English Pubs

Just something I was thinking about today...here is a list of things that can happen in English pubs that would rarely or never happen in an American bar:

1. A discussion with the bartender about spotted dick. (2 months ago)

2. An 8-year-old boy explaining the rules of rugby to you. (6 weeks ago)

3. A 3-hour long session of Settlers of Catan. (3 weeks ago)

4. A dog sits next to you and demands to be rubbed behind the ears for 10 minutes. (this afternoon)



But here's something you can see in pubs in both the US and the UK: grown men crying at football.

English Football

Have I said enough great things about Denmark on this blog? I think not. Here's one more thing that's awesome about the home of Hamlet: breakfast. Here's a Danish breakfast that Danny and I tried to recreate at home:

This was inspired by the discovery that we could buy traditional Danish 100% rye bread (rugbrød) at the farmers market. I can really only speak for breakfast as it existed at my host family's house, so that may not be completely universal, but I like to think that all Danes sit down to a breakfast as complete as we did in Jyllinge. I guess that first I should specify that the version that Danny and I created was more of a mix of breakfast and lunch. What's more typical is that breakfast would involve some plain white rolls, with many options for toppings: solid cheese, cream cheese, 2 kinds of jam, butter, and Danny's favorite, thin chocolate wafers. On weekends breakfast was expanded to include yogurt and soft-boiled eggs. Weekend lunch would be rugbrød with cheeses, many kinds of herring, hard boiled egg slices, and liver paste. Danny and I threw in poached eggs because we just can't get enough of them. Importantly, it was in Denmark that I learned that putting jam on top of a slice of mild cheese is delicious. Seriously. Try it.


But right, back to English football. In some ways, I can't believe it's taken us until February to write about football, but actually this makes sense for several reasons. In Europe, football is a winter sport, so the season didn't start until some time after we'd been here. Then for most of the early winter we were totally preoccupied with The Ashes, and we weren't paying attention to the football (on a related note, the cricket world cup starts Feb 19th!). Then our first foray into going to a football match - an England vs. Montenegro Euro cup qualifier match at Wembley - was perhaps one of the most boring soccer matches you could have asked for. It was a 0-0 draw. Seriously. Do you know the population of Montenegro? Less than 700,000. You'd think that England could have at least gotten one goal in, you know? Anyway, English fans booed the team at the end of the game because they had played so badly, and honestly, they deserved it.

This experience left me assuming that the old days of English soccer hooliganism were completely over, and that lack of crowd-control and mugs of beer had been replaced with calm, serious fans and mugs of tea. And while I was happy there were no riots or broken beer bottles or destruction of stadium property (seriously, click on the link above - it used to be bad), I was a little disappointed by the lack of passion from the fans. But it turns out we just hadn't been to the right game yet.

On Sunday we took advantage of a friend-of-a-friend connection to get cheap tickets to a Queens Park Rangers game. In order for this to make sense, let me take a minute to explain the workings of the English football league. According to wikipedia, there are about 7,000 clubs that are technically members of the league. Let's just pause on that number for a minute. That is a huge number. Not all of these clubs are professional, of course, but the defining characteristic of the football league is that it is completely fluid. As in, if your team plays really well one season, you get bumped up to a higher division the next season. And vice versa. So theoretically, some local team of guys who play football in their spare time could become amazing and one day be playing against Arsenal. Theoretically.

The highest division is the one you hear about - the Premier league, which contains well-known teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. There are always 20 teams in the league, which is sometimes also called the premiership. The second highest division is called the Championship (not to be confused with the champions league, which is a Euro-wide competition between the best club teams from each country). Below the championship are League One and League Two, which, confusingly, are actually the 3rd and 4th levels, but whatever. At the end of every season there is a well-regulated method of moving teams up and down between divisions. And sadly, it looks as if our localest team, Barnet, will be moving down out of league two after this season, currently being in 24th place out of 24.

Alright, all that was just background, so that me saying that Queens Park Rangers (QPR) are currently in 1st place in the championship and will likely be moving up to the premier league next season will mean something to you. Between this fact, and the fact that Sunday's rival Nottingham Forest were not far behind at 4th place, the atmosphere at the stadium was great. The stadium was packed - topping out at over 17,000 fans. We happened to be sitting very close to the Nottingham fan section which led to some amazing heckling. Well, I don't really want to call it heckling, because it was much more that that. Each fan base has a full arsenal of songs and chants that went on for the entire game practically non-stop (many of which are the same, just with their team name thrown in), and their comments are quite pointed.

