Silencing the Crickets!

I've cycled a fair few miles this year, most recent years, generally avoiding the heavier traffic, targeting the quieter country lanes. Observations would be that the weather's been rather on the damp side, the air not as on fire as is that further south, around the Mediterranean for example. Numbers of Swifts and Hirundines (Swallows and Martins), if anything, may even be up a squeak upon last year's alarmingly poor showing. Butterfly populations, with the notable exception of Silver-washed Fritillaries and Red Admirals, continue to plummet. Bee populations have nose-dived! Now, solo rider as I often am, I recognise that my observations offer mere anecdotal, route specific, information but...

The 'insect narrative'- insect apocalypse- butterflies more specifically, would have it that the preceding and higher-than-average-summer-temperatures have had significant impact upon several key species. Significant? Maybe. Certainly the farming lobby is implying as much, guardians of the countryside that they are, except to note...

Given that the farming community continues also to spread toxic reservoirs of pesticides- over 150 varieties- across England's green and 'pleasant' lands, maybe, just maybe, they're not the best people with whom to have entrusted the land in the first instance. Their particular (farming lobby) narrative argues that the hot summers are to blame. Mmmm! Since 'taking back control' an additional 36 pesticides, banned by the EU, are now free to bleed into the landscape. Dutifully, the EU kept a concerned eye upon the Monsato world view. We should probably count blessings that Bayer's 2016 acquisition of the giant managed to precede the UK's 2017 goose step to the right!

By all means, justly curse the water monopolies for pumping millions into shareholder pockets, whilst doing the same with effluent and excrement into our rivers and coastal waters but we should also be aware that the farmers continue to produce the bulk of the pollution. And, in so doing, they are contributing majorly to an...


Insect Apocalypse!


The water companies may be ably assisting with the poisoning but they're not yet the ones grubbing out the hedgerows and repurposing land away from wildlife. Except where it may be artificially preserved for bloody sports! The Water Companies are not the ones responsible for allowing animal excrements and nitrates to leach into the water tables and to weep, puss-like, into our rivers. The water company's touch is a far more human one. BBC's Countryfile works hard at filtering and remoulding public consciousness, more's the pity they can't assist with filtering out some of the effluent the farmers are producing.

A recent government pledge to abandon (also) the tiny remnant protection for our waterways, this time at the behest of the 'developer' lobbyists, may yet cause the burden of annihilation to shift. We can sense TBI's Starmer cabinet spinning up through the gears of change. One million new homes! Wow, almost a quarter of the shortfall that's been manufactured under this same government. Watch those dead-eyed client journos pretend not to have noticed the slight of hand.

On a recent summer's afternoon I stopped to stand and stare at a huge acreage of Red Clover. The adjacent country lane had long since been closed-off to transport, excepting bikes and pedestrians; Bramble was snaking across the tarmac from the verges. I watched the pink landscape for well over ten minutes and managed to detect not one single Honey Bee. Two Bumblebees, just about double digits of Hoverflies, one Brown China-Mark Moth and, perhaps, as many as twenty, either Large or Small, White Butterflies, but no Honey Bees! So determined was I to find at least one that I wandered up and down the adjacent lane (the aforementioned totals include this) eventually giving up and riding onward. Modern farming obliterating the Butterflies...

Silencing the Crickets!

No more the quiet chirrup in the long grass, the crack of leather on willow!

Decimating the moths, obliterating the hoverflies, wiping out the beetles and the bugs, thus starving the spiders, enacting a bee apocalypse. But, never fear the grown-ups are back in charge! And, at the eleventh hour, the planet is surely to be saved. Again! And yet again, from the very same gang that drove us here in the first place. Wave some flags, why don't we?

There is an accumulating raft of statistics and facts, that will be pawed over at some indeterminate time in the future, that various non-client 'journalists' and other authors, social scientists, may reference to chart the demise of 21st Century UK, perhaps Western society, hopefully not yet the entire modern world. Who will, then, want or have the time to stop and to reminisce about the former planet we once held? Increasingly, we find ourselves bumping along the bottom, pseudo-functioning at the behest of many of the absolute worst individuals that could ever have been envisaged at the helm. Whether it be global warming- with troughing days numbered Sunak ($1.5 billion in the pocket) now barely even troubles to disguise the corruption- mass species extinction, pollution of our waterways, other forms of pollution, decimation of public services, housing (home ownership and rental), public health and the NHS- both Starmer and Streeting continue to work with private health-care companies, inequality, private monopoly takeovers (privatisation and stealth), eroded democracy, media ownership and messaging, the list is beyond alarming! All of those here listed fully apply to the UK but wildfire expansion of the neoliberal conflagration is spreading fast to engulf also many other nations.

