how pisspoor was that effort? I mean, really now. REALLY.

What were they thinking? What were they flipping thinking?

All that can save England now is a strategic ball placed under the ankle of a devastating fast bowler.

Welcome back to the good old days.

Oh my deary god

Admit it. The only thing you were looking forward to was gloating over Aussies. That’s all you wanted, some small, pathetic slice of Schadenfreude.

You were going to laugh and laugh, and tell the Aussies what feeble worms they were, and that England was the mighty Crow which was going to devour them up come next Ashes.

But all we can do is crow now. Remember, England are a lame, useless, indecisive, unconvincing, dull, predictable, mediocre, ordinary, borderline incompetent bunch of disabled earth grubs who are incapable of rolling down a hill.

England is a small country. But somehow, there is so much to be angry about.

Of course, this is a total disaster, akin to Black Monday, the Battle of Balaklava and the birth of Russell Brand.

The problem England have, at the moment, is that their opponents are better than them. Looking at India’s line up, if you roll them over in the first innings, the law of averages dictate that they’re going to compensate with a legendary effort in the second.

And that they did. Fourth highest run-chase in Asian history, and with six wickets to spare. That old geriatric whose eyes have gone, Old Farther Sachin, fluked a century.

It is important to remind yourself how good this was. Not only were records broken in the fourth innings, but on the last day of a wearing pitch that had shown as much consistency as the German Ministry of Finance.

The bowling of Andrew Flintoff and Monty Panesar is class. And, with England’s new super-weapon, Greame Swanpy, the Indians looked doomed.

But this mega-line-up of nearly, but not quite, dead one-man myths breezed through England’s cream as if it were spread across a thick layer of easy jam upon the Scone of Effortlessness.

Although, that’s not to take anything away from England.

They’re still nothing to me. How can so much anger, by so many, owed to so few?

On happier times, I walked out of my Berlin apartment on Saturday. This is what I saw:

ECB shafts players. Again.

I’m quoting cricinfo, here:

“England's cricketers will not be forced to return to India for the two-Test series, Hugh Morris, the ECB's managing director for England cricket, said as the squad arrived back in London on Saturday evening.”

I am considering putting in a Freedom of Information Request to see which tours players are forced to attend. But, although it seems sensible, the response is a typically spineless, confusing and probably the worst possible announcement for the England players.

I strongly suspect that this position was borne out of Captain Fantastic’s recent comments:

“On a cricket field I might ask people to do things in a certain way but I will never tell people to do anything. A man is a man and he can make his own decisions.”

Which is all very good, but leads to a curious overall position. Presumably, if a player wished to withdraw a normal tour, then the ECB would penalise him in some way. Perhaps drop him from consideration from future tours.

But we must assume that if players’ personal perception of the security situation India is unfavourable, then they do not face this penalty.

But, if a player on the margins takes this opportunity to play for his country, then would the established, backer-outter feel obliged to stay on? Oh, I don’t know. But by shifting the responsibility on to the players, the ECB is buggering up with the careers of its most valuable assets.

It’s a mess. The whole thing is a mess.

In fact, just cancel the tour. I, for one, haven’t enjoyed one moment of it. Well, except for its crushing the will of KP. That’s been fantastic.

But generally, this tour has left me numb.

It’s like the emptiness that you’re left with after you’ve failed, for the second year running, to get into Jenny from Account’s pants at work’s Christmas Party, despite the fact that you managed to get her completely plastic.

Isn’t life great?

England so bad that, even when they scored more runs than the opposition, they lost

As many animal torturers have noted, cricket is a funny game. It’s hard to explain its rules to muggles.

You might say something like: “They idea is to score more runs that your opponent. Then you get pissed.”

Then, along comes the latest England game. England and India both faced 22 overs. India scored 166, England scored 178. Obviously India won.

It’s the unpredictability of the game that makes it so interesting.

However, to their credit, the one quality that England have displayed for many years has been predictability. I lauded the ECB management for its parsimonious approach to altering the team management.

Keeping with the same useless team for the sake of stability was a courageous move. But, then they turned out to be as brave as Ishant Sharma’s moustache.

Then they bugger about with every aspect of the team make-up and lose repeatedly in humiliating fashion.

It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so wrist-cuttingly depressing.

Normally, as a fan, you believe you know more than most sages. And more especially more than team selectors. If push came to shove, however, most people would defer to the “experts”, and let Patrick Moores get his way. “Sure Pete, me ol’ mucker, you’ve won a few Championships. What have I done? Memorised the entire script of 24? That’s nothing. You, mate, are a god.”

But now we know. We all know.