I could talk about intra-England prejudices for quite a while (and don't even get us started on intra-Scottish factions, which neatly break down along Catholic-Protestant divide), but for the purposes of this game, it's enough to know that to Londoners, anyone from north of Cambridge is a rural country idiot or a grimy former miner who's living on benefits, neither of whom ever learned to speak proper English. And to anyone from the North, Southerners are posh elitist snobs who stupidly pronounce R's as W's. (Note: the Southwest doesn't fit into these categories, and people there talk like the Irish. but I digress). Of course these are huge generalizations and there are many people who like and respect their Northern/Southern compatriots, but for the purposes of the QPR match, Nottingham fans were referred to as a bunch of "sheep shagging c**ts". And as for what the Nottingham fans were calling the QPR side, I couldn't understand it at all; you know how funny those country folk talk.

QPR and Notts drew 1-1, though with Notts playing with only 10 men for the last 60 minutes of the game, QPR really should have won it. We'll see about that promotion...

Taking Advantage

Random photo today:


Cake. You know you want it. And this one is almost healthy, made with lots of apples and olive oil. Though that's before you smear on the butter and cream cheese frosting, which is delicious. Luckily many other foodies have posted the recipe before me, saving me the trouble. You can find it here, just scroll about a third of the way down. My icing is a different color because I used dark sugar.

As some of you may know, Danny and I have now booked our tickets back to the states. May 18th is our departure/return date, which means we can now start counting down our days in London. This means we're trying to fit in as much as possible before we go - from local restaurants to travels across the EU. The past few days we've been doing some fun neighborhood stuff. I'm sorry if this post is a bit mundane, but hopefully it gives you a taste of what it's like to live in Dartmouth Park!

Thursday: The Star. We've mentioned this local pub many times, but on Thursday we did something especially fun, which was to bring our awesome travel backgammon set, on loan from my parents, with us to the bar. The Star has something that many good English pubs have: a real fireplace, and comfy couches around that fireplace. Why don't more American bars have fireplaces? And why aren't any of them quiet enough that you could sit and play a board game? We sat with our pints and absorbed the warmth from the dying embers, and although I quickly went up by 4 points, we ended the night even-stevens. Though I'm still up by 5 points overall.

Friday: A few months ago we happened to walk by an Italian restaurant up Highgate Hill from us (about a 10 minute walk) that featured pizza by the meter. Well then. We both had a productive week, so we decided to reward ourselves with pizza at Fabrizio's. The food was good (an appetizer plate of various fried things, and 1/2 metre of thin-crust pizza), but the most endearing thing about the place was the intimacy of it. The restaurant is small; there's just one waiter and one woman who's sole job seemed to be to grind fresh pepper and grate fresh parmesan onto your food, plus Fabrizio the chef, and everyone is Italian. Fabrizio brings out some of the food himself, and he clearly gets a kick out of chatting with the patrons. Earlier in the night he had mentioned to us that the fried rice balls we were eating were a specialty from Rome, which is where he is from. So of course later on in the evening Danny told him that he had lived in Rome for 3 months, and Fabrizio looked very pleased. 30 seconds later he came back to our table with a sly look and asked which Rome football team Danny liked. uh oh. Danny stated that he didn't have much preference, but that he had once been to a Lazio game. Right answer! Fabrizio got really excited and proceeded to congratulate Danny on having good taste in football teams and to give the waiter, who was apparently a Roma fan, and hard time. It was pretty amazing.

Saturday: This Saturday started out like every other Saturday when we are in London - a short run, a cup of tea, then a trip to the farmers market. The rest of the daylight hours were spent going to two other neighborhood pubs (The Dartmouth Arm and the Lord Palmerson) to watch sport. First was the Manchester United vs. Manchester City soccer game. As I recently learned, these matches between local rivals are referred to as "derbys", and with Man U and Man City close to the top of the league, this was going to be a big game. As the linked article states, Rooney's winning goal (Man U won 2-1) was absolutely brilliant. He may be the baldingest man in the Premiere League, but don't say he's lost his touch. After the football was England vs. Italy in the rugby 6 Nations. With a 59-13 victory for England, this game was perhaps less thrilling, but it was still fun to watch. And by the way, Chris Ashton, who scored 4 tries for England, was born in 1987. oof. On an unrelated note, know what else I like about English pubs? People bring their kids to them to watch sport. It's cute.

