Kmflett's Blog

Once again on The Hundred

The domestic Test cricket year finishing on 31^st July its straight into The Hundred from August 1^st. It apparently ends on 27^th August.

The ECB appear to have determined to change the format in some way possibly to an extended T20 competition. That was always what was intended before management consultants got to work. However that can’t happen for a while due to contractual commitments. We have several more years of a failed format.

Of course its far from entirely failed. The Women’s Hundred has been a great success with high quality cricket. This was not the intention but the ECB should now grasp the nettle and put women’s matches on in the evening (when more watch)and relegate the mostly dire men’s matches to the afternoon.

The men’s games are dire because most players of note have found a way to avoid them. Compared to the franchise leagues around the world there is not enough money in it

I began to wonder if my partner Megan and myself were the only person to watch the US Major League Cricket which ran for three weeks and ended on 30^th July. It was shown on TNT Sport and played in Texas and North Carolina. It had some good international players and the games did improve in terms of competitiveness. The main audience TV wise was in the Sub Continent.

In 2024 the plan is to extend it into August which will directly clash with the Hundred.

The ECB have created the problem for themselves but its one UK based cricket fans pay the price for it in terms of decent cricket in August. Of course there is the 50 over contest and no doubt coverage of that will be found on the TMS web. Don’t expect Sky to bother even though its audience for the Hundred is minimal. The football Premiership starts on 11^th August..

Its reported by the way that Hundred ticket sales are better than ever. Perhaps attracted by the women’s games or/as well as cut price or give away tickets, of just because it’s a night out where the cricket is not really the main attraction.

Press TAB five times to redirect to the Accessibility page.

As Sunak says Just Start Oil, Political Sentencing for Protest underlined in Court

Two Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker were denied the right to appeal against lengthy prison sentences at the Appeal Court on Monday.

Trowland had been given 3 years and Decker 31 months for a protest that closed the Queen Elizabeth 11 bridge for a day and a half. As the Court noted the protest had caused significant disruption.

It was the length of the sentences that caused the issue. The original judge argued they were designed to deter protest. The Appeal judges noted that Parliament had passed a law on protest which provided for sentences up to 10 years for protests.

Lawyers representing Trowland and Decker argued that the sentences had a chilling effect on protest. The judges noted that the scale and impact of the protest was different to others.

The point of protest of course is to have an impact and change things. In the case of climate and oil many might suggest that this is important.

Laws are of course political and the one in use here was inspired by the current Home Secretary Suella Braverman who seems intent on banning as much protest as she can.

Britain has a long history of political sentencing. At Peterloo in 1819 the speaker Henry Hunt and others went to jail. The Magistrate who sent the Yeomanry in to cut down protesters for the vote William Hulton was commended and went on to form the Tory Party in West Lancashire.

Much more recently Shrewsbury building workers involved in a strike in the early 1970s. Those who have survived were recently pardoned. The trial and sentences were entirely political.

graphic @bellbelltoons

Rishi Sunak seems to have relaunched the Tories as the Motorists Party- challenging LTN 20mph speed limits and ULEZ. These are policies promoted by the Tory Government but now the Motorists Party sets policy.

As a lifelong pedestrian and public transport user I won’t be voting for the Motorists Party, but then I never vote Tory either.

However the new Motorists Party has work to do. A priority must be to launch a new Cones Hotline. Its predecessor was promoted by John Major after the 1992 Election. The plan was to allow motorists to report areas of roads coned off for no obvious reasons. My journeys in cars and buses as a passenger suggest that this remains an issue.

However the Cones Hotline was an expensive failure. It wasnt well used and resulted in hardly changes to cones.

Still given the Tories last year a relaunch as the Motorists Party under the slogan, there’s no success like failure may be the best Sunak can do.

Beard Liberation Front

31st July

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that England all rounder Moeen Ali has been voted Beard of the Ashes 2023.

In a snap poll held on the last day of the series Moeen got 70% of the poll with England captain Ben Stokes second on 18%. Chris Woakes and Mark Wood also featured. The highest placed Australian Travis Head failed to make the final list due to a reported shaving incident during the series

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, its likely to be Moeen’s last Ashes Test and his Beard Power has been a key feature of the England side.

The Ashes: the contradictions of cricket & capitalism

The final Ashes Test of the summer starts today at the Oval. According to the Telegraph the Five Test Ashes series has been played over the shortest number of days ever.

Certainly the toll of nearly back to back five day games has taken its toll on the players and many others who support the matches. Back in the day an Ashes summer would include Tests and a number of County games for the tourists, ending with a final game at the Oval not in late July but in late August.

The Ashes is a Test series that is commercially successful. In a world of short form cricket that is unusual. You might think the ECB would want to maximise that. However it has a contract to maximise The Hundred which runs in August. Its an unwanted tournament (for the men’s game) that has however hugely boosted the women’s game (that was not the intention). Ticket sales are apparently the best ever. I suspect mostly to watch the women.

The ECB are no good at capitalism but if they were they’d run the women’s game in the evenings and relegate the mostly dull to dreadful men’s games to the afternoons

Marx, Engels & Lenin in London: the Camden v Islington divide

Marx and Engels were long term residents of North London both living in what is now the London Borough of Camden. Both frequented Hampstead Heath.

