Not Dead, Just Bowling

England's Gerraint Jones reacts to being bowled by...
Arafat, who further taunts the England wickie with merciless sledging.

England's cricket team narrowly avoided embarrasment in Pakistan on the first game of their winter tour- the full match report can be found here. Just how poorly the England batsmen performed can be seen from the following:

"None of the host team's bowlers have been named in the squad for the first Test, but Yasir Arafat and Najaf Shah took seven wickets between them."

It appears that after the brief flourishing of skill, passion, and quality during this past summer's Ashes campaign England are back to their old ways, and can be stopped in their tracks by a spirited performance with the new ball from a dead Palestinian leader.

Danny Baseball

Those of you looking to keep alive the flame of summer as the northern hemisphere's long and dark winter falls upon us could do worse than check out Listmaker's new blog, Baseball Diaries. You Australian pals, keep quiet about how deliciously warm you are all going to be for the next six months.

Destined to become a classic, Baseball Diaries is an ongoing potted history of Listo's lifelong love affair with that most civillised of American sports. Thrill to the escapades of the Orioles and Mets! Marvel at Listo's OCD need to journey to EVERY ball park in the contiguous United States! Stave off vertigo as you relive Listo's sojourns in the nosebleeds across several time zones! Commend Listo's work ethic and dedication to leave at the game's conclusion at whatever early hour of the morn and travel back home so he can get to work! Most importantly, learn the ins and outs of this compelling game and catch a glimpse at why it invokes such strong passions and warm feeling.

Listo is three posts in, and I heartily recommend you make this blog part of your regular reading. And for those of you who like your baseball served on paper between bound covers, I also recommend picking up a copy of my chum Jim Baumer's When Towns Had Teams; a fascinating book about the golden age of small town baseball in Maine, when millworkers and lobstermen played for the love of the game, cameraderie, and a chance to blaze a trail to Battle Creek.

Mondale, let me save you the trouble: of course Listo and I will get a room.

Oh The Irony

I was recently struck with the urge to re-read Catch-22; no particular reason, I suppose I just needed a good dose of Joseph Heller's cynicism and anger. I'm nearing the end of the book and tonight I reached chapter 40, only to be stopped dead in my tracks. In this chapter the main protagonist Yossarian is confronted with a choice by the amoral Lieutenant Colonel Korn and the inept Colonel Cathcart- become their friend and be taken off combat duty or continue to refuse to fly bombing missions and face court martial. During the conversation there is the following exchange (paraphrased):

"Won't you fight for your country?" Colonel Korn demanded..."Won't you give up your life for Colonel Cathcart and me?"

Yossarian tensed with astonishment..."What's that?" he exclaimed. "What have you and Colonel Cathcart got to do with my country? You're not the same."

"How can you seperate us?" Colonel Korn inquired with ironic tranquility.

"That's right," Colonel Cathcart cried emphatically. "You're either for us or against us. There's no two ways about it."

"I'm afraid he's got you," added Colonel Korn. You're either for us or against your country. It's as simple as that."

"Oh no Colonel. I don't buy that."

Colonel Korn was unruffled. "Neither do I frankly, but everyone else will. So there you are."

I had no idea. I should have known, in the dim recesses of my memory, but I had no idea. The last four years of US foreign and defence policy all make sense now. Here is the model for conflating opposition to radical Islamist geo-currents with support for the Bush administration, ripped from the pages of an anti-war novel written in 1955. Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.

More on Sausages

Bangers and mash- I'll have me some of that
While no great gastronome, I do know what I like when it comes to grub. I don't care what food looks like as long as it tastes great. I would rather eat the same thing three times a week if it comes from nearby than scoff seven distinct meals that require ingredients to travel across time zones (I used to sell local Maine bottled water in my fancy foods retail phase by asking the customer if they wanted the local brand or a bottle that had sailed 3,500 miles from France in the oily, dirty hull of a freighter. If they still doubted, I offered to decant the local water into a sterilized Evian bottle so that they could still try to look cool. And don't get me started on the great scams that are Dasani and Aquafina). My body is supposed to consume roast potatoes and hubbard squash when it is dark by 6pm; salads and sweetcorn when baseball is still in regular season play. Organic, good; local, better; organic and local, best.

Such are my personal rules.

In the anglo-saxon world however, food security, low cost to retailer, and shelf life seem to have trumped all other considerations for a good long while. Thankfully, there is a small but significant movement on both sides of the Atlantic seeking to return good food to its proper place in society- not just as a luxury for the well-off or the foodie but rather as a normal, unremarkable part of everyday life. Exhibit A: a BBC web report to warm the cockles of Chipolata Dave's heart. And any thing I can do to induce a feeling of well being in my brother's brother-in-law I consider a service to family cohesion. To the story:

The Politics of Sausages
Just as the Italians and French embrace local dishes as part of their cultural identity, so too is that most British of foods, the sausage, enjoying a renaissance in the UK.