Sacrificing the Honey Bees!

Sugar for the paparazzi. Keeping the buzzing inside the tent.

There's also the monetisation of seemingly everything! Beware, wherever there are private interests with hands in the jar, fat-cat CEOs to cloak in ermine and to dine, shareholder skimming to be done, the profit motive, then there will be leaks! Small leaks, big leaks, expanding leaks! Leaking and leeching from the many to the very few! Prominent amongst a sparsity of Labour election ideas is the one to bring in private lobbyists to 'work' upon (thus insert) Reeves's ideas to grow the economy. It's like something out of a recurring neoliberal nightmare!

Let's focus upon the monetisation of sport! Narrow it down, specifically, to the monetisation of cricket. Chart an...


Absence of Cricketers.

Hobbling into my mid-sixties, I grew up watching Test Cricket. The first series that I can still clearly recall was England at home to Pakistan in the summer of 1974, Geoff Arnold's swing bowling and Derek Underwood's 'deadly' spin on a sticky wicket! The sublime batting of first Zaheer Abbas, then Dennis Amiss, only black-and-white but really so much better than its five-decades-evolved counterpart. The cricket stayed on throughout the day, Sundays were set aside as a Christian-Empire rest day! No adverts! Nobody seriously thought to deny viewers access to their national side, playing at home. Well, maybe Kerry Packer, maybe the then little-known spawn of a Mr and Mrs Murdoch. Where was contraception when we needed it?

In glorious full black-and-white, 'twas possible to watch as Underwood systematically out-thought, toyed with and set up the batsman, in real time. I don't recall whether there were even replays, whether, if one missed the wicket, one had to wait until the half-hour highlights programme in the late evening. And, if one didn't catch that, that was it! Missed! How cricket coverage has moved on, except...

Has it? Has it really? Moved on?

2023, forty-nine years worth of technical advances later, one may access a full hour's worth of Technicolor highlights, at any time that suits, as many times as one wishes. But, this comes at the expense of the full day's coverage, which has been whisked away behind a pay-wall. After England's eventual triumph in the one day World Cup, I took the trouble to pen a letter to the England and Wales Cricket Board; even got a reply requesting that I give the then Chairman a phone call to discuss any grievances. Which I declined to do, he wasn't upon the verge of conversion, but he was being jolly well remunerated! Jolly well!

I was not a spin bowler but I didn't need to be in order to appreciate the range of subtleties incorporated into the spinner's repertoire. The guile the bowler employs when adjusting length, speed of trajectory and width, maybe targeting the footmarks, maybe giving some air. And, when the spinner's a wrist spinner, a leg-break bowler, or someone as skilful as Ravi Ashwin (India), or the sadly missed Shane Warne, or the since retired Graham Swann! One simply cannot be expected to appreciate what's properly behind the wicket that just happened when one has only witnessed the single ball being bowled.

Or a Pollock and Donald spell of fast bowling, Gough and Caddick, Lillie and Thompson, Harmison and Flintoff, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, Anderson and Broad. Half-a-dozen random balls cannot even begin to capture the sheer willpower of an innings like Atherton's against the rage of a fired-up Alan Donald- when the umpire has missed an off-the-face caught behind, or Bob Willis's famous rout of the Australians. Wickets and selected shots just doesn't cut it!

Listen to radio coverage- it used to work so wonderfully well with the TV volume tuned down- and one thing that none of the commentators, nor the guests, seems prepared or able to talk about is the loss of one of the nation's key sports to Murdoch's pay-wall. The BBC website- all the highlights!- might boast about a poll to pick the best side ever! How would we know? The very idea illustrates the chosen avenue. I doubt John Edrich would have given much thought to the matter.

There's money to be made, for those on the inside track! The ICC and the ECB have the skimming down pat! In 2020 more money was gambled on cricket than on any other sport, and that was before the introduction of the latest cash cow, The Hundred! Last thing they want is another racism controversy. Very neatly reverse-swept under the carpet! Rocking the boat, who's in and who's out? And not the small leaky ones, more like ocean-going luxury cruisers, these. Exclusive stuff!

