Not for SP

[marathondan]

Listened to a very entertaining and heartwarming podcast yesterday:

In April 1990, Norman Tebbit suggested that immigrants who supported their country of origin over the England at cricket were unpatriotic. The "Tebbit Test", as it became known, was always an over-simplification; there are lots of reasons why the immigrant community in Britain may not support England: apparently racist selection policies; leading players taking part in sanctions-busting tours of Apartheid-era South Africa; Britain's complicated and not always flattering colonial history; the fact that for fifteen years, England were simply rubbish. But is any of this still relevant? In The Sinha Test stand-up comedian and cricket obsessive Paul Sinha - born in London to Indian parents - examines why he has been a lifelong India fan, despite considering himself "as British as a pub fight". Between the jokes he speaks to experts - a sociologist and a former Test cricketer - to see if he's alone in not always cheering on the country of his birth when it comes to cricket.

Downloadable here for another 4 days - if you like sport and you like people (if not, why are you on this forum...?) then pop it on your hard drive and listen at your leisure.

[Sweder]

I love the perceived paradox of British-born Indians and Pakistani's rooting for their roots when it comes to cricket. You can't help who you support; it's in your heart. If we could change allegiance based on the expectations of society it wouldn't be genuine fealty.

These 'tests' are simply bunkum and nonsense. It's like Murdoch taking US citizenship. He's an Aussie, and a right crook to boot(which clearly undersocres his antipodean credentials). You can't reinvent yourself no matter how much dough you've squeezed out of the simple public.

What next? You'll be claiming Rolf Harris was born in peckham.

OK, way off topic but I just saw this on a friend's FB site.

I can appreciate Aussies not wanting to share their best wine but really, this is just churlish.

[marathondan]

It's an interesting talk, because the speaker admits to being a through and through England (and Liverpool, despite growing up in London) football supporter. And now that (since the 70s) England and India's cricket fortunes have changed, with England not unlikely to line up as underdogs, he feels his cricket alliegance slowly shifting as well...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

OK, way off topic but I just saw this on a friend's FB site.

I can appreciate Aussies not wanting to share their best wine but really, this is just churlish.

Well, I suspect this is a joke (where I say "joke", read "scam"). With the wine glut here getting gluttier, and the strong A$ killing exports, anyone trying to sell $200-per-bottle wines needs serious media exposure. Mollydooker is one of those wineries that no-one in Australia has ever heard of and who presumably makes their money (or used to) selling wines to stupidly rich Americans on the basis of one or two positive Robert Parker reviews. You certainly don't see their wines in any wine store I ever venture into (which is most of them I'm embarrassed to say).

Having said that, there are some excellent wineries who export 100% of their product, so I could be wrong.

Come to think of it, we export a lot of our produce... Rolf Harris, Kylie Minogue, Rupert Murdoch... can anyone see a pattern here?