Just five years ago, with the traditional cooked breakfast in decline, it looked as if Britons were falling out of love with the banger. Today, the sizzle is back, with consumption up 17%. Forecasters say the nation will eat 189,000 tonnes this year, the equivalent of 140 sausages each.

As a quintessential British dish, the sausage has benefited from the increasing interest in Britishness, along with crumbles and other nursery favourites. Whereas once British cuisine suffered from cultural cringe, today it is embraced by celebrity chefs and the public alike.

"It's OK to stand up now and be British, and that has helped the interest in British food," says Kevin Finch, the owner of the Sausage and Mash cafe chain. "People are looking again at the way we used to eat before there were decent restaurants to go to. Not only is it OK to be British, it is OK to be working class - our mockney, celebrity culture is attracted to the motifs of working class life. It's now cool to go to caffs, to eat sausages and shepherd's pie."

This new-found enthisiasm for British food has sparked interest in regional specialities, which in many areas includes sausages. Among the food and drink trails promoted by Visit Britain, among the most popular are the sausage trails. Butchers and artisan producers use quality meats, often from local herds or wild game caught in the area. Order sausages in Gloucestershire, for instance, and the meat will probably have come from Gloucester Old Spot pigs. Even vegetarians are better catered for, with varieties such as Caerphilly cheese and leek now available.

Alexia Robinson, the organiser of British Food Fortnight, say the British feel about sausages the way the French feel about cheese. And as consumers become more concerned about where their food comes from, the sausage is one of the best-possible advertisements for quality produce.

"If I had to choose one product to really make someone think about the food they buy, it would be the sausage," says Ms Robinson. "I would say have a bite of this bland, mass-produced sausage and compare it with one from a local butcher, who has used quality meat and which sums up the flavour and character of the region. I rest my case."

Meanwhile, Chipolata Dave over at Sausage Links has this suggestion for sausage of the week

First They Came For The Muppets And I Did Not Speak Out Because I Was Not A Muppet.

The Archetype of an Aggressive Beggar With a Hand Up His Bum
From the BBC:

"'Elmo' seized in LA police action
Los Angeles police sparked a surprising sight when they led away real-life versions of cuddly Sesame Street Muppet Elmo and cartoon hero Mr Incredible. Impersonators of the well-known characters were arrested for allegedly harassing tourists for tips to pose for photos on Hollywood Boulevard.

"With all of the crime in Los Angeles they pick on us?" said Donn Harper, 45, who impersonates Elmo.

LAPD said it was cracking down on what it called "aggressive begging"." (The rest of this wonderful story can be found here)

My fervent wish and hope is that the LAPD send an officer to Maine to detain and caution the Anah Temple Shriners Muppet Costume Marching Unit- regulars in parades and festivals in Downeast and Midcoast Maine. To my mind those chaps' costumes make John Wayne Gacy seem like a safe bet for a kid's birthday party.

And lest you feel that dressing up in a cartoon suit under the hot Californian sun and aggressively panhandling Swedish people is the rock bottom act of a desperate man, Donn Harper (Elmo) tells the BBC that "He makes up to $400 a day in tips".

Screw this non-profit adolescent services lark, I'm going to make me a Clifford the Big Red Dog suit and start coining it mad style.

On The Road Again

After three years in Camden Country Mouse and I move 8 miles down the road to Rockland (where I work) this week. The packing has been escalating for the past 10 days to the point we are at today; walls denuded of art, a minimum of CDs to assist with packing, shelves and shelves of books tessellated into a bewildering assortment of boxes, and the contents of the pantry staring back at us through the translucent walls of various rubbermaid tubs. I still have to tackle clothes (I have a hard enough time dressing myself in the morning, nevermind holding out a weeks worth of rig from the suitcases and bags), electronics (World Series and email will dominate until we hand back the keys), and the collection of empty yogurt tubs used for occasional leftovers (as soon as I pack them I'm going to need them).

To do: find out the actual street number of the new house, let friends and family know, transfer utilities (can we keep our cable modem if we move a mere 8 miles, or do the arcane rules of public utilities come into play?), marvel at the growing pile of once important stuff that is heading to theGoodwill charity shop tomorrow morning.

I know for many people moving brings unbearable stress, but for me it is part of my natural state. My family moved all the time when I was a kid. Not grifting a landlord with a moonlit flit alas- nothing as glamorous as that, but because dad was in the air force and Her Majesty needed him urgently to flip from one end of England to another (or sometimes from street to street on the same base). I don't have an exact count but I've lived in upwards of 25 houses in my 32 years. Ask a member of my immediate family the date of an important family or world event and before the date an address will tumble out- "Parseval Strasse, 1982, Falklands War", or "Nan and Graddad's 50th, Wessex Avenue, 1987". Indeed, my mother has long navigated through her life and memories with the assistance of a collection of photos of front doors, each one instantly recognisable as the portal to both a house and a period in time.

This time next week I suspect I'll be listening to "This American Life" on Maine Public Radio again, but in a different house, as we unpack boxes and adapt our belongings to new and unfamiliar shaped spaces. This thought makes me irrationally, inanely happy. Such an odd but comforting life I have lead to date.

