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You decide - this or this?

I have to admit that I thought that Middlesex had a snowball in hell’s chance of beating Durham in the second semi-final at the weekend.  It seemed to me that Durham were simply destined to get to the final against Essex before finals day started, and Kent’s beating of Essex did nothing to dampen my certainty in the outcome of the second semi.  Heigh ho.  Lucky I stopped betting on cricket a few years ago, eh?

Now let’s see what the ECB do about the Champion’s League…

Tim Bray highlights Christine Peterson’s talk from OSCON; No Secret Software. As Tim says, we are in her debt (again) for providing us with a powerful rhetorical tool.

(A large part of me hopes that the second commenter was being ironic, given the purpose of this new rallying cry is to dispel the sense that Open Source  is “associated with ill-groomed inarticulate geeks who have odd opinions about lots of things”.)

We all know that the ECB was secretly hoping for an Essex - Middlesex final today.  Looks extremely likely now that it’s going to be Durham v Kent.  Here’s wondering what they’re going to do about the Champion’s League now….

For the uninitiated the BCCI (the Indian cricket governing body) has said that any teams fielding players who had played in the unsanctioned ICL won’t be eligible for the Champion’s League.  Neither Essex nor Middlesex had been “guilty” of such action, while both Kent and Durham have refused to bow to the pressure. Theoretically the two finalists from today’s Twenty20 fandango should be going to the Champions’ League.  If Essex and Middlesex had done their bit there wouldn’t be a problem; now, however, it’s going to be conflict between the ECB and the BCCI all over again.

You will no doubt have already seen this somewhere else, but if you haven’t you really should take a look at this story…

he did indeed take a photo every day for eighteen years, until the day he died, using a Polaroid SX-70 camera

So.  I’ve not written much about cricket for a while.  Not that I’ve lost interest, more that I’ve not had the time or the inclination to talk about a fairly dismal run of English form. Not a fair weather fan, I’d like to point out, but definitely a fair weather blogger.  There’s not much I can add to the comment in the papers, so why bother?

On the current topic, however, I do have something to say.  Who selected Pattinson?  Why?  And if we are to have another surprise selection let’s make it Graham Napier, please.  He’s a fine bowler and his form this season for Essex with both bat and ball makes him deserving of a chance.  Definitely more so than an Aussie that hardly took wickets for Victoria, let alone Notts.

I’m at Edgbaston for day 2 (a week today).  Here’s hoping for a more convincing performance.

I like Giles Coren.  This rant at the Times sub editors who removed a single ‘a’ from one of his pieces only makes me like him more. A brief snippet to whet your appetite…

I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you’ve fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it.

Just seen the title track of the new Primal Scream album on The Culture Show.  Spent the first half wondering why I thought I’d heard it before and the second half marveling that the Quark, Strangeness and Charm-era Hawkwind sound is getting another outing.

Seriously, get yourself a listen to QS&C and you’ll see what I mean. Bobby Gillespie even manages to get that weird Dave Brock falsetto down pat.  Very odd indeed.

We have a family party planned on Sunday.  We’ve been watching the weather with some trepidation.  Today we discovered that it’s so bad, they aren’t even going to tell us about it. (I assume they’ll fix it soon, but here’s the link anyway)

Feist’s 1-2-3-4 gets a tremendous amount of play in our office - not the original (used in the iPod ad), but the rather ludicrous Van She Tech Remix featured on the Kitsune Boombox compilation. This version’s the best yet though