I now know that I am better than them. THIS IS KNOWLEDGE. In fact, the drunken, jobless German that harassed me on my way home yesterday would exhibit greater team-selecting skills than England. And he only had one eye.

Don’t worry though. It’ll all be fine next time. They’re having a Team Meeting.

And we all know from our respective workplaces how productive and motivating Team Meetings are.

It's happening again

Remember the World Cup? Remember how we all enjoyed this vibrant international spectacle, and didn’t complain at all. From the very first, hesitant moment, to crescendo of well-organised joy at the tournament’s climax. Let me take you back to those times.

It was the heady days of 2007. Anything seemed possible. Religious fanatics controlled a superpower. An ex-superpower was killing spies on the street. And sub-prime mortgages were worth more than a stapler.

Throughout the course of the cricket World Cup, I spent my time talking about England (and dancing cricketers). I repeatedly made one point about their approach: OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE PLAYING AT?

Their approach was this: “See off the first few dangerous twenty overs, and then we’ll consolidate for the next twenty. Perhaps we’ll see where we are after that.”

Against South Africa, we scored four runs in ten overs.

Remember Jamie Dalrymple? Do you remember opening with Ed Joyce? ED JOYCE!

Not even the person that Ed Joyce murdered with an Ed Joyce name badge would remember who Ed Joyce is.*

But, poor old whathisface was subject to the ECB’s wonder strategy of playing for time. Obviously, we got completely humiliated. That goes without saying. We’re English. But there are degrees of loss.

And the inept, spineless, moronic, self-inflicted, thick-headed losses of the World Cup were particularly hard to endure. And now, once again, familiar concerns are returning. You look at the Englanders, and they look at you, blinking and red-skinned, clueless. Utterly clueless. There are, quite literally, without clue. Well, they might have one clue between them, but that’s a rubbish clue that erroneously leads them to Professor Plum.

AKA: Grauieame Swann.

*On further reflection, this victim might struggle to remember quite a few things.

(For those economists, stats geeks, and other bored people, check out the OECD’s new data mapping tool. It’s surprisingly fun. Now I know that New Zealand’s North Island is richer (in per capita terms) than all Australian states, whereas, the South Island is poorer than the lot of them. Interesting that. The IMF one is also worth a check out – although no where near as fun.)

(As another aside, I went to watch the football last night. I don’t normally do this, but England was playing Germany in Berlin, and I felt I should make an effort. So, off I went, with German in tow, to an “Irish” “pub” in central Berlin.

There, I found England.

England in all its glimmering glory. A mirror to the world’s best parts. The parts that sing about wars long since past, about enemies now crippled with anxiety. Parts that try to chat up German women with the worlds Spatch-chen zie Anglaise? Parts that, when you are amused by the loud sweary scousers and huge St. George’s Cross emblazoned with the words like “Darlington” will challenge you with a sharp “Wot yaw smilin’ at?” It’s astonishing how I could live without this cultural assurance, without these people that make us all feel so proud.)

We’re back in business baby

Some of you may have noticed a drop in post frequency recently. To those that did, please consider yourselves a proud owner of a gold star. To those that didn’t, consider yourself official Enemies Of The Glorious AYALAC Peoples.

You see, I now have the internet at home again. This, of course, is excellent because, despite having internet access at work, and despite being paid less than my previous position, I am still manically busy and unable to blog at the office.

So! Now, a new era of AYALAC-rest of the world relations begins. Rejoicing breaks out. Women swoon. Parrots die.

Much has changed since we spoke last.

England lost the rugby. England lost the cricket once. And then once more. An Irish fellah bought an election in the New World. And England will probably lose the football tonight. So, as we can see, the world continues to move as normal.

It’s really great having internet at home. I listened to Today Programme for the first time in ages this morning. I was surprised at the amount of slang British English they used. Shocking, really. But, I was also buoyed by hearing the dulcet tones of Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, and also Nick Clegg, leader of some other party. I forget which.

So! Yes. Cricket.

Well, it’s the usual depressing stock for us Englanders. You know that things are bad when you see headlines end in the word “again”. However, to make a series point about actual cricket, I will say this:

For ages, the test side has shown that stability in selection has resulted in improved results. Of course, illness and injury can and have taken their toll, but overall, it seems that England do better when England know who England is. Yet, conversely, the ODI side has been all over the shop.

Pick a player here. Pick a player there. Stick him in as an opener. Pick a team with three batsman. Put him at eight. Kill all the spinners. It has been a progressive, morphing chaos for years now. So, it seems eminently sensible to me that now, the ECB has decided to draw the line and let the “current” team settle for a bit. Enough, say they, is enough.

