Howzat!? Bush and cricket? by Khyron

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Howzat!? Bush and cricket?

POSTED BY: KHYRON
UPDATED: Sunday, March 5, 2006 13:30
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VIEWED: 1723
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Friday, March 3, 2006 9:51 AM

I thought this was funny.

"I'm a cricket-match person. As I understand it, I may have a little chance to learn something about cricket. It's a great pastime."
US president George Bush ahead of his visit to Pakistan. Presumably, one of his aides told him to try to appeal to the cricketing voters.

And one of the numerous possible replies to that was:

"Yeah, George. He probably thinks it's hoops, mallets, tea and crumpets."
Mike Selvey on Bush's comments

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/quote/content/current/page/156062.html

And on an even lighter note, SA beat Australia by 196 runs! Any Aussies here in RWED? Why don't your selectors swallow their pride and bring Gillespie and Kasprowicz back in? These young'uns of yours are crap.

Having said that, you guys are probably going to cream us in the next three games.

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Friday, March 3, 2006 11:11 AM

HERO

For those who find baseball too fast and too exciting...cricket.

Its a purely English sport...dull, pointless, overly complicated, and decidedly uninteresting. Maybe if they found a way to involve horses...or real crickets...

H

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Friday, March 3, 2006 11:28 AM

KHYRON

OMG HERO! Bush says cricket is a great pastime, and here you say cricket is dull and boring. So you disagree with Bush!? I never thought I'd see the day!

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
Its a purely English sport...

This made me laugh. In fact, most of what you have to say makes me laugh.

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Friday, March 3, 2006 1:35 PM

FLETCH2

I'll give Bush some credit here, we know he was very interested in Baseball, part owning a team and wanting to be Commisioner. Baseball is an Americanisation of Cricket, so it's possible he may actually know something about the game.

probably 80% of the guys in my department are from the Indian subcontinent, so with the recent India/Pakistan game water cooler sport conversation has been all Cricket which is driving our resident American sports bore to distraction.

Priceless....

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Friday, March 3, 2006 1:44 PM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
For those who find baseball too fast and too exciting...cricket.

Its a purely English sport...dull, pointless, overly complicated, and decidedly uninteresting. Maybe if they found a way to involve horses...or real crickets...

H

This coming from a man who is resident in a country with no sports of its own.

Baseball == Rounders with silly uniforms.
American Football == Rugby. With armour.

What's the matter? Did them there tough college kids see the game of rugby and think, ohh I like that, oh but I might break a nail

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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Friday, March 3, 2006 2:03 PM

SICKDUDE

(Why am I responding to Hero??? Oh well..)
As an American who's tried to play, it's anything but dull or girly. It has much the same strategies as baseball, and is more unforgiving (you just get one chance at bat). Further, keep in mind that the ball is a little smaller, faster (West Indians have been clocked bowling at 110+ mph, I believe), more random (the ball curves from the air AND from hitting the ground just moments before the batsman has to swing), and the fielders don't get to wear gloves. They catch line drives in their bare hands! And the batsman has to deal with the occasional ball coming straight at him- no charging the mound if he gets hit. There are tons of injuries and broken bones. Mostly hands/ fingers, but I know a guy who broke his jaw into many pieces....

Just recently I heard a story on Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game. In Cricket, it's known as a century and it happens fairly often.

"It's a cow."

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Friday, March 3, 2006 2:13 PM

SICKDUDE

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
This coming from a man who is resident in a country with no sports of its own.

Don't forget LaCrosse/Field Hockey. I think that was originally a Native American sport.

Maybe Lawn Darts....

"It's a cow."

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Friday, March 3, 2006 6:10 PM

KHYRON

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Baseball is an Americanisation of Cricket, so it's possible he may actually know something about the game.

I won't disagree with that statement, but the similarities are rather superficial. It's like comparing checkers to chess (chess being cricket in my analogy). People that know a lot about baseball generally don't know that much more about cricket then any other non-cricketing person.

Of course, it is possible that he actually does know something about the game, but I thought it was a stupid thing to say. Not because it's Bush, it's not about him. It's about politicians saying this sort of tripe when they feel they need to appease the common folk of the particular nation they're visiting. Would Blair come to America and praise baseball by saying what a great pastime it is, I don't think Americans would buy it, just like I don't think anybody in Pakistan buys that Bush is actually interested in cricket.