When Lenin lived in London much more briefly, he lived off Pentonville Rd which is in the London Borough of Islington.

Whether there was any ideological basis to this geographical divide is unknown.

The extracts below are from a guide the then Communist Party of Great Britain produced sixty years ago in 1963

During the time Marx was living at Maitland Park Road, Engels lived (from September, 1870 to October 1894) at 122 Regents Park Road, opposite Primrose Hill. From October 1894, until his death in August 1895, he lived at № 41 in the same road, near St. Mark’s Church, which is only a stone’s throw away from the Zoological Gardens in Regents Park

Lenin and Krupskaya set up house in two rooms situated on the first floor of № 30, Holford Square, and stayed there until the beginning of May 1903. This Square is situated in the borough of Finsbury, about 10 minutes’ walk from King’s Cross Station. The house where Lenin lived was destroyed in the early bombing raids during the Second World War. Opposite the house, a Memorial to Lenin erected by the Finsbury Borough Council was unveiled by the Soviet Ambassador Mr. Maisky, on Lenin’s birthday, April 22 1943. On the house itself, Mr. Maisky unveiled a plaque of commemoration to Lenin, which was placed there by the London County Council in 1942. It is now placed in the Finsbury Town Hall.

https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/britain/pamphlets/1963/london_landmarks/index.htm

The Ambridge Socialist

30th July

Grundy’s should not be landlords!

Eddie Grundy is right. It goes against everything that the Grundy’s stand for Will to be landlord. His eviction of Hannah so he can live with George in a property he bought with money he was bequested is shabby at best. Hannah should fight the eviction and tell George where to get off while she is at it. George is clearly from the less honourable element of the Grundy diaspora.

Pip and Stella have been experimenting with camping. Don’t they read the weather forecast

In defence of cherries

Stella has finally persuaded Brian to scrap Home Farm’s cherry crop. Adam who was a Brexiteer, and responsible for their introduction may reflect on the impact of cheaper imported cherries. Stella’s argument is that post-Brexit foreign pickers have disappeared and labour costs too much. Plus she claims cherries are a luxury fruit. Not in Sainsbury’s they aren’t. Adam ever the hopeful Brexiteer thinks labour costs will come down. The Ambridge Socialist backs British cherries in season though possibly not those grown in Ambridge.

There will be trouble ahead

Henry

Henry is still listening to the Archers. He has got Titchener’s mobile number from George- begging some interesting questions- and has spoken to him. Titchener may be seriously ill but he is still a manipulative, devious and dangerous individual.

This won’t end until Henry starts writing the scripts

Political differences which seem minor can often have much more significance in practice.

Labour traditionally is a Broad Church. That is one where the right decide the order of service but the left can sit in the pews at the back provided they don’t make too much noise.

Neither Starmer or Blair accepted the Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn. The left could not be allowed to determine the order of service even if the hymn book was still that of the Labour right.

Starmer has made it clear that he has no time for Labour as any form of Broad Church. The potential explusion of Neal Lawson who promotes tactical voting to get the Tories out underlines the point. A YouGov poll (Times 29th July) shows that most Tory voters defecting to Labour are doing so because they want the Tories out not because they like Starmer.

Blair making one of his rare public interventions in the summer issue of the New Statesman argues for a progressive politics(as he sees it) within Labour or the broader circles around Labour. Blair’s idea of a Broad Church is one where Labour and the LibDems work together but not as one organisation.

That isn’t Starmer’s view but Blair at least grasps that outside of PR (which he still opposes) some form of Broad Church politics is needed.

This is not something for the left to celebrate but to note. Starmer may think that his way is the only way. Blair has other views

Beard Liberation Front

29th July

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers,has said that England bowler Stuart Broad, who announced his retirement from cricket on Saturday will join the Beard Hall of Fame.

Broad has taken 20 wickets in the current Ashes series, 151 in total against the Australians, and is only the second fast bowler to get 600 Test wickets.

He has not had a full time beard but has often had an iconic chin beard that the BLF says has been a key factor in his wicket taking.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we are pleased to announce the admission of Stuart Broad to the Beard Hall of Fame. His Beard Power has been central to English cricket for many years

Others in the Beard Hall of Fame include ZZ Top’s Dusty Hill, Kofi Annan,cricketer Hashim Amla, Sir Mo Farah and Bernie Grant

29th July

The Beard Liberation Front has said that following the Coutts debacle it has acted to permanently exclude Nigel Farage from ever being a supporter.

Farage appeared in public with a moustache in August 2016.

Farage had been speaking in Jackson at a rally for US Presidential candidate Donald Trump someone who himself has had a complicated relationship with hirsuteness.

The campaigners had called for Farage to shave the moustache as they believed that it was bringing the hirsute into disrepute.

Commentators said at the time that the moustache made Farage look like a 1960s porn star, a sci-fi villain and even Oswald Mosley.

BLF organiser Keith Flett said Nigel Farage is one of those people who is better off clean shaven. For that reason we have decided to permanently exclude him from being a supporter at any time in the future.