Its All In Your Mind

"Britannia's God of War"

Happy Trafalgar day, chums. Nelson, among his other deep impressions on British society, had a huge impact on poets (the title of this post is Byron's description of the late Admiral) and other artists. The timing and nature of his death made him a natural draw for the romantic poets. His 'heroic' passing helped provide the bedrock of self-assured patriotism that marked the more extroverted bombast of Kipling and his peers writing at the end of a century of British ascendancy that Nelson had helped kick off. The influence of Nelson and his navy can still be felt in everyday life and the mundane; his image is used to sell insurance in England with no less gusto than music hall stars used to belt out "Hearts of Oak" to Edwardian crowds.

Therefore I thought I would mark this 200th anniversary of his greatest victory and his death one last time this week by reproducing the latest effort by Britain's Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, a poem called "What Have We Here?" that reflects on the endless fascination with Nelson that for many Britons begins in the moral clarity of childhood, when our side can do no wrong and the enemies of yesterday are always evil.


WHAT HAVE WE HERE?

Dad got home late, and I never heard the gravel
Or his door-clunk in the drive-through,
Still less his shoeless step
As he crept to perch on my bedside.
‘What have we here?’
It was a Yeomanry day or used to be,
And not even the thick whiskery cloth
Of his battle-dress trousers
Could blunt the edge of a Ladybird under the covers.

Nelson, dad.’ He squared his shoulders.
The order was: no reading after lights out,
So I was caught cold – like the polar bear
I’d just seen dispatched
In the pack-ice off Spitzbergen.
On the other hand, Nelson was England’s darling.
I’d seen that too, in the cock-pit death-scene
With Hardy’s kiss on my forehead.
Dad checked a page, before his weight lifted and went.

I fell at once into a dream of Victory –
How she wallowed through Biscay,
With her battle-tatters smoking –
Then gave my signal for a change in nature.
At which she side-stepped her Channel lane,
Shimmied over the Hampshire hills,
Caught the surge of London,
And made fast to a spire of Westminster
Overlooking Trafalgar Square.

With that, the famous brandy barrel
Burst its ropes at the main mast,
And the man himself slithered out
Crumpled and glistening as a baby
But perfectly fit again.
He proved this by scaling the column
A grateful nation had raised for him,
And leaned on his coil of rope to wait
For as long as it took to stiffen into stone.

Next morning, with dad in his city suit again,
I woke in time to snaffle his Times at breakfast
And rolled it into a telescope
So I could show him my grasp of history.
‘What have we here?’
This time of course I couldn’t answer.
The thing was pressed to my blind left eye,
And supposing I’d said ‘Your face’
He would know I was only inventing things.

© Andrew Motion, October 17, 2005.

Tonight We Gorn'tuh Party Like u's 1805 (Bor).

Its a local party for local people. Are you local?

L'Entente Cordiale

To my undying shame, I spent two weeks of the summer of my thirteenth year being hateful to a French boy. His name was Guilliame and he was my exchange partner.

Thanks to his warm and welcoming family, I had enjoyed a wonderful Easter holiday in the western Loire region, exploring the medieval glory of Anjou and Nantes and splashing about in the warm Atlantic at their beach house in Brittany, begining a love affair with western France that persists today. I had spoken nothing but bad French for two weeks, eaten great food, basked in the sun, and had a generally splendid time.

Guilliame and I had got on fine in France, although he did prove himself to be a little bit of a bastard (not unlike his famous namesake), blaming me for a broken screen door knowing that I could understand what he was saying but lacked the vocab to adequately defend myself. However, when he arrived in England that summer for the reciprocal visit, he turned out to be a listless, ungrateful turd.

My family dragged him all over southern England, from the bright lights of London to the ancient mysteries of Stonehenge and Guilliame essentially couldn't be arsed with any of it. We were living in Hampshire at the time, on the southern coast, and not far from Portsmouth, home of the Royal Navy. I think after Guilliame sneered at the personal tour of the flight line of RAF Odiham where dad was based at the time, my father and I reached an unspoken consensus that we had to humiliate the little prick.

I am not proud of what we did, nor do I know if it served to make him any more miserable than his default mood. However, when you are a teenager and feeling vindictive, dragging a Frenchman through the decks of HMS Victory, through the Naval museum's collection of captured French flags and ensigns from various centuries, past Martello Towers, and even around Second World War gun emplacements constructed "because you French surrendered to Hitler without a fight" was deeply, pettily, satisfying. We even took him to Stratfield Saye, the country seat of the Duke of Wellington who smashed Napoleon at Waterloo, ostensibly to look at the peacocks but in reality to show Guilliame the captured French cannon that lined the driveway.