And you know what? Bugger me, if I don’t agree with the England management. Heck, give them all medals, say I. Nay, OBEs!

To all this talk of “Bell and Prior aren’t working” and “drop Collingwood, pick Smode” and the “let’s drop him to 10 and promote him to 5” and all the rest of it, to this I say this: Stop it. Just leave them alone. It’s the best of all possible worlds. It’s time to start pretending that we’re New Zealand.

We’re not in Kansas any more.

We're in Berlin. Where we're about to launch an attack on allied German-English hooligans. Come on you rioters!

England follow the path of foreignness

By winning. England are winning. They actually played a game of cricket and won it. By winning.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Usually, I have some pretty strong feelings on this issue. But, today, I feel confused.

England is led by a Saffer. We have foreign keepers. We have foreign players. There is a pretty strong correlation between their foreignness and their success. Which is a surprisingly deep reflection of the British economy in the post-war period.

But, I don’t really care about losing. An international sport is essentially a tribal activity. We jeer at those over there; and celebrate those over here. Regardless how amazing They are and how totally rubbish We are, we fill the room with hate and love in equal measure.

I enjoy the ownership I feel over the team. The irrational companionship I feel with those holding similar accents when we watch a group of other similarly accented people go and try to do something.

Look at the Scottish football team. Their supporters pride themselves on a fanatic, ceaseless following of a relentlessly awful team. It’s almost stubborn. Would they trade this for the relative success an all-Britain football team could offer? Would they buggery.

So, it’s with England’s crushing, impressive yet strangely unstirring win over South Africa rather confuses me.

Notwithstanding the Saffers’ obvious fatigue after a committed test series effort, the Englanders performance was hearty.

But it was inspired by some geezer who wears ear-rings and is generally regarded by those who don’t know him best, as a twat. He is does not sound like me.

So, was this my England winning?

I don’t know.

I know I might feel happier if Twickenham won the World Cup. But would I feel so elated if we drafted in a load of three armed mega-aliens to do the job?

Yeah. Probably. That would wipe the smile of those evil Teddington folk.

Bastards.

Whooooooo are you? Who-Who? Who-Who?

Now then. Watching your side lose to another side is generally a miserable, if familiar, experience for most England fans.

Watching them destroy all national pride in under five days, whilst you are thousands of miles away is, strangely, no less tolerable.

In fact, having English cricket conveniently timed between dinner and bed in India is like some sadistic stab of fate. You would have thunk that prime time cricket was a wonderful, fantabulous gift.

No.

No it is not. It is a curse on the soul. A dark, England selector shadow in the heart. A beating on the bum.

The pain is amplified by England’s wilful stupidity. You see, at the moment, there are few, reasonably good contenders for quicks around the county circuit.

In fact, it would be difficult to pick a team. Hard but possible. We pay clever people to do that for us. Like lawyers: no one in their right mind would ever want to read the law, we just want give heaps of cash to some intelligent-sounding bloke in the suit who will smooth over everything.

But the England selectors were not suave, or clever. Although they did try their hardest. Only, they smoothed like a slug smears against the road whilst interfacing with the wheel of a ten-tonne autorickshaw.

Imagine my joy when I emerged, rosy-cheeked and cheery after finding one of the few bars in Mysore, when at the bottom of England’s scorecard displayed the following name:

N.O. BODY

Who? What? What is this? Why have I never heard of this person?

The anger began to take over. Some bed linen was thumped and, I am ashamed to admit, a dirty sock was thrown in rage.

This gormless roof-tiler comes from Australia’s dodgiest state: Victoria. He was born in England’s dodgiest slum: Grimsby.

He is a trundler. A trundler from Grimsby and Victoria. He only learnt to play cricket two years ago.

What are they doing?

Really.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

Why aren’t they picking Chris Tremlett? Tremmlers is great. He has bounce. He does stuff. He offers loads of things. Things like the ability to take wickets. At the moment, with these collection of feckless goons, taking twenty wickets is harder than getting a nights sleep in Bangalore.

RAH’BISH

My thoughts on the England cricket team

Rubbish, in the main.

From the safe distance of a few thousand miles, I have watched my side flap ineffectively in the face of a beatable, if solid, opposition.

The pain that those bastards cause me does not succor through distance.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING? RUBBISH! D’hear? RAH BISH.

The Michael Vaughan catch was an interesting one. Apparently, the side’s coach is allowed to appeal a decision, which is an element of the rulebook that seems to have alluded me.

I also liked the way that the umpires more or less accussed the English captain of lying. What a grand state of affairs modern cricket is in.