Not wanting to feel to cramped by NW5, we ended this day with an evening at the Tate Modern. Neither of us are huge fans of modern art, but the Tate is kind of a big deal, so we felt we should give it a chance. There were some pieces I liked, but there were also moments where I found myself thinking "Do you think someone should tell the curator that the painting they have labeled as 'Unfinished Painting' is really just a mirror?" And things like that. Added bonus of the evening was walking back across the Millennium Bridge towards an illuminated St. Paul's Cathedral. Beautiful.


Sunday was more football! We went with our friend Leanna to see the Queens Park Rangers vs. Nottingham Forest, which is a Championship game (2nd tier teams). This was an experience worthy of it's own blog post, so I think I'm going to leave it at that. And now, I'm off to have a slice of leftover pizza for breakfast...

They break the Sabbath, I relax and refresh myself

Polo, as you may have heard, is something of an upper-class pursuit.  A sport that requires multiple horses for each player over the course of a single match isn’t something that little kids can pick up on the street.  It’s not an accident that Ralph Lauren’s aspirational clothing brand co-opts the image of a polo player and magnifies it beyond of all semblance of proportion.

It’s polo’s association with the wealthy and the famous that led to one of the more engaging exchanges of letters that I’ve come across in the archives.  Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband, is something of a polo fanatic.  Well, I have a feeling he doesn’t play much these days, seeing as he’s now almost 90 years old.  But in his youth, it seems as if there was no better way to spend a Sunday than playing polo.

Therein lies the problem (and how His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is likely to end up in a PhD dissertation on postwar Christianity).  Back in the 1950s, sabbatarian groups like the Lord’s Day Observance Society didn’t take kindly to anyone playing sports on Sundays.  The Lord’s Day was for churchgoing (twice, if possible), prayer, and quiet time spent with the family.  In the eyes of the LDOS, virtually everything else was a sin against God and destined to bring about national ruin (seriously – here’s what they said about a 1966 bill that would have allowed theatres to open on Sundays: “the Bill […], if passed, […] will result in a further departure of our Nation from Almighty God, His Word and Commandments, with both ill effects upon the spiritual and moral life of the nation and the certain removal of the Divine Blessing from us as a people.”

So you can imagine why the Lord’s Day Observance Society wasn’t too happy about Prince Philip playing polo on Sundays, especially with hundreds of paying spectators there to watch him (and the other seven players).  For a period in the mid-1950s, the LDOS was writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, every year, pressing for Fisher to do something about 1) Philip’s Sunday polo playing and 2) the Queen’s presence at said polo matches.  Reading this correspondence, it’s pretty clear that Fisher wanted nothing to do with this dispute.  He didn’t have much sympathy for what he saw as sabbatarian fanaticism, and he definitely didn’t want to piss off Prince Philip or the Queen.  But in 1955, prompted by the Free Church of Scotland going public with its criticism of Philip’s Sunday polo-playing, Fisher delicately raised the issue with Philip.  While being careful to avoid personal criticism of Philip’s Sunday activities, Fisher warned that Sunday polo by a member of the Royal Family might provide ammunition for “all who are now constantly seeking to invade the domesticity of Sunday rest and recreations, and who when the time comes will press very hard for legislation to remove all restrictions upon the full secularisation and commercialisation of Sunday”.

Philip’s response to Fisher, unfailingly polite, began by agreeing with Fisher on the sanctity of Sunday, the importance of churchgoing, and the undesirability of any paid labor being done on the Sabbath.  This included professional sports on Sundays: “I would resist at all costs any suggestion of professional Sunday football.  I would go further.  I would ask all organisers of charity cricket or football matches on Sunday not to ask any professional to play in them.”  He went on to suggest that any recreation that involved “killing” (hunting, fishing, and the like) should be avoided on Sundays.

And yet, in spite of this apparent sympathy for a certain degree of sabbatarian rigor, Philip wasn’t at all ready to give up his Sunday polo.  As an amateur sportsman, his participation in Sunday polo would not violate his stricture against payment for activities performed on Sundays.  Nor was it his fault that spectators were interested in watching the game and willing to pay to do so.  “As far as I am concerned I would not mind playing behind a screen without anyone looking on but unfortunately the club which organises the game cannot afford to do this.  It encourages people to pay to come and watch in order to reduce to some extent the expense of the game.”

