Isolated and shot down

We (as in 'vee Chermans') have had better days, or so the current main page at the Guardian would suggest.

A message, as it were, from the belly of the beast.

Otherwise known as London.

Vorwärts, und nicht vergessen

Women at shooting practice, England in the 1930s (Via)

In honour of the 100th International Women's Day, the Guardian has created a list of the top 100 'inspiring' women.

Some of the choices make me applaud, others less so; but keeping with the theme of brotherly solidarity with the sisterhood, I won't go into that.

Anyway I just wanted to say how fortunate I am to have one inspiring woman in my own household.

And there was something I recently ran across that I thought might be appropriate.

CHAMPIONS ALL

'Champions All', Pathé newsreel film, 1920s.

Poco on ice

Whoopee!!! Neo Post-colonialism has finally arrived in Russia!



Who knows, they might be organising conferences on the New English Literatures next.

UPDATE: Really, I don't know what the whole fuss is about. Pretenders to Aboriginal identity don't seem to be that rare. The notorious case of Mudrooroo springs to mind, who - without having the least bit of Aboriginal heritage - nevertheless managed to found Australian Aboriginal literature with his "first-hand accounts" of indigenous life.

This ethnic charade is, of course, a nice illustration of the entirely hypothetical "theoretical" concept of mise en abyme, but I really don't think that it is entirely koscher to employ neo-colonial acts of symbolic exploitation to justify the claims of deconstruction.

Then, of course, there are all the white guys who pretend to be James Brown. Jason Mraz is a particularly grating example:



"You make my slacks a little tight", my arse!

And then there are tour operators in New Zealand hiring Europeans and Israelis to play at being Maori for the delectation of tourists. Says Terina Puriri, director of The Discovery Heritage Group responsible for these ... events, defensively:

Some of our Maori are too slack to promote themselves. Some of our Maori are too lazy to get out of bed to do that.

Ms Puriri may say that, because Ms Puriri is part Maori herself.

Still, I wonder whether the term "heritage" still applies in such a case (and whether the gullible tourists who bought the heritage ticket will get their cash back for this sad carnival). Or is heritage a moveable feast in this day and age of self-invention? I've come across academics who would claim just that.

In any case, I'd suggest Ms Puriri read Julian Barnes's England, England - which lampoons exactly the kind of fakery that she is engaging in. Or rather, lampooned it already 10 years ago. Which leads me to the question: Did Julian Barnes know that Terina Puriri would be ripping off ageing tourist on their one holiday of a lifetime on a grand scale in 2009/10? Or is life imitating bloody art yet again?

Bowled für sechs

I'm wondering whether you find the same thing...odd...about the following article I ran across last week as I did.

OVAL APOLOGY TO GERMANS

Not Allowed on the Stand

Why Seats Were Not Given

A Blunder

'Quite Unintentional Slight'

An apology has been tendered to the German cricketers, now on a visit to this country, by Mr. R. C. N. Palairet, secretary of the Surrey County Cricket Club.

The German eleven visited the Oval on Saturday to see the Surrey v. Notts match, but were informed that they could not be given complimentary seats in the stand. They had previously paid for admission.

'I trust,' writes Mr. Palairet, in a letter to Mr. G. Henderson, who arranged the visit of the team, 'that you will convey to the members of the German eleven my sincere apologies for the quite unintentional slight offered to them.'

He states that at about 12.30 p.m. on Saturday a verbal message was brought to him which he understood to be that a man below was asking if any privileges had been granted to the German eleven for the Test match.

GERMAN REPLY

'To this,' he adds, 'my reply was "No"; no privileges having been asked for.'

'If I had realised that all the members of the team were present, and were asking for admission for the day, I would at once have arranged for their admission, this being the usual practice at the Oval.'

Mr. Kirloskar, the only member of the team who understands English, however, has made it clear already that in speaking to the man who conveyed Mr. Palairet's message he did not mention the Test match, nor did this man representing the secretary do so.

'I think,' he added, 'that he understood perfectly the nature of our request.'

There was a general feeling among cricketers yesterday that an apology was called for.

M.C.C.'s HOSPITALITY

Hospitality is, however, to be given to the team on Thursday at Lord's, where tehy are to be the guests at tea of Sir Kynaston Studd, president of the M.C.C., and they will witness the Army versus Police schools match.

The invitation was sent to them before their arrival in England by Mr. W. R. Findlay, secretary of the M.C.C.

It was this fact which made their reception at the Oval all the more puzzling.

Daily Herald, 5 August 1930, p. 9

Yes, it was the phrase 'the German cricketers'.

'German cricketers'?

'German cricketers'?

There are many odd things I have learned about my adopted homeland recently (such as the fact that it was once the chief cocaine producer in the world), but the intimation that Germany had a cricket team is one of the more unexpected.

However, given that a quick internet search of the terms 'German' and 'cricket' (though I admit I never would have thought to enter them before) brings me to the Deutscher Cricket Bund, perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised.

And from their history page comes not only some information about the sport's past in this country, but also a glancing reference to the circumstances in which the above-mentioned slight occurred (my, rather hasty, translation):

The earliest known reference to cricket in Germany was in 1850, when a group of English and Americans founded the first cricket club in Germany.

Another club, which called itself Berlin CC, was founed in 1883. Until 1907, there were seven clubs in Berlin that participated in the Berlin Cricket League. By the outbreak of the First World War, this number had grown to 14.

The 'German Cricket and Football Federation' [Deutsche Cricket und Fußball Bund] was founded in 1893, the first German cricket federation in 1913. The clubs came from Berlin, Nuremberg, Fürth, Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Hamburg.

Although this cricket federation published a newsletter, very little is known about its activities. Between 1860 and 1991, several foreign teams toured through Germany, e.g., from Denmark, the Netherlands, and also the Leicestershire county CC.

The first tour of a German team in England occurred in 1930, and in 1937 the 'Gentlemen of Worcester', bolstered by four former professionals, played two 'Tests' in Berlin.

If anyone out there knows more about the history of German cricket, I'd be happy to hear from you. (Sounds like a sports history dissertation in the making to me....)

[UPDATE]: more info here. And here.

Bummeling

Like The Wife, I also was pleased to note the pleasant synchronicity of our friends' bicycling tours. My first association, though, was with Jerome K. Jerome's wonderful book Three Men on the Bummel, from 1900, about three British friends who go on a cycling tour through Germany.

(This association is not due to any particular literariness on my part: I just happen to be reading it.)

Some selected excerpts from the Project Gutenberg edition:

I once asked an intelligent foreigner what he thought of London.

He said: “It is a very big town.”

I said: “What struck you most about it?”

He replied: “The people.”

I said: “Compared with other towns—Paris, Rome, Berlin,—what did you think of it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It is bigger,” he said; “what more can one say?”

One anthill is very much like another. So many avenues, wide or narrow, where the little creatures swarm in strange confusion; these bustling by, important; these halting to pow-wow with one another. These struggling with big burdens; those but basking in the sun. So many granaries stored with food; so many cells where the little things sleep, and eat, and love; the corner where lie their little white bones. This hive is larger, the next smaller. This nest lies on the sand, and another under the stones. This was built but yesterday, while that was fashioned ages ago, some say even before the swallows came; who knows?

**

To Hanover one should go, they say, to learn the best German. The disadvantage is that outside Hanover, which is only a small province, nobody understands this best German. Thus you have to decide whether to speak good German and remain in Hanover, or bad German and travel about. Germany being separated so many centuries into a dozen principalities, is unfortunate in possessing a variety of dialects.

**

In the course of the century, I am inclined to think that Germany will solve her difficulty in this respect by speaking English. Every boy and girl in Germany, above the peasant class, speaks English. Were English pronunciation less arbitrary, there is not the slightest doubt but that in the course of a very few years, comparatively speaking, it would become the language of the world. All foreigners agree that, grammatically, it is the easiest language of any to learn. A German, comparing it with his own language, where every word in every sentence is governed by at least four distinct and separate rules, tells you that English has no grammar. A good many English people would seem to have come to the same conclusion; but they are wrong. As a matter of fact, there is an English grammar, and one of these days our schools will recognise the fact, and it will be taught to our children, penetrating maybe even into literary and journalistic circles. But at present we appear to agree with the foreigner that it is a quantity neglectable. English pronunciation is the stumbling-block to our progress. English spelling would seem to have been designed chiefly as a disguise to pronunciation. It is a clever idea, calculated to check presumption on the part of the foreigner; but for that he would learn it in a year.

**

George, the opposite to Harris, is British to the core. I remember George quite patriotically indignant with Harris once for suggesting the introduction of the guillotine into England.

“It is so much neater,” said Harris.

“I don’t care if it is,” said George; “I’m an Englishman; hanging is good enough for me.”

**

In Germany one breathes in love of order with the air, in Germany the babies beat time with their rattles, and the German bird has come to prefer the box, and to regard with contempt the few uncivilised outcasts who continue to build their nests in trees and hedges. In course of time every German bird, one is confident, will have his proper place in a full chorus. This promiscuous and desultory warbling of his must, one feels, be irritating to the precise German mind; there is no method in it. The music-loving German will organise him. Some stout bird with a specially well-developed crop will be trained to conduct him, and, instead of wasting himself in a wood at four o’clock in the morning, he will, at the advertised time, sing in a beer garden, accompanied by a piano. Things are drifting that way.

**

This is the charm of German law: misdemeanour in Germany has its fixed price. You are not kept awake all night, as in England, wondering whether you will get off with a caution, be fined forty shillings, or, catching the magistrate in an unhappy moment for yourself, get seven days. You know exactly what your fun is going to cost you. You can spread out your money on the table, open your Police Guide, and plan out your holiday to a fifty pfennig piece. For a really cheap evening, I would recommend walking on the wrong side of the pavement after being cautioned not to do so. I calculate that by choosing your district and keeping to the quiet side streets you could walk for a whole evening on the wrong side of the pavement at a cost of little over three marks.

Rarely have national stereotypes been so enjoyably (and somehow gently and graciously) indulged in.

To be totally honest, I suppose my first bicycling association was actually with the song 'My White Bicycle'. Originally by Tomorrow, the first time I heard it was via The Young Ones and the song from Neil's Heavy Concept Album. (A friend of mine had purchased the latter when it was released and I used to own a much-prized tape of it until it went the way of most of my tapes...)

I can't find that version via YouTube. But the original is plenty good:

I want to ride my bicycle

It's spring, the sun's out and bicycling is once again on the mind of many a blogger - witness the recent posts by Andrew and Francis.

For lack of time, energy and inspiration I hand over to Queen for a musical celebration of the two-wheeled endeavours of our dear friends and their recent heroic exploits in the rolling hills of Southern England and the industrial wastelands of Germany:

Coolest. Ad. Ever.

For Nokia’s new N96 Bruce Lee Edition mobile:



(via David Thompson)