Whisper it- the talkSport commentators daren't- but the gambling cartels are raking it in! Why else would we 'need' The Hundred? Bet on anything! Curiously, the gambling CEOs don't, they've invested shrewdly (covertly) in the Commons- 19 Tory and 9 Labour MPs. And, when the fun stops...


talkSport are owned by the Wireless Group, in turn owned by Murdoch's News Corp- all roads lead to formerly Rome, since when bought up by Uncle Rupert! Sports betting in 2021 amounted to $194.63 billion, an annual increase of $173 billion on the previous year. And, we dream to wonder why MPs have not better addressed the nation's booming gambling crisis! Breaths will not be held!

It's not really my ticket but I did listen to England's first (2023) 20Twenty defeat of New Zealand, then tune in for the highlights in the evening. Beggars and all that... It's a very poor substitute for Test Cricket but, the ratios improve, 240 balls trimmed down to an hour(ish) offers a greater spread of the game.

Transforming Cricket.

An enabling paparazzi. A defunct media.

Except... no longer does an hour's highlights actually equate to an hour's highlights. The programme will commence with the customary chat- a selection of insiders will impart scene-setting noise at the outset, and when a spinner's wicket does occur replays will be shown from, yes, square-leg! Where better to fully appreciate the degree of spin? A change of innings and why not wheel out a different set of talking heads. And, don't forget to allocate time for the after-match analysis, so perhaps half-an-hour, maybe, if we're lucky? Toblerone boundaries may injure the occasional fielder but note the extra advertising revenue! Wrestle the coverage away from the BBC and be sure, in the ad. breaks, to notice the happy face of the fictional gambling winner! Why, it's almost as if the editors know nothing about cricket... or gambling. But, they will be very well aware that their's is currently a slice of the largest share of something well in excess of $194.63 billion! No wonder the Test scene is under threat, no wonder free-to-air isn't getting the gig, no wonder the commentators are so well suited up. Just like with used-up former PMs, there's £millions in that pot! Tuck in! Austerity's not for that lot!

Bereft of the cricket we grew to love in our youths, still we would be naive to think the carve-up has yet concluded. Listen to former captain, now Sky-voice-box, Michael Vaughan, and the shadow of 'The Hundred' lurks behind every pause, every intake of breath. The current Sun-comic alternative preference of 'choice'- although not ours'- where upon each and every boundary will be accompanied by Marvel Comic styled graphics- 'Bish!' 'Bash!' 'Bosh!'- wickets will flash with epileptic threat! The Hundred, where the children of the CEOs, the Chairpeople, the Directors, have been let loose with the graphics toys.

In stark contrast to the UK's visible plummeting Cricket populations the International Cricket Council has ballooned to such immense proportions of wealth such as to feeding-frenzy-threaten even itself, or parts thereof. Lord Woolf's long since ignored report into the governance of the International Cricket Council rather proves the point. Woolf recommended the restructuring, mainly financial, of the executive board but, in the scene where the biggest cockroaches feast upon the smaller ones, too late, the even bigger Board of Control for Cricket in India rejected and ignored all proposals. The IPL has bloated to the point where it may now take well in excess of 2 $billion per game! Humanity may have rather tended to consider itself above the lesser species, those that might defecate the nest, or consume younger siblings as a snack, yet sheer greed has shown this not to be the case. India, England and Australia lord the burrow, the smaller Test nations would do well to look elsewhere. The human species feasts openly upon itself, the minnows count the costs.

Like a fast food victim who needs to be winched out through the roof, the ICC has now relocated from Lords, to where the taxes are even fewer and the checks absent altogether, Dubai! Where, curious by-product of wet dishcloth and wasp-chewing bulldog, Giles Clarke and, cleared of match fixing, apparently?, Narayanaswami Shrinivasan may further snuffle up the game. Son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, was (purely coincidentally) found guilty of illegal betting. No relation, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, was banned for life for spot-fixing, also coincidentally. But Narayanaswami Shrinivasan was cleared, apparently. No, really!

Silencing fans of Cricket!

Fleecing the addicts!

Bet now! And remember, when the fun stops!

It pretty much already has for many who still remember. And, what's left? Well...

It's just not cricket!

