"They've been cheating us for years..."

So said Tom Graveney during the controversial England tour of Pakistan in 1987 when Mike Gatting had angry words with umpire Shakoor Rana.

Now the old trouble has returned again with Pakistan players accepting bribes for betting purposes (the phrase "allegedly" doesn't really enter the equation.)

So this all comes as no surprise.

I can't understand nowadays why anyone should paint such a rose-tinted view of cricket being a gentlemen's game anymore, when corruption and commercialism in sport are so rife at every level. Pakistan is going through a torrid time at the moment: the country is devastated by the worst flooding since the 2004 tsunami, the Taliban is a menace to every level of its society, and many Pakistanis are fighting for their survival: you can understand a few of them thinking it was every man for himself, to try and make what they could out of it.

But lessons are going to have to be learned. Heads will roll. I wish they would throw out sports betting and instigate laws to prosecute undercover journalism from creating scandal rather than reporting it.

UK Film Council - the legacy

These are just some of the good films that would never have been made had it not been for the participation of the UK Film Council, so disgracefully axed by the Government this week:

The Parole Officer (2001)

Bright Young Things (2003)

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)

Touching the Void (2003)

Ladies in Lavender (2004)

Creep (2004)

My Summer of Love (2004)

Enduring Love (2004)

Bride and Prejudice (2004)

The Magic Roundabout (2005)

The Proposition (2005)

Shooting Dogs (2005)

Festival (2005)

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)

The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Venus (2006)

Deep Water (2006)

This is England (2006)

The History Boys (2006)

Miss Potter (2006)

Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Becoming Jane (2007)

Sunshine (2007)

And When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)

Brick Lane (2007)

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)

Creation (2009)

Nowhere Boy (2009)


with thanks to the Internet Movie Database

Angel's Advocate - Jonathan Ross

So it came to pass, for better and not for worse, that Jonathan Ross ceased his lucrative BBC chat show. His Radio 2 slot (a station from which he has gained most notoriety) also finishes this morning. I've mentioned before in this blog about his crassness, paid at such outrageously lucrative sums, but on the other hand such talent shouldn't be suffocated altogether.

Reading an article in the Radio Times heralding the event, two TV critics argued the case for his impact on British television, and although I sided more with the anti than the pro view, I still couldn't share the opinion that his humour was juvenile and way below his actual age, when this is undoubtedly Jonathan's secret, and the reason he has been able to tap into the youff culture so much.

I could count the number of times Ross has made me laugh on the fingers of one hand, but he's a comedy survivor, a Court Jester for the 21st century. And let's face it, court jesters were never that funny, and always had their work cut out trying to entertain their hardened audience.

Colder Than Here

Colchester Theatre Group. 90m.

A dying mother tries to organise her funeral with her dysfunctional family.
On the surface a rather morbid 90 minutes, but done in a very commendably understated manner, where the naturalism slightly goes too far and undermines intonation among the younger actors, but there are plenty of laughs to be had, and the inevitable grimness is omnipresent but never overbearing. I've rarely seen a piece of theatre that captures a genuine household atmosphere so successfully.

d: Lorraine Dunt
s: Helen Bridge, Chloe Spencer-Campbell, Rhiannon Arnold, Gary Huggins

England expects.....too much

The sad demise of England's football team to Germany was ill-fated but hardly surprising. Germany played their game in their usual industrious, no-nonsense manner, whilst England and the English still cling to their delusions of nostalgia for 1966 and their pretensions to be the chosen World Cup winners.

Such a mania has to lessen, but has become so endemic within the culture and now even the economy of this country, that I fear it will be a long time before the English get off their high horses (and let's try not to forget the Scots, the Welsh and especially the Irish who failed to qualify) especially if the 2018 World Cup bid is successful.

When they all realise that it is a sport - no more, no less - then England will have a far better chance of winning if we start behaving like true Brits with a little more humility and sporting spirit, rather than so much bulldog patriotism.

Such nationalistic zeal is, to put it frankly, not very British.

This article sums it up pretty well too.

1985, Jason Ellis, and all that

25 years ago, on the 22nd of June 1985, one warm Midsummer weekend at home in West Mersea, Jason Ellis of St. Benedict's School in Colchester decided to try and find out what it would be like to be suspended from a noose in his bedroom, with rather fatal consequences.

Accounts varied the following Monday at school from a freak accident on the television with some wire, or that he had killed himself in a self-imposed sadistic little game - which he was prone to doing. The latter rumour was sadly proved correct, and the previously carefree and self-assured 3rd Year at St. Benedict's were suddenly plunged into grief for one of their own taken from them.

I never liked Jason Ellis, I must honestly admit. He was, as the above incident suggests, deliberately mischievous, an "anarchist" in his own words. But it was a phase he was going through, that so many kids of his age have done, and I was shy and awkward at school then; ironically his oddball but secretly rather shy mischief was something I gravitated towards, because I too felt as different to others as he was. Had he lived beyond the age of 15, I am sure he would have grown into the mature and sensitive adult that many of his contemporaries have since become.

It was, I guess, a rite of passage in the process of growing up, a watershed moment in a year that had many of them: also in May 1985 I remember standing at a football match at Leyton Orient and casually hearing on the radio about a terrible fire at Bradford City FC - and then a few weeks later there was the Heysel tragedy at the European Cup Final.

The latter incident, and also an ugly riot at the Luton-Millwall FA Cup tie in February (which Jason rejoiced at), was perhaps the epitome of the ugliness of the 1980's for me, and how I am well reminded never to want to revisit that decade again. To be fair there were individual happier moments, and I have a certain nostalgia for the era from time to time, but it is now firmly in the past, and I wish it to stay there.

But such events are worth remembering too, for future generations' sake.

Sir Patronize

Back in October 2008, Andrew Sachs was urbane and dignified when he reacted to the crassness of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on BBC Radio. The uncomfortable spat between James Corden and Sir Patrick Stewart at the Glamour Awards on Tuesday was a slight case of The Other Way Round.

Clearly James Corden was of irritation to him, and Patrick Stewart is a fine actor, but he should know the theatrical virtue of supporting the host on stage, and not denigrating him.