But now, in this week of great celebration and commemoration of the British victory at Trafalgar and the ensuing death of Nelson, I feel I should join with Her Maj Queen Brenda 2 of Great Britain and President Chirac of France in burying the hatchet and extending the olive branch:

"Under the Patronage of Her Majesty The Queen and The President of the French Republic French and British students call for renewed Franco-British cooperation"

"Engage the enemy more closely"

Typical Preacher's Kid

To: The Assembled and august Sea Lords of The Blogosphere, The Brooklyn Admiralty, The Antipodean Colonies, to our land forces of our Lord Loughborough, and to all and sundry not greeted within above;

Huzzah sirs and madams, huzzah!

News reached this outlying station at 9 of clock some months previous via chance historical memory then confirmed by Mr. Stephenson's miraculous interweb, of the impending 200th anniversary of a famous victory in the Eastern Atlantic by the Royal Navy over the perverted forces of popery, dictatorship, and demagoguery!

Tis said that our opponent was old Boney himself. He may have styled himself as Johnny Spaniard sailing his preposterous Santissima Trinidad or the liberty capped Frog Vice-Admiral Villeneuve but it mattered not for to coin a phrase, his 'Trafalgar' came! When his vile flotilla of papists and garlic pressers minced out onto the blue of fair Cape Trafalgar after leading our loyal tars on a merry dance to Carrib and back, they were met with a thunderous broadside of contemptous farting and round shot.

For was it not like petit Pierre Frogslegs to use the time best spent preparing for battle in earnest debate and luncheons designed around the genitals of amphibians, while our honest swabs were urged on by Admiral the Lord Nelson to double load the guns and be content with be-weeviled sausages, pukka pies, and fluffy mackerel pudding?

And what of that fair faced great pudden of the North Norfolk coast, the Burnham Thorpe's vicar's son, the Right Honourable Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, KB, Admiral of the White? He who learned to sail on Barton Broad, attended Paston Grammar School a mere two centuries before my Uncle Les, and nephew of Norfolk's own Maurice Suckling? He who so much booze of such high quality was named after?

A mad, vain, phillandering tory he may have been, but like the later colonial general Patton he showed verve and imagination had a place in battle and fully understood that the fighting man should be a cunning rabid jackal intent on the feast. And in his mortal wounding on the quarter deck of HMS Victory he secured a legacy as near-as-damnit unimpeachable in the eyes of the simple patriotic John Bull. I care not a jot that he was a cad and an arse; for when the need was dire and the time was right he struck and struck again in the name of the essential right of all Englishmen to muddle through life in a hobbitish mien of moderation and grumpiness free from doctrinaire interference.

And as his lordship himself would have imodestly observed, he beat the French and Spanish with one hand tied behind his back. Or rather one stump shoved in his waistcoat, for he only had one arm. And one eye. Verily, he was a ParaOlympian and he still thumped the continentals on the arse.

I fear my dispatch is long on thunder and short on detail. Lest I disappoint, might I humbly suggest this short potted biography of the good Admiral, this splendid reportage on the Battle of Trafalgar, or this outstanding series of of presentations on Mr. Marconi's wonderful invention via Her Britannic Majesty's Broadcasting Corporation?

God Save The Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk and all who sail in him!

I remain sirs and madams, your obedient servant,
Major-General the Earl of Cley and Catton, Second Runner Up of the Battle of Waterloo (Park), FCUK, Crosse D' Hypermarche et Peanut Clusters.

P.S. I pray that you all join me in spirit as soon as the sun is over the yardarm on Friday, splicing the main brace with a suitable rum (Pussers, Goslings, or Meyers) while proclaiming the dispatches swapped by HMS's Sirius and Victory "Enemy's ships are coming out of port: general chase south-east!"

Food, Inglorious Food

For those of you feel that this site is begining to take on culinary airs, we have Cousin Jim (as distinct from Maine Jim, Brooklyn Jim, or Brendan Nemesis Jamie) to thank for bringing us back down to earth with the following link:

Weight Watchers' Recipe Cards From the 1970s

How could one resist a dish called "Fluffy Mackerel Pudding", especially when it is described like this:

"Once upon a time the world was young and the words "mackerel" and "pudding" existed far, far away from one another. One day, that all changed. And then, whoever was responsible somehow thought the word fluffy would help. Oh, and eggs, too."


And you thought "Convenience Fish" was a Pete Dexter novel. Yum.

Dam It, Janet

Oh you can't beat a good quote from the Rocky Horror Show for a post about flood defences and levees. These pictures come via the one who shall be known as "Biopolymer Chris"; the GDP numbers come from the CIA World Fact Book:

Flood defence system under construction around Venice. Venice is one of Italy's top tourist draws, a historically significant city, and generates billions for the national economy. Italy's GDP: $27,700 (30th globally)

London's Thames Flood Barrier, completed in 1986 at a cost of £370 million. London is Britain's top tourist draw, a historically significant city, a major port, and generates billions for the national economy. Britain's GDP: $29,600 (19th globally)

Flood protection, New Orleans. New Orleans is one of the United States' top tourist draws, a historically significant city, a major port, and generates billions for the national economy.
The USA's GDP: $40,100 (2nd globally)

For Those Who Go Down To The Sea In Ships...

Its why I speak pirate so well

I have recently convinced my maternal grandfather that the internet is a wonderful thing. Granddad Len served in the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War and for a few years afterwards. I knew he had sailed on at least one liberty ship and I recently found out that Country Mouse's paternal grandfather had been a yard foreman at New England Shipbuilding Corp. in South Portland, Maine. While Granddad's liberty ship had been a Canadian rather than an American one, I thought he would find it interesting coincidence of sorts so I printed off a bunch of stuff about the Portland yard, his ship (the S.S. Fort Dease Lake) and the town in British Columbia it was named after and popped it in the mail.

Talking on the phone after my letter had arrived, Granddad asked me how on earth I had found out all that information. I explained that via google and the inevitable geek magnet of old ship websites (how could that special coterie of website builders who like the words "tonnage" and "gross displacement" avoid ferreting out information from Lloyds List and government records and posting it in one place? I counted on them and they came through, bless) it was relatively easy to unearth the salient information on the pertinent ship. Granddad seemed very interested.

Given that Granddad is not the sort of senior who is adverse to new technologies (he loves his TV "digibox" that allows him to watch approximately 42,000 soccer matches at one sitting) and that my uncle Les was in at the ground floor of the computer revolution in the 1970s I reckoned that he would be on the phone to his local ISP as soon as I had rung off, demanding that the computer in the spare bedroom he uses for mah jong be connected to the glories of the world wide web.

However, Granddad had other ideas. Or rather I should say 'idea'- namely have Weasel do all the research for him. Since my initital research, I have been ferreting out the ownership and loading histories of a variety of tramp steamers, palm oil tankers, and North Sea colliers as his requests have come in fast and furious. The searches are no longer limited to ships on which he served either; recently I unearthed a small trove of information on the S.S. Sam Key, an American built liberty ship he tied up next to in some godforsaken port in 1946 which later disappeared in the Bemuda Triangle.

Given that last Monday was a holiday and I had forgotten the full name of the latest vessel I was supposed to be researching, I called Granddad to ask and- if I am to be frank- to show off a bit by pulling up the information in seconds while I had him on the phone. Sure enough, I was able to recite the tonnage and ultimate fate of the S.S. Empire Life (captured Axis or impounded neutral ships pressed into allied service were given the prefix "Empire" but their previous history was kept secret from the crew- I never did find out the real name of the Empire Life but learned it had been scrapped in 1957).

"Find this one then" said Granddad. "The 'Ark'"

Deep in my role as super computer research man, I queried "Would that be the Empire Ark, Granddad?"

"No" he replied. "Noah's bloody Ark." Then he giggled for a good ten minutes.

See what I get for being nice? Bah.

In Conker News....

Why is that old English man playing conkers with Fidel Castro?

The venerable game of conkers has been all over our corner of the blogosphere recently chums, with both McTechWitch and Listmaker recounting an epic battle at their workplace between two expatriate Englishmen. However, dark news of sinister import comes our way from Norfolk, as the Eastern Daily Press breathlessly reports:

"The moth that spells doom for conkers, Tara Greaves reporting

First it was fear of litigation that threatened to end the age-old playground game but now nature is also taking its toll on East Anglia's conkers.

Scientists have found the larvae of the marauding horse chestnut leaf minor moth, which burrows into the leaves causing them to fall off prematurely, in Norfolk for the first time this year.

In extreme cases an entire tree can appear autumnal as early as August which means it produces fewer and smaller conkers."

The full story can be found here, but if you aren't inclined to follow the link I should at least share with you Tara Greaves' chilling final paragraphs (and the EDP's horrific copy editing):

"Both there are also human threats to the traditional game of conkers, which is in full swing at this time of year. Four years ago, Norwich City Council made the infamous decision to fell trees in Bluebell Road because it was worried children collecting nuts would be hit by cars leading to the council being sued.

The following year several Scout leaders classified the game as a dangerous sport and banned it from being played."

The only nuts Scout leaders want kids playing with are- hold it; easy, tiger, its a family blog.

The Nobel Prize for Literature

Congratulations...



Harold Pinter.....




BOLLOCKS!...




To the lot of them.

Energy Hog, Meet Squander Bug

The White House has decided that it is time to get serious about energy consumption. As has become standard with this Rovian administration, they have decided to forgo any concrete and meaningful action and instead are concentrating on a PR campaign. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the latex and leather "Energy Hog" mascot is going to be about as effective as Karen Hughes' public diplomacy tour of the Middle East. The only plus is that a foam mascot doesn't have anything embarrassing up its sleeve to spill before a Grand Jury (if it had been the Clinton White House, we might have ended up with testimony about 'making bacon').

Given the Bushies track record on public appointments, I'm just surprised that the job was given to a dude in a cartoon animal suit rather than a big election fund donor or campaign worker. Although this effort is so doomed to failure I wouldn't be surprised if someone ripped the head off the Energy Hog and found Michael Brown inside. Don't be shocked if the Energy Hog goes the way of Petey the Sexual Harassment Panda.

Here's what the Toledo Blade had to say:

Hog wild on energy
For a White House that prides itself in keeping relentlessly "on message" to sell its policies to the American public, the Bush Administration has come up with a jarringly negative image for the new energy conservation program.

The mascot is a cartoon character called "Energy Hog," a malevolent-looking pig that wears blue jeans and a leather jacket, with a chain around its neck. Whether this grungy beast, whose name is too reminiscent of "Gas Hog," will be successful in marketing a positive concept like saving energy is questionable, at best, but no one should be surprised that the tactic appears backward.

This is, after all, the same White House that has collectively sneered at the idea of energy conservation for the past five years. From fighting stronger fuel economy standards for motor vehicles to failing to advance energy-saving standards for home appliances, the Bush Administration has been the antithesis of green.

Indeed, President Bush and his retinue have actively sought to cast themselves as leaders of a sport-utility vehicle culture that could not care less about saving energy, on the road or at home. Then came $3 a gallon gasoline, after which SUV sales tanked, and forecasts of natural gas heating bills 71 percent higher than last year. And out trots Energy Hog to help administration officials spread the word to drive slower and turn down the thermostat at home.

This is better than Mr. Bush's recent off-the-cuff advice to motorists - "If you don't need gas, don't buy it" - but not much. Wasting energy, whether in our choice of cars or the plethora of electronic gadgets at home, has become so ingrained in American habits that it will take more than public service announcements on radio and television to reverse. Moreover, the Energy Hog is a negative symbol, with none of the positive vibes of earlier government public relations icons like Smokey Bear, who earnestly intoned "Only you can prevent forest fires," or McGruff the Crime Dog, who growled "Take a bite out of crime."

Indications are that the administration wants to avoid the fate of Jimmy Carter, who became president in the midst of an energy crisis in 1977 and was ridiculed for addressing the nation in a cardigan sweater from a 65-degree White House.

The difference is that Mr. Carter came up with a comprehensive energy policy that actually reduced the nation's dependence on foreign oil during his tenure in Washington whereas the current incumbent has trouble articulating any tactic that doesn't include drilling in a wildlife refuge or off the coast of Florida.

In short, Mr. Bush cannot expect to ride the Energy Hog to victory in his new conservation crusade.

Of course, this isn't the first effort of this kind. In the Second World War, the British government came up with the Squander Bug:
I don't know how effective the Squander Bug campaign was but I think the crucial difference was that back then both the British and American publics understood the stakes and realised that a degree of sacrifice was essential in wartime and possible shortage. All facets of society were so in tune with the nature of the struggle beofre them that in 1942 GM suspended production of cars and built Sherman tanks for the duration of the war- these days the closest they get to that is building Hummer H2s so dickweeds can pretend they are patrolling Fallujah while doing the school run.

Perhaps the sentiment needs to be as straightforward as this:


Then again perhaps not; these days every single last selfish one of us would probably decide "yes" and proceed to the raquetball club with a clear concience.

More on Meat

As I was tooling about the internet this weekend I stumbled across an excellent and comprehensive website dedicated to the humble yet delicious British sausage. The page tickled something in my memory and I fired off an inquiry to the site administrator, asking him if this was the sausage website created by my sister-in-law's brother. A reply today comfimed that I had indeed found my way to the correct site:

Sausage Links

David has done a cracking job advocating for the humble sausage, and if you are in any way carnivore-inclined, this site is a real -ahem- feast. Given the difficulty in obtaining British style sausages in the USA you might even be inspired to try making your own using David's handy and simple instructions. If you do, let me know, and I'll invite myself around for dinner.

You really can't beat a good banger.

I'm Waiting for Twa Kon Donkey Kong

For those of you who feel boxing lacks a degree of strategy, and that board games lack violent punching* there is now a sport for you:

World Chess Boxing Organisation

One round of boxing followed by one round of chess. Unsurprisingly, it is a German concept. I imagine the headphones are to soothe the fighters as they transition from upper cut to knight to D3.



(*You must not have siblings then)

"I think I could eat one of Bellamy's pies."

I'm sitting here getting ready to email my cousin Jim (so many 'Jims' in my odd constellation), listening to the Smiths and pondering how Listmaker has done it again; having cursed the Atlanta Braves as effectively as he pulled the rug out from under the Red Sox. I'm debating whether or not it is late enough to switch from tea to a dark-and-stormy; perhaps instead I should open a bottle from the dwindling supply of red wine that looked so robust a few short weeks ago (maybe I will have both: "beer before liquor, never been sicker, liquor then beer, you're in the clear" makes no mention of wine and besides, tomorrow is a holiday). My Sunday shirt- a comfortable favorite- seems to smell vaguely of old drawn butter, which is odd, as we haven't had lobster in a while and it was washed on Friday. I should change it, but I'll admit the light dairy wiff wafting up from the placket is intriguing. I suppose I will just have to continue procrastinating as far as these matters are concerned.

One thing I have already prevaricated too long about is a tip from Little Bruvva about a new pie on the market in England. He called today for a chat and we had a good discussion of East Midlands cuisine. Before the deluge begins about the paucity of good British food- and especially in the industro-agricultural wasteland of the midlands- begins I'd like to point out that great strides have been made in recent years in the rediscovery of well made, artisinal regional delicacies and that the East Midlands (with the Appellation Controlee of stilton) lead the way. Bruvva was at a conference recently which featured "East Midland's Cuisine"- quiches made with stilton and red leicester, gourmet sausages, pork pies, and so on (no mention if Walker's Crisps were on the menu, and being a government affair it is doubtful that pints of County were on offer). Bruvva set my tastebuds a-tingle with a report of a pork pie with the top crust and about an inch of meat removed and replaced with stilton (a local favorite in Loughborough where he lives and Mrs. Bruvva hails from). This in turn reminded me of an email he sent last week about Leicestershire's Pukka Pies:

Morning,
After reading your piece on curry I thought I should tell you how they have now combined my two great loves curry and pastry to make the Pukka Luxury Halal Chicken Balti Pie, though being a creature of habit I still stuck to beef and onion at the '300 Spartans'* last night. Not only that, you can now buy Pukka pies in Sainsburys, I warm to Leicestershire more each day!

(*His local Greek-owned chip shop)



Would that America warm to the humble meat pie as my brother has warmed to Leicestershire!

Sundays Are For Revelations

While enjoying a late breakfast and reading the letters page of the Maine Sunday Telegram I came across a series of salvoes in the debate between evolution and intelligent design proponents.

I harrumphed a little into my toast and muttered something along the lines of "this will never do" after reading one particularly odd letter that seemed to suggest that if we dressed some gorillas in blue jeans the hair on their legs would drop out and the other Levi's-less apes would dwindle to obscurity (I wasn't sure which side that person was arguing; but I suspect given other random grabbing of wrong ends of sticks in the letter he was an 'intelligent designer'). I was getting ready to work up a good head of pointless steam and let fly a barrage of invective at the inanimate and mostly blameless "Insight" section of the Telegram when I was hit by a blinding flash of the obvious.

No matter how hard they yell, and how many of the credulous they convice, intelligent design advocates will still be wrong, and evolution will continue to take place. Ultimately, it matters not if 99.9% of humanity believes that all life was created last Wednesday by a bored Hungarian plumber called The Great Boraty Schink as belief and faith have no impact on the mechanics and functions of basic biology.

Therefore it is in the interests of the rationalists in society to actually encourage advocacy of intelligent design and creationism among the fantasist fundamentalists. Every evening they spend arguing at a school board meeting is an evening they spend away fom writing letters condeming gay rights. Every protest on the steps on the courthouse condeming the Scopes trial is time spent away from blockading the abortion clinic. Every afternoon spent chasing science teachers in order to try them as witches is an afternoon not spent dailing the number on the bottom of the screen during the 700 Club in order to give Pat Robertson money. Indeed, encouraging right wing nutcases to to take up the banner of intelligent design is second only to encouraging them to tour the country with a giganic granite rendering of the Ten Commandments in successfully wasting their time and keeping them out of causing real trouble.

Spitfire Low Pass

A little while back some of you were mystified by an arcane discussion of World War Two aircraft between my father and myself. What mystical grip on the Weasel male imagination could a 69 year old aircraft maintain, an aircraft that flew long before either my father or myself reached the age of majority?

May I present exhibit one, the Spitfire low pass movie? Emailed to me by dad, I suspect this will be of interest but little heart pounding emotional reaction to anyone but Mondale, my father, RPS, little brother, and myself, but I'm just glad dad emailed it to me earlier this week. Even if you aren't interested in aeroplanes, this video is astounding.

For the record and for the sake of full disclosure, the pilot is a former Lightning jockey of dad's acquaintance whose aircraft he helped keep in the air while serving with "Treble One" and "Shifty Fix" squadrons in the 1960s and 1970s.

So enjoy, be puzzled, or whatever takes your fancy, but it is clips like this that make me wish I had the coordination to be a pilot....

This Is Not A Baseball Blog 9

Today's lookalike:
The 2005 Boston Red Sox

The 2004 Anaheim Angels

With two outs in the final inning of a post season crunch game, the last man I wanted to see come to the plate was the 2004 Cardinal rather than 1997 Marlin version of Edgar Renteria, but I can't have everything. Go Angels. Failing that, Go White Sox. Failing that, Go National League.

This Is Not A Baseball Blog 8

Bill Buckner

Tony Graffanino

Caught Al Haq, Bowled Landmine.

For those who still persist in doubting the redeeming qualities of sport, and by extension triviality, in even the most dire or unrelentingly crushing conditions I humbly present a small piece that caught my eye in the current edition of The Economist:

"Pity the Umpire.
ON DUSTY patches of bomb-levelled wasteland, Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, echoes to the thwack of leather balls on willow cricket bats. Scarcely a football, Afghans' traditionally preferred orb, is to be seen. As a testament to the wars that have ruined the country, clearing space for urban cricket pitches, this is revealing: in recent years, some 3m Afghan refugees have come home from Pakistan, taking cricket, a game originally brought to the subcontinent by British invaders, into new territory.

The Afghan national cricket team was founded in 1995, after the withdrawal of the Soviet army had allowed the first wave of refugees to return home. A second wave soon followed, in the ranks of the Taliban. Raised in refugee camps in Pakistan, the Pushtun fanatics have an antipathy to bare-legged footballing that is well known. Their fondness for cricket is less so. Yet the Taliban's removal by America was a greater boost to the game, because it sent millions more cricket-playing refugees scurrying homewards, and brought the Indian-educated—and therefore cricket-mad—Hamid Karzai to power.

According to the Afghan cricket federation, the country has 360 registered clubs. Last month, it opened a cricket academy in Kabul. Next year, construction of a national cricket stadium is to start. The national team is improving: this year, at a tournament in Dubai, it beat Malaysia and Bahrain. At a competition in Nepal, the national youth team beat Brunei by a world-record margin.

Unused to success, Afghans enjoy these triumphs. One wasteland player, Mujeebullah Rahmani, beamed as he predicted that Afghanistan would soon beat England, the world's form team. Mr Karzai is also enthused: during an audience with the national team, he promised each member a Toyota off-road vehicle if they would only beat Pakistan."

I believe similar incentives were employed both with the current England cricket squad who prevailed over Australia this summer and at a rather agreeable private school in Brooklyn, New York.

Goodbye Ronnie Barker

I had intended to write a long and heartfelt eulogy of British comedian Ronnie Barker who died Monday night. Along with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Spike Milligan Barker was another of my pantheon of heroes cut down in the last decade and a half, less a result of their own lives as of my being at that awkward age where professional athletes and many police officers are younger than me but politicians and the Rolling Stones are not. However, Gerard Cosloy over at Can't Stop The Bleeding does a much shorter and eloquent version than I ever could here.

Goodnight, Norman Stanley Fletcher.

Stupid is as stupid does.

From Private Eye's regular review of idiotic game show answers, Dumb Britain:

"...The Weakest Link, BBC2
Anne Robinson: The adjective Rubenesque, meaning a plump, voluptuous woman, is derived from the work of which 17th-century Flemish artist?
Dumb BritainContestant: Aretha Franklin.

Robinson: Which force keeps the moon in orbit around the earth, and the earth in orbit around the sun?
Contestant: Delta Force...."

Alright Then, Clokeeey.

I've been tagged for a meme, and despite being universally terrible at these things, I'll indulge everyone's favorite mad ocker. As Clokeeeey says:

"The Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same."

From June 1, 2004, line 5 of a post about workaday America and the growing unease with the war in Iraq: Therefore my default listening is Maine Public Radio, and in particular a charming and gentle big band/trad jazz show called "The humble Farmer." Just the kind of writing to set the world alight, eh?

I tag Baumer, Listmaker, Maestra, Joe, and oooh I don't know, Arianna Huffington.

This Is Not A Baseball Blog 7

Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek

Redneck comedian Larry The Cable Guy

Normal for Norfolk

Todays lead story on the BBC Norfolk newspage hints at the reason why Norfolk doesn't have any representatives on the England's Genius map:

"Charcoal plant fire investigation
Investigators are trying to find out what caused a major fire at one of the country's largest charcoal suppliers. At its height on Saturday, 90 firefighters battled with tons of blazing barbecue charcoal at the Big K site at Whittington in Norfolk. The fire, in buildings covering an area the size of a football pitch, is expected to burn for days.

A company spokesman said it would be business as usual on Monday because they had stocks of charcoal elsewhere."

Investigators are trying to find out what caused a major fire at one of the country's largest charcoal suppliers. Short of the plant being located next to a petrol soaked rag factory, a strike anywhere match plant, and a sandpaper company its a mystery! How on earth would a gigantic barn full of highly flammable briquettes burn to the ground?

Wait A Minute- How Does This Work Mr. Selig?

Up here in the outer spiral arm of the Hub sports universe some of us were off camping this weekend and so lost track of Joe Castiglione's convoluted explanation of why the Pinstriped Plunger Pushers won the AL East through the static of the Great North Woods on our little wind up radio. Thankfully boston.com provided a concise summation upon our return this morning:

"Doing the math on why the Yankees clinched By David Lefort
Why did the Yankees clinch the AL East today even though both New York and Boston can finish with the same record if the Red Sox win tomorrow? Here’s the explanation:

If Boston wins tomorrow (which would eliminate the Indians), the Sox will tie the Yankees with a 95-67 record. In that case, head-to-head records are used because the Yankees (East champion) and Red Sox (wild card team) would have already clinched playoff spots.

Why is the head-to-head record (the Yankees lead 10-8) used instead of a playoff game?

A one-game playoff game is only staged when there is a postseason berth at stake, not for postseason seeding purposes."

Now that is just wicked retaaaaaaaarded, bub.