Just not cricket

The Ashes has, apparently, got the nation gripped. We are all tuning in to radios, glued to our TV or scanning newspapers for up-to-the minute reports on those sporting heroes in funny hats.

Are we balls. I don't get cricket. Never have done, and doubt I ever will. There's too much standing around. Yesterday I was reading how the visiting Aussies may be beaten by the weather. If they can't amass enough runs by the time rain or poor light stops play then that's it - England have won. I'm speechless. The sport (I don't actually consider it a sport, but for the sake of convenience will refer to it as such) has just dived even lower in my estimation. So it's not enough that most of the players just stand around looking on, only touching the ball if someone tosses it to them to pass to the bowler, who then spends twenty minutes polishing it and making his run up, chucks it at the batsman, who stops it and that's all the action over and done with for another twenty minutes . . . it's not enough that it's so tedious to watch, they all sod off home if it starts spitting and say "Oh, let's call that one a draw, shall we?" For God's sake!

All the radios at work are tuned in to the Ashes, which means my mp3 player has seen even more use than usual. Been listening mostly to the band Snow Patrol and an audio book by Barbara Vine called 'The Blood Doctor'. Never read one by the writer also known as Ruth Rendell, but I have to say I'm bowled over (groan) by how fully her characters are fleshed-out. Can't remember ever feeling that I know people as well as I do these in this novel. I will add Vine/Rendell to my reading list, I think. Or at least add her to my audio books-to-borrow-from-the-library list.