I'm very happy to finally be a subscriber to the Zone, because I recently read that Margaret Thatcher said that Lee Kuan Yew was "never wrong" and I thought - who do I think is never wrong? And it was obviously bdsixsmith, except maybe this energy drink stuff.
Sorry, Ben, but I think I am going off you. The shoddy Niall Gooch Spectator source on admittedly a not too balanced ICEC report on cricket displays that you are thinking too narrow. Is that all you got, is my criticism. Where’s your contrariness gone? Why aren’t you looking for other views as they are plenty around nowhere near as dusty fusty as the Spectator’s? The report has some value and if you haven’t listened to Michael Holding on it (and the wider context), you should. For my part I don’t think the report is balanced enough and the media focus on race is a travesty of its complexity, classism is much more important and female cricket needs more a more positive profile, but it says some good stuff on what I would call English shitiness, embedded snobbery and superiority with a supposedly kind smile. These are serious problems in sport and Brit life.
Don’t grow into a premature young fogey. You have so much more offer. If you haven’t got time to think more considered about something, don’t include it.
Sorry to disappoint Terry! You don't make any specific criticisms of Niall's piece, so it's hard to defend my recommendation, but perhaps we disagree less than it seems. I don't necessarily dispute the claim that women's cricket "needs more a more positive profile" but there is a big difference between that and claiming that women should be paid as much as men (an intensely damaging goal for cricket when there is such a minute chance of women's cricket attracting as many customers as men's). Any good points that the report makes - and there may be good points - cannot excuse the extremism of its prescriptions.
Thanks Ben. I won’t go into that much detail about Niall’s piece. Suffice to say he says not one word of the positive about the report. That’s tawdry stuff. Not one word. Such bad manners on the most basic level. To dismiss it out of hand is very Spectator. My point is if you are going to comment on an issue retailing just the jaundiced view in the Spectator, you tread the same extremist fine line as the report crosses in parts.
One example: the report criticised the MCC and the exclusivity they hold over English cricket and Lords. It is inarguable that a sport like cricket has got itself into a bizarrely anachronistic position with a private club ruling the roost in a major way over the English game. No other sport could come to mind for such a bonkers situation. Even Wimbledon, for Goodness sake. They don’t make the rules of tennis. They don’t rule our national tennis. They just make money. For Niall Gooch to assert the sovereign independence of MCC in cricket is to ignore this ghastly and farcical English anomaly. As if tradition was the sole province of an establishment organisation. And MCC is some sort of religious sect. He fails to examine in any depth the embedded snobbery and exclusivity of all this. At least the report tries to get under that issue. Institutions are to be challenged. This is not class envy; it’s about social power dynamics. Did you catch the picture on tv of the MCC members in the Long Room amassed as the players went through into the field? It was like a grotesque of the ‘pale, male and stale’ old chestnut. They were all dressed up in a kind of school uniform for geriatrics. No parodist could improve that wretched scene. I have been to Lords many times. It is wretchedly quaint, like something out of Mary Poppins. But it wields dangerous power.
I don’t think this report is good enough. Some of it is tendentious. Much of what Niall writes is shallow riposte and almost boyishly tendentious. But I don’t really care about him.
I care about Ben and I prefer you not to be a pigeonholed hack of the right but a deep thinker and writer unafraid of exposing shibboleths from whatever wing, like Hitchens and Amis.
Also, for the sake of honesty, while I hope I'm unpredictable and open in my right-wingness, I *am* right-wing. I'm sad if that's a disappointment but I wouldn't like to pretend to be something else!
I'm sympathetic to what you write about the MCC, Terry, though I think even on class the problem with the report is that it has a revolutionary rather than reformist premise - taking centuries of traditional disparities and reducing it to the blunt language of exclusion and discrimination - and you can't engage with revolutionaries in good faith because there is no compromise intended to be reached.
Revolutionary? I don’t see that, Ben. I think the report advocates powerfully steps to be taken by the ECB. That organisation is hardly the Red Army. The premise is completely reformist and ECB briefed that and has largely accepted the need for structural change. Traditional disparities? You got to do better than that! Tradition is organic. You seem to adhere to an atavistic definition only.
I am no anti-capitalist; and I don’t think race or gender are the key inhibitors for a better sport, for what it’s worth. I think it’s about money and certain type of people talking in clubs and schools. It’s about unspoken, understated English-type power. Do you know about the serious downward trend in participation numbers in cricket? Clubs are closing year after year and the expansion of the female game is the only growth area. Retention rates for youngsters are not good at all. The 2022 numbers are false dawn as they simply reflected post-pandemic rush for outdoor stuff.
Let’s leave it there for this one. Except for you:
You are far more open and essentially ‘good’ in manners and argument than the Niall Gooch’s of the right. I have read lots of your stuff. You are also more of a humorist. Be true to yourself in your quirkiness. It’s like nobody else and you mustn’t lose that. Ben-ness is not an easy thing. Network like mad is my mantra (I failed miserably in my efforts until very late!) but don’t fall for the club identity trap.
Enjoy rest of the weekend. And thanks for engaging sincerely (in its best sense).