Collingwood: we can’t sing. Shit.

Paul Collingwood, the inspiration of England, said in an interview recently,

“When we’re on song, we’re on song.”

So, we can only suppose in their latest slump against New Zealand that they weren’t on song, because it didn’t look like they were on song at all.

Tunelessness seemed to affect all elements of England’s game. Their batsman, although promising, failed to capitalise. Their bowlers, although tight, failed to prevent release. Their fielders, although pisspoor, failed to be any less pisspoor.

New Zealand, held themselves together like the grown ups that they are, and deservedly won on the last ball. Weirdly, even though they weren’t on song, they were a bit on song. Perhaps, if not totally on song, they were a bit singy.

Like Bjork sings a bit, in between her deranged hamster wails.

Predictably, I was disappointed by Collingwood’s rather wankish decision to injure one of the Kiwi runners and then insist on running him out. Being a bit of an old fart, I rather feel that that sort of thing isn’t cricket. But I have a feeling that I’m just not on song today.

La la la burp.

No. No, it’s just not happening. Maybe tomorrow?

New Zealand’s South Africans beat England's South Africans

The English selectors came under further pressure today, as their radical policy of not fielding an all South African eleven against New Zealand resulted in another loss for the “English”.

Sensing weakness, the Kiwis picked a little known Saffer by the name of Bruce Lee. After making a bang at club level, Brucie forced his way into the New Zealand outfit through his undeniably South African qualities.

He scored the only fifty in England’s latest spineless defeat in Bristol, and also returned bowling figures of 2-9.

Requiring only 183 to win, England took pity on the weenie Kiwis. “Oh, they’re only small; let’s give them a few wickets.”

But like the relentlessly biscuit eating aunties in my family, if you give them an inch they’ll take the whole bloody packet. As the overs ticked away, England were rapidly running out of South Africans, and somehow converted certain victory into hilarious defeat.

Interestingly, this is probably one of the few occasions were the qualities of the captain were revealed. The English captain really showed his ginger nuts, by electing to bowl harmless dibbly-dobblers for twenty bland overs to allow the Black Hearts off the hook and let them build a defendable total.

Daniel Vettori, on the other hand, was like Nelson at Trafalgar, like Wellington at Waterloo and like Gordon Brown at the 42-day vote: amongst the chaos and impending doom, his magisterial and prudent figure saved his nation from total and immediate destruction.

Unlike the French President. Not only is he French and married to a woman that only wears socks, but has charged the responsibility of the “death of African children” at the feet of Peter Mandleson – the British Commissioner to the EU. Although this might be right, there’s a way to do these things, Sarko: you have to do it in a picket whilst your followers sing the red flag and smash up Paris.

They just have no idea over there, do they?

Video 7: First Test Match - New Zealand vs. England

Here's another one for ya. The complete highlights of the first test match between New Zealand and England.

This viddy-blog has been rated "C" for Caution - some scenes contain mild peril and extreme twattery by England.

Right. Now then.

It is time to whine. But this time, I can hold my head up high and whine with pride.

England, the place of my birth and the bosom of my life, has produced a useless cricket team. A team of staggering incompetence that is capable of losing to literally any girl scouts group in the world.

Michael Vaughan said that there were some “confidence” issues, whereas I think there are “competence” issues here. Firstly, we bowled badly: 470 runs are too many. Number eights should not get 88, especially when we had them at 190-5.

Secondly, the batting was spineless. The pitiable collapse on the last day on a mundane pitch had to be seen to be believed.

Useless bunch of melons.

Peter Moores wants to see a bit of passion to see England bounce back and win the series. I hate it when people say things like that.

“I’m passionate about food.” I can’t stand that. Or when people express passion for any subject. I fairness, I don’t like it when people say anything really. Or people at all.

Peter Moores is that people. The annoying ones.

England bowled better in the second innings. Monty Panesar rediscovered his grove. And Ryan Hairybottom, the Atlas of the attack, wallowed in some deserved glory with a five-for and a sensational hat-trick.

I’m not sure whether it’s within the rules, but the entire England squad, with the possible exception of the Hairy One, should be replaced by the women’s team. They’d show the Kiwis a good hiding.

Lastly, New Zealand is an awkwardly placed country. It seems to make filing reports for newspapers impossible. I remember listening to Angus Fraser on TMS rue submitting a piece for the Independent just before lunch on the third day. It suggested that either Paul Collingwood or Tim Ambrose would go on to score a century. Neither made it past the second over after lunch.

I suspect that the Sunday Times suffered from the same time-zone cock up. Their headline was “England show positive signs.” Signs of positive rubbishness.