These “expense of the game,” it seems, was in large part paying the wages of the grooms, timekeepers, and bus-drivers that made the game possible and easier for spectators to watch.  Philip deemed these “paid services” “unfortunate,” but ultimately worth the while, since he needed physical activity on Sundays to “relax and refresh” himself from the hard mental work of the rest of the week.  “It so happens that I like playing polo.”

So there you have it.  Wage-earning on Sundays?  Bad.  Unless, of course, it enables someone else to relax, enjoy themselves, and re-charge the batteries for the next week, especially when that someone is married to the Queen.

Handball with the Danes? Ja, tak!

Today's random photo is dedicated to a) anyone who is as of yet unconvinced that making your own baked beans is an awesome idea, and b) anyone who doesn't think it's worth spending the money to buy free-range, organic eggs. Just look how well that egg held together! and the yolk is practically orange! Also, protip: I asked the guy at the farmers market today if there's any thought on exactly how the color of eggs is related to the taste (the eggs we buy are all brown, but there's a range in darkness). He didn't know about that, but they found that the lighter eggs tend to be the ones that were laid outside in the yard, and being in the sun makes them lighter.

Close watchers of facebook may have noticed that last night Danny and I discovered that not one, but TWO of our friends and readers of this blog have doppelgangers on the Danish national handball team. Crazy, right? While it is very imaginable that Danny would have discovered this one day via random internet searching, we found out the better way: actually watching handball. Backstory: As we wrote about back in October, I lived with a wonderful family when I studied abroad in Denmark. This week, my "little" host sister Catrine was in London with 3 of her friends. They spent 2 days in Cambridge visiting another friend who is a student there (King's College, for those of you who were wondering), then they spent 3 days in London. We met up them after work each night to show them around a little and be impressed at how perfect their English is. The first night we took them to get Indian food, and it became clear that a) they had never had proper Indian food before, and b) they weren't used to spicy food!

The first night they mentioned that Denmark was playing in the handball world championship, and the semi-final game was on Friday night, and did we think there would be a place in London where they could watch it? I was doubtful, but luckily Danny knew of a huge, tacky, American-style sports bar near Trafalgar square (conveniently located next to the Texas Embassy Cantina), and the website said they would be showing the game. We arrived, doubtful whether it would actually be showing, and expecting that we would probably just find a quiet corner in which to enjoy some terrible nachos and watch just the 6 of us. Boy were we wrong. The initial shock of being carded for the first time since we arrived in England was followed by the even bigger shock of finding the back room completely full of really, really excited Danes watching the Danish-language sports channel on about a dozen screens. Wow.

So we ate our nachos and drank our Carlsberg, and enjoyed being the only non-Danes in the room. The atmosphere was awesome. Handball is a HUGE deal in Denmark. The team had been totally dominant in the tournament so far, and the national team hadn't been to the final in 44 years, so people were pretty excited. The game was great - Denmark went up by 4 points shortly after the start of the game, but at halftime it was tied 12-12. DK had an awesome second half, and the final score was 28-24. Want to see how excited people were? This video quality is bad, but it captures the feel of the evening very well. Although with the poor light, it's hard to see just how blond people are. You'll have to trust us.

The final against France is on Sunday, 5pm Continental time (11am EST) - get excited! As Danny points out, it's in Malmö, so it's practically a home game for Denmark. Watch for lots of red, and lots of flags!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2011, everyone!

Unfortunately for you internet addicts out there, our new years resolution was clearly not to blog more often, seeing as we're over a week into the 2011 and we haven't blogged once. So I thought I'd give you a quick update on what we've been doing. But first, RPOTD:

We had dinner with our landlords, and I made this French apple tart for dessert. Recipe is here, on Joy of Baking.com. It was nice and apple-y, not overwhelmed with sweetness or buttery-ness.

So let's see....unmentioned activities of late have included a Boxing Day rugby match at Wembley, courtesy of our friend Lianna who won the tickets in a raffle. It was the Wasps vs. Saracens, both of which are London teams. Because it was Boxing day, and because there were musical entertainers as well, the atmosphere was more family-friendly than rowdy, though it was so cold I wouldn't have been upset if someone had started a bonfire in the stands. We also discovered that although we know the general game-play of rugby, the individual rules about fouls are beyond us, plus it's pretty hard to see what going on in the middle of a scrum or ruck, so there were some parts of the game when we got a little lost. But overall it was a good time, and during halftime a member of the audience, participating in a classic half-time kick challenge, hit the crossbar from about 30 yards out, winning £250,000. amazing! For anyone who is interested, Saracens won 13-6.

