Church Spires, Village Cricket and Tea

This post was inspired by Mr Stupidation.

I have never understood the game of cricket. Even though I was exposed to it from a relatively early age, courtesy of my brother. All six foot two of him.
Afternoons of hypnosis and boredom punctured by serving tea and cucumber sandwiches from the club house. Everyone dressed in white. Rain or shine, why white? So impracticable. There I am white dress, white ankle socks, white sandals,  hard tied into bunches with ribbons. One brush against anything and the pristine look is ruined.

Cries of howzat,  silly mid on, googly, cherries, chinamen, daisy cutters, diamond ducks, ferrets, fruit salads, gazunders, lbw, mullygrubbers, nurdles, nightwatchmen, pie chuckers, peaches, pongos, rabbits, rib ticklers, sawn off, legs, side on, silly, sticky dogs, stodgers, stranglers, tice, tickle, trundler, wag, waft, yips, yorkers and zooter!!?

Old men with handle bar moustaches their already ample waist lines further accentuated by the dozen or so cricket jumpers encircling their girth. Old school ties and caps add real colour to a sea of starched linen and crisp creased trousers. Hours click by as men run with bats up and down the crease. I yawn and get clipped round the side of my head for being rude.

The innings finishes because "bad light" is affecting play. Good or bad as far as I was concerned, what "play". I help to pack up the club kitchen and wash down. My white attire now smudged with brown and grey smears.
To add insult to injury we'll have to listen to the cricket on the car radio as we drive home.
I've never understood the rules, I still don't to this day. But this explanation which has now found it's way onto tourist merchandise encapsulates the game in nutshell.

The Rules of Cricket
as Explained to a foreign visitor

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that's in the side that's in, goes out, and when he's out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
When they are all out the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When both sides have been in and out including the not-outs, that's the end of the game.

Howzat?

"If all else fails, at least I can still laugh at myself." © GM 2010

Castings

She had spent three hard years at drama school. Fighting the in built preconceived ideas and assumptions about the Chinese. Drama school, she had thought, was a place were she could experiment. Experience the words of Shakespeare, Wilde's wit, Chekov's longing, Ibsen loneliness, Webster's revenge, Pinter's pauses and Coward clipped delivery.

She should be concentrating on the scene extracts. Not meandering down memory lane. She looks down the corridor of seats. Each occupied by a Chinese actress.  All mumbling, lips softly parting in silence. All furiously attempting to memorise each scene.

She sighs. This is the third casting this week. The first was for a play at the National. An "ensemble" piece. Basically a euphemism for furniture removal and spear carrying - still you could learn an awful lot just standing side stage and watching. The audition went ok. She had had to sing , do some movement work and of course read. It had all seemed to be going very well until the director turned to her and said

We're acutally looking for Asian actors and actress, so we can't really use you

 She just came out with it

But I am Asian...

The director took exception and attempted to correct her

As I said we're looking for Asians, Indian, Pakistani...

She laughed, it just trickled out

India is a subcontinent in Asia, I was born in China which is in Asia, therefore I am Asian

She'd never work for that director. The second casting was for a SciFi TV drama.
She'd been given the scenes two days before the casting. She had learnt them and felt relatively comfortable. The director was a non discript looking book-worm. Woody Allen glasses, thick curly unkempt hair. He asked her

Where were you born

She replies

Ah, Hong Kong

The director seems very pleased about this.

Good, good, so how fluent is your Japanese

She is so surprised by this question it takes her a moment to respond

I don't speak Japanese at all

The Director seems puzzled and annoyed by this reply

I thought you said you were born in Hong Kong

She nods

I was. Hong Kong is Chinese - Southeast Asia. Japan is East Asia

 Needless to say she had not heard back from that casting. She should concentrate on the task at hand. A tall lean hawk like secretary peers out from a half open door. The woman call for Ms .... I jump to my feet, scattering the typed scripts all over the floor. She feels stupid. Quickly gathering up the papers she follows the secretary into the room.

The Director is a whale of a man, a beached whale. Sat uncomfortably in the corner of the room. He peers over the top of his pince nez. He blubbers

Not done badly for one of your lot

The secretary squirms. Shifting her weight awkwardly from one razor sharp buttock to the other, eyes cast down.
She reads, the Director spatters direction at her.  She does her best. She leaves. The secretary offers her a sympathetic knowing smile.

She walks down the corridor alone. Next week, here's hoping she will have three more castings, better ones.

"If all else fails, at least I can still laugh at myself." © GM 2009

Grandma's Burn's

I have found memories of my Grandmother. These days they appear to be fading. They no longer have that bright clear zing. A bit like an old master, as the colours diminish.

January 25th Burn's Night. Something that my Grandmother never failed to observe.
Neeps, tattles and haggis, a roaring open fire and if Uncle Alistair was visiting then music.


The pipes or a squeeze box. He cut a fine figure sat by the open hearth in a massive well loved and well used leather high backed chair. Blond white hair, hands of a manual worker a rugged and weather worn face. A tobacco pipe never far from his lips.

What must he have really thought of me? This strange dark eyed girl. Raven black hair, squashed nose and slanted eyes. With a broad Yorkshire accent. We both had great difficulty at times understanding each other. Me with my, thees, thous and nun s'a fouls. Uncle with his broad, but lyrical Scots delivery. Grandmother in between.   

       

 

They would sing songs of heather, highlands, lonely widows and people longing for to see bonnie Scotland.

 

I was brought up as a vegetarian, something that constantly caused friction between my Grandmother and my Mother.  A fact that my Grandmother consistently and continuously let  " wander out of her mind". It was on such occasions as, Burns Night I would sit down and feast.  As a child I didn't much care what I was given to eat. I always preferred my Grandmother's cooking. It was hale, hearty and honest. Filling the kitchen with interesting, salivating aromas. Unlike the vegetarian fare I was used to!

Being a veggie during the late fifties early sixties was a lonely pursuit. None of the variety, or alternatives that are available today. So was it any wonder that I relished the overnight stays  with Grandma and the anticipation of what I might be eating over that weekend.

Burns Night, open fire, a mountain of food and if I was lucky Uncle Alistair on the pipes, blasting away as my Grandmother would bring in the meal.

Silently we would eat just the scrap and clink of knife and fork hitting plate. Full fat and rosy red Uncle and Grandmother with sip on a wee dram and I would savour the treat of a homemade ginger beer.


The fire would sink and mellow along with the songs my Uncle and Grandmother sang. The notes twisting and weaving in and out of Uncle Alistair's smoking tobacco.
The last thing that I always remembered on Burns night, the voice of my Grandmother as she sang the old Gaelic songs. I always fell asleep and I always woke up the next day in my bed.

I never learnt those songs and I have always regretted that.

Wishing you all a very happy Burns Night

"If all else fails, at least I can still laugh at myself." © GM 2009

The Local

Leaning against the bar at my local
I gaze to the left
The two Dans
Danny K with his light and bitter
Irish Dan with his pint of John Smiths
Old man grumpy sits in the corner back against the short wall face to the optics
The two old boys
Conspicuous by their absence

Not so long ago this bar would have been alive
The low hum of social chitter-chatter
Young and old
Locals, casuals, workers and students
Now it's just the hardened regulars
The faithful few
Staring soulfully into the mid-distance

Memories of the snug
Smoked swirling through the saloon
Five deep to the pumps

I look to my left
Just empty pint glasses
Old man grumpy downs his last nifter
It's just me, my shandy and crossword




"If all else fails, at least I can still laugh at myself." © GM 2010