Warning signs! If ever they were needed, or indeed to be heeded- but that would require an actual free media, as opposed to a freed-up billionaire-auctioned media- Giles Clarke began as yet another investment banker- no rhyming pun intended- then on to wines, then pets, then bulk storage. He has had fingers in Adult Learning, the Council of the European Union, Theatre and Disfigurement 'charity' Changing Faces. Currently Clarke is Chairman and controlling shareholder at Westleigh Investments, which dabbles in telecommunications, event catering, gun sports, independent schools software and silicon chips. At Somerset, where he was Chairman (definitely not 'chairperson!'), he worked with gun-toting 'charmer,' now Lord Botham. Promoted up the ladder, to non-executive director of the ECB- where I suspect I once briefly caught up- where he 'negotiated' (negotiated, mind) a four year TV and Radio deal with BSkyB, Five (Radio) and (minimally) the BBC. In 2015 he rose, as so often do certain substances, to President of the ECB. Knighted in 2012, of course he was. He has worked with, now convicted, American financier Allen Stanford, whereupon Kevin Pietersen briefly floated back to the surface. Warning signs indeed! Somewhat larger, decidedly less inclined to interview, immeasurably more wealthy, Clarke latterly appears to have adopted more of the wet dishcloth, marginally less wasp-chewing bulldog. But that's because he's so very far removed from the likes of us, so very shielded from questions that might elicit the wasp-in-the-mouth side.

Like the most exquisite jigsaw puzzle, each and every invertebrate slots precisely into place, onward and upward to incorporate the entire animal kingdom, the living environment, an evolved balance between feasting and being feasted upon...

Violence evolved into a perfect living art-form! And yet...

The most bloated of the globe's Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) seek to misrule it all to their own designs.

Like the most deranged jigsaw imaginable, imperfectly overlaid- because nothing actually fits- in such manner that every tumour bleeds poison into each and every neighbouring mismatched tumour- transport, education, health, medicine, war, international aid, refugees, warfare, welfare, lawfare, environment, energy, utilities, wildlife, housing, employment, food, retirement, entertainment, sport, cricket, inequality, democracy, media, information, technology, etc, etc, etc...

As Giant Jenga, modified in celebration of today's greedaholic, or the most urgent yet conceived 'to do' list, we could bicker as to how to structure the tower. A game for all the family as the planet goes down the drain.
Economy
Climate
Pollution
Crime
Political corruption
Lobbying
Accountability
(Grenfell, Windrush, Media Phone Hacking, Hillsborough, Orgreave) Productivity
Loss of habitat
Roads
Industrial relations
Investment
Gambling
NHS
Dentistry
Mental health
Home insulation
Housing (rental sector)
Housing (mortgages)
Industry
Next pandemic
GDP
Ecology
Diplomatic relations
Media bias
Weaponisation of anti-Semitism
Refugee crisis
Detention of Refugees (UK)
Lawfare
Warfare and the Arms Trade
Air quality
Emergency services
Legacy
Wildlife diversity
Building standards
RAAC
AI


Violence re-imagined unto ugly oblivion!

Greed begets greed, begets greed...

Fractal decay!

Unto Oblivion!

Beware not only the short-pitched bowling!

Now that the reins are entirely in the grasping claws of such shadowy business men as Clarke, sorry Lord Clarke (Rugby School), and Narayanaswami Shrinivasan, I think still at liberty at time of publication, squirrelled away to non-cricketing Dubai, those of us who still recall the glory of Test Cricket, free to air, may wonder at the diminution of the 'lesser' Test Nations. Lift the 'Astroturf' and watch the IPL feasting upon the lesser Test Nations. There are just so many, curiously so wide-eyed, former and current players and commentators with at-least-half-a-handle upon what is happening. But dare they speak out and risk upsetting that lumbering gravy train? For clues, listen to the former Test Players, those most comfortably nestled in the Sky networks, the Hundred Teams. Listen between the words and watch their eyes! Torn or committed? Monetise the players, monetise the fans, and discard the rest. Which is RAAC and which is sound?

For the concerned cricketing onlooker 'Death of a Gentleman' is a must watch documentary. I think that so much of 'society' might be similarly detailed and described. The bloated foreign dictator threat has become something of a dead cat, we should be far more concerned with the bloated dictators currently embedded in every fibre of what we once almost held. Threaten to tip the cart and watch the bloaters react. Why, they might even label you as an anti-Semite!

Massacring true Cricket! Banqueting the Cockroaches!

Ultimately...

It's just not Cricket!