Between Christmas and New Years there wasn't too much going on, but we did have the pleasure of getting together with two other expat Swatties, Ele and Jeff, who have recently moved to Oxford. We checked out the Christmas market at Hyde Park, which was bigger than the market in Scotland and had more rides, but it was somewhat lacking in charm (since when are haunted houses traditional Christmas entertainment?). But it was not lacking in warming beverages and french fries in paper cones, so it was overall a good experience. Then we went to the Tate Britain (British art from 1500), which is most famous for its collection of paintings by JMW Turner, and we managed to get about halfway through before museum-foot set in. Then Ele and I did a lot of reminiscing about playing soccer and lacrosse at Swarthmore, and we all headed home to put our feet up.

New Years Eve proceeded in typical New Years Eve party fashion, except this one included a German brother-of-a-friend-of-a-friend setting off fireworks in our host's backyard, which was exciting. We spend the next day recovering and making an enormous pot of veggie chilli.

The next day we got together with another Swattie, yay! Our friend Abigail, who is currently working for the US State Department in an undisclosed location (okay, it's Jordan, but isn't it cooler to think it's top secret???) decided last minute to come to London with her "beau", and we met up with them at the British Museum to catch up and look at old things. The British Museum is really an amazing collection of artifacts from all over the world...some possibly ill-gotten marble statues from the Parthenon, a huge supply of Egyptian mummies, and piles of ancient coins and armor and pots that were literally found in people's backyards all over England.

After the British Museum we split up - Abigail and Tony went to the Tower of London, and we'd both already been there - and we got lunch in Covent Garden then went to the London Transport Museum, which is way more awesome than it sounds (although admit it...to a lot of you this sounds really awesome). I'll spare you the details on the history of the Tube and the bus (short version...when the bus first started it was pulled by horses, and they shat a lot), but here are some cool images we came across.








The first is a sketch of Archway in 1823, which is now a busy tube station and bus interchange right near where we live, and the other is essentially an advertisement from 1907 for our neighborhood and surrounding "suburbs", which are now soundly in the middle of London.


Last week was just a usual work week. Danny went to the archives and I went to my office at the LSHTM. I thought a lot about keywords and journal databases, and Danny thought about religious broadcasting on the BBC. We cooked vegetables.

Oh! just kidding, last week was not just a usual work week...it was the week that England won The Ashes in Australia for the first time in 24 years! And they didn't just win, it was an absolute crush job. So last week was a bit of a blur, because the matches didn't start until 11pm GMT, and we stayed up late watching every night. And I killed time before they started by engrossing myself in Pride and Prejudice (yay for old classics free on Kindle!) and The Magicians, an "urban fantasy" book that John lent me when I was back in Boston. Kind of a Harry Potter meets Narnia, but set in the US, and with sex and drugs. A fun and engrossing read.

This weekend we furiously set about trying to check things off our ginormous list of things to do in London. Places we hit up:

Apsley House, former residence of the 8 Dukes of Wellington, that now has an impressive collection of things and artwork that were given to the Dukes over the years. Basically, the first Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon on multiple occasions, which caused most nation-states of Europe to shower him with riches. Highlights of the collection included a sword that belonged to Napoleon, The Waterseller of Seville, and multiple detailed, if inaccurate, paintings of the Battle of Waterloo.

Harrods. Again. But this time we were drawn there by some gift certificates we each had. Plus there are massive sales going on in every store in London at the moment, so this is the one time of year we can actually afford anything there. I got some cute green shoes and Danny got a luxurious cashmere scarf.

The Brick Lane/Shoreditch area. This was today's expedition. Our original intention was to check out some of the markets and shops in this artsy neighborhood, as well as one or two small museums that are in the area, but we got a late start and were totally overwhelmed by the markets, so we decided to save the museums for another day. We started with Old Spitalfields Market, which hosts dozens of stalls of funky clothing, old books, and hand-crafted jewelry and accessories, all surrounded by restaurants and cafes. I got a skirt that has owl-printed fabric in the pleats (bird-patterned clothing purchase number two of this year!), and I bought it directly from the designer/maker, which was cool. Next we checked out the Christ Church Spitalfield's, which was built in the mid-18th century in an effort to provide more churches to the "godless" immigrants who were rapidly filling London's east end. Funny how Christians always thought of Jews as godless...

Our next destination was Brick Lane Beigel Bakery, which was just a few blocks up Brick Lane, but it took us about 