I'm very happy to finally be a subscriber to the Zone, because I recently read that Margaret Thatcher said that Lee Kuan Yew was "never wrong" and I thought - who do I think is never wrong? And it was obviously bdsixsmith, except maybe this energy drink stuff.
Thank you Jason! Not as rarely wrong as LKY but I do my best. Tragically, I had to cut back on the energy drinks.
Sorry, Ben, but I think I am going off you. The shoddy Niall Gooch Spectator source on admittedly a not too balanced ICEC report on cricket displays that you are thinking too narrow. Is that all you got, is my criticism. Where’s your contrariness gone? Why aren’t you looking for other views as they are plenty around nowhere near as dusty fusty as the Spectator’s? The report has some value and if you haven’t listened to Michael Holding on it (and the wider context), you should. For my part I don’t think the report is balanced enough and the media focus on race is a travesty of its complexity, classism is much more important and female cricket needs more a more positive profile, but it says some good stuff on what I would call English shitiness, embedded snobbery and superiority with a supposedly kind smile. These are serious problems in sport and Brit life.
Don’t grow into a premature young fogey. You have so much more offer. If you haven’t got time to think more considered about something, don’t include it.
Sorry to disappoint Terry! You don't make any specific criticisms of Niall's piece, so it's hard to defend my recommendation, but perhaps we disagree less than it seems. I don't necessarily dispute the claim that women's cricket "needs more a more positive profile" but there is a big difference between that and claiming that women should be paid as much as men (an intensely damaging goal for cricket when there is such a minute chance of women's cricket attracting as many customers as men's). Any good points that the report makes - and there may be good points - cannot excuse the extremism of its prescriptions.
Thanks Ben. I won’t go into that much detail about Niall’s piece. Suffice to say he says not one word of the positive about the report. That’s tawdry stuff. Not one word. Such bad manners on the most basic level. To dismiss it out of hand is very Spectator. My point is if you are going to comment on an issue retailing just the jaundiced view in the Spectator, you tread the same extremist fine line as the report crosses in parts.
One example: the report criticised the MCC and the exclusivity they hold over English cricket and Lords. It is inarguable that a sport like cricket has got itself into a bizarrely anachronistic position with a private club ruling the roost in a major way over the English game. No other sport could come to mind for such a bonkers situation. Even Wimbledon, for Goodness sake. They don’t make the rules of tennis. They don’t rule our national tennis. They just make money. For Niall Gooch to assert the sovereign independence of MCC in cricket is to ignore this ghastly and farcical English anomaly. As if tradition was the sole province of an establishment organisation. And MCC is some sort of religious sect. He fails to examine in any depth the embedded snobbery and exclusivity of all this. At least the report tries to get under that issue. Institutions are to be challenged. This is not class envy; it’s about social power dynamics. Did you catch the picture on tv of the MCC members in the Long Room amassed as the players went through into the field? It was like a grotesque of the ‘pale, male and stale’ old chestnut. They were all dressed up in a kind of school uniform for geriatrics. No parodist could improve that wretched scene. I have been to Lords many times. It is wretchedly quaint, like something out of Mary Poppins. But it wields dangerous power.
I don’t think this report is good enough. Some of it is tendentious. Much of what Niall writes is shallow riposte and almost boyishly tendentious. But I don’t really care about him.
I care about Ben and I prefer you not to be a pigeonholed hack of the right but a deep thinker and writer unafraid of exposing shibboleths from whatever wing, like Hitchens and Amis.
Here endeth the sermon....
Also, for the sake of honesty, while I hope I'm unpredictable and open in my right-wingness, I *am* right-wing. I'm sad if that's a disappointment but I wouldn't like to pretend to be something else!
Thank you for caring, Terry.
I'm sympathetic to what you write about the MCC, Terry, though I think even on class the problem with the report is that it has a revolutionary rather than reformist premise - taking centuries of traditional disparities and reducing it to the blunt language of exclusion and discrimination - and you can't engage with revolutionaries in good faith because there is no compromise intended to be reached.
Revolutionary? I don’t see that, Ben. I think the report advocates powerfully steps to be taken by the ECB. That organisation is hardly the Red Army. The premise is completely reformist and ECB briefed that and has largely accepted the need for structural change. Traditional disparities? You got to do better than that! Tradition is organic. You seem to adhere to an atavistic definition only.
I am no anti-capitalist; and I don’t think race or gender are the key inhibitors for a better sport, for what it’s worth. I think it’s about money and certain type of people talking in clubs and schools. It’s about unspoken, understated English-type power. Do you know about the serious downward trend in participation numbers in cricket? Clubs are closing year after year and the expansion of the female game is the only growth area. Retention rates for youngsters are not good at all. The 2022 numbers are false dawn as they simply reflected post-pandemic rush for outdoor stuff.
Let’s leave it there for this one. Except for you:
You are far more open and essentially ‘good’ in manners and argument than the Niall Gooch’s of the right. I have read lots of your stuff. You are also more of a humorist. Be true to yourself in your quirkiness. It’s like nobody else and you mustn’t lose that. Ben-ness is not an easy thing. Network like mad is my mantra (I failed miserably in my efforts until very late!) but don’t fall for the club identity trap.
Enjoy rest of the weekend. And thanks for engaging sincerely (in its best sense).