So I guess my real gripe is with the fact that politicians fake this sort of shallow hint-of-interest and think it'll make them more popular with the people. It's insulting peoples' intelligence (peoples' intelligence of course being a whole new topic; I won't go there). Politicians and their sleazy ways annoy me, and Bush does so especially.

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Friday, March 3, 2006 6:59 PM

DREAMTROVE

Hockey is probably Canadian or something, Basketball seems pretty American even though it was invented by a Canadian, he was in America at the time.

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Friday, March 3, 2006 7:08 PM

KHYRON

As far as I know both those sports were played in central America by the Incas and/or Mayas and were later adapted (by Americans or whoever) into the sports we know today. I think basketball used to be played with a severed head wrapped in cloth or something like that. I could be wrong though.

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Friday, March 3, 2006 10:30 PM

KHYRON

Yeah, for hockey I was in fact mostly wrong:

One of the oldest of competitive pastimes, the sport of field hockey dates back well before the Ancient Olympic Games. Although the exact origin of the game remains unknown, 4,000-year-old drawings found in the tomb at Beni-Hasen in the Nile Valley of Egypt depicted men playing the sport. Throughout the following centuries, variations of the game were played by a spectrum of cultures ranging from Greeks and Romans to Ethiopians and Aztecs.

From http://www.usfieldhockey.com/history/

As for basketball I wasn't all wrong:

The First basketball type game may have been played by the early Olmec people of ancient Mexico as early as 500 years go. The Aztec, and Mayan cultures also had a game similar to basketball, only instead of a rubber ball they used the decapitated skulls of their conquered foes.

From http://nbahoopsonline.com/Articles/History1.html

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 12:15 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
It's about politicians saying this sort of tripe when they feel they need to appease the common folk of the particular nation they're visiting. Would Blair come to America and praise baseball by saying what a great pastime it is, I don't think Americans would buy it, just like I don't think anybody in Pakistan buys that Bush is actually interested in cricket.

Actually I preferred Tony Blair’s comments about the Iraq war and how he thought God wanted him to do it.

I'm sure he's trying to appeal to the religious masses, but it sounds more like:
He actually does think G. W. Bush is God.
He's lying like a, well, a politician.
He's a religious Wako that thinks his wars are Gods will and that God is on his side, i.e. a Fundamentalist [any religion goes here]…

I see some fun times ahead…

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 6:36 AM

DREAMTROVE

I just read Blair's comments. OMFG. I don't know if Bush has said this, there was a stir when one of our allies said it. Blair is a liar, of course, and not really a christian, I'm surprised that the religious demographic in the UK is strong enough to be worth going after. Well, as you almost said, End Times ahead.

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 7:50 AM

KHYRON

There's a short clip of Bush playing cricket on the BBC main news page: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
The link is on the right-hand side of the page.

I have to admit that he didn't make a fool out of himself. Even though he's got no experience when it comes to playing cricket, he's still better at it than at his actual job.

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 11:09 AM

DREAMTROVE

Apparantly he actually can do this sort of stuff. He plays golf. He can't run a country though. Or a sentence.

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 5:11 PM

FLETCH2

Errr no.... there is no religious demographic worth going for. Tony does actually believe it in fact once he steps down as PM most expect him to formally convert to Catholicism like his wife and kids (we have constitutional rules that mean that the PM and the monarch have to be at least nominally Anglican. Disraeli, who was racially Jewish was Anglican when he was PM.)

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Saturday, March 4, 2006 5:21 PM

DREAMTROVE

Fletch,

Oh dear. If it was just Tony lying again, it wouldn't be nearly so disturbing.

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Sunday, March 5, 2006 1:30 PM

SIMONWHO

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Errr no.... there is no religious demographic worth going for. Tony does actually believe it in fact once he steps down as PM most expect him to formally convert to Catholicism like his wife and kids (we have constitutional rules that mean that the PM and the monarch have to be at least nominally Anglican. Disraeli, who was racially Jewish was Anglican when he was PM.)

The Monarch can't be Catholic due to the Settlement Act of 1701 (don't be impressed, I had to look it up) what with the King/Queen being the head of the Church of England whereas there is no law against a Catholic being in Downing Street.

Disraeli was baptised and raised as an Anglican but thought of himself as a Jew, even commenting in Parliament when racially insulted:

"Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon."

Snappy comeback, no?

And yes, cricket, a wonderful game to threaten to take foreign friends to see.

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