“The only good thing about that decision, Gatt, is that I’ll get tea before you.”
Graham Gooch, ex-England captain reflects stoically on a poor umpiring decision.
Chairman Molly rang me Monday afternoon and I’ve barely slept a wink since.
“Just a warning old lad” he said in a terse, monotone voice.
Instantly I thought I’d been called up to Team 1, maybe to replace our fast-food addicted Pro, still reeling himself after being “castled” first ball by his old landlord at nets last week.
“It’s Horace” he said referring to the curse of many summers, a ninety-plus year-old half-blind, half-deaf umpire who never passes a game without giving me out LBW.
I could stand on my hands perched on a box at the non-striker’s end and he would still nail me.
Now Horace is a lovely old bloke and is far from the worst umpire on the circuit such is the woeful standard these days. We met whilst I was fielding at the lovely Cuckoo’s Nest, home of Harden CC, one lovely summer’s day.
I was positioned at square leg, adjacent to the umpire – Horace – and we shared over an hour of tales mainly about his pigeons back in World War Two.
He had a steady supply of sweets tucked away in his pocket and we chatted convivially as the ball was flayed to all parts. Job done I thought, he’ll remember me forever, just as I will the names of his long gone pigeons.
I’m not sure what changed but you can be sure the sight of him making his way across the turf, neat little bag to hand, steely glint in his eye visible like the moonlit stars, just ruins my Saturday.
It will not matter if, in cricketing parlance, “the ball would not have hit another set” come this Saturday, I may as well ink in our score book now: S Wilson LBW Horace.
I’m way past getting mad at the the old bugger, after all life is too short. But if anybody who knows Horace is reading this before Saturday will you ask him if I can at least get off the mark?
One Hundred Years Ago
Around about when Horace was born come more tales here.
Marketing At It’s Worst
Last week at Sunday prayers we were shown a marketing brochure by the idiots at Carlsberg, owners of the Tetley bitter brand, one synonymous with these parts for generations.
Established in 1822, after nearly two centuries of perfecting the brewing process, the corporate giant moved brewing to the Black Country to cash in on a prime city centre site in Leeds where the famous old brewery stood.
Not content with this, they have clearly commissioned the local primary school to create a new logo. The brochure assures us that customers and publicans alike love it. Really?
A representative sample of traditional Tetley drinkers offered the conclusive verdict that it was crap. We hope The Scruffy will at least maintain tradition and stick with the iconic huntsman logo.
They also claim that Tetleys will be brewed in Leeds again but hold on. See this patronising marketing bollocks from the Carlsberg website which offers more detail than the crappy brochure.
Emily Hudson, Brand Manager for Tetley’s comments: “We recognise the affection and support for Tetley’s that still lives on across the country, particularly in Yorkshire and the brand’s home city of Leeds.
With this in mind, we felt it was a fantastic opportunity to team up with Leeds Brewery – one of the region’s leading brewers – to recreate the recipe within a mile of where it would have originally been brewed 150 years ago.
This refers only to a new ale and not the original. At least you know now.
Concreting Bradford
Yet more news of hundreds more houses to be built here and, as ever, a few quid chucked in by the developer which will have absolutely no effect on roads, schools, doctors and other infrastructure.
The Council are committed to a “plan” that is based on far more houses than the area needs as I have commented on here before. This is a disgrace in anybody’s language and fails the city as a whole.
Amongst the many comments on the T&A article, one of several from a regular voice of reason.
“…the Council should only be planning for the population it has and for the future needs of its population. The trouble is, the Council isnt doing that. It has planned for 42,000 homes over fifteen years not the 25,000 the Government estimates say it will most likely need.
The extra 17,000 wont all be built…but the inflated target means that a lot of houses will be built in inappropriate places.
If home owners had any idea of how much damage was being done to the value of their own properties by the Council’s failure to direct development to ensure that derelict areas were regenerated they would be screaming their heads off.
The Council has pi***ed away the major investment of thousands of Bradford people by putting in place an inappropriate and damaging Local Plan that depresses urban house prices.”
And most of these are being built this side of Bradford, further distorting a city riddled with enough divisions.
Fat Bradford
Our cutting edge local paper carried this piece during the week which was mind-boggling numb even by the standards set by the usual contents.
Advertising home deliveries of shit food suggest the paper may be struggling for content. As ever I scanned the readers comments and was not let down.
Great service can feed kids **** now while I watch jeremy kyle in my pj’s with my frosty jack n 40 cigs happy days lol
It’s a strange world when the areas of Bradford that are alleged to be poverty stricken are those where not only are people buying McDonalds, but there’s are also people who can afford to have it delivered to their door!
The world gets dafter.
And Finally
The presses are set to roll for a June 1st launch of The Trumpit in it’s new format; we hope you like it and that it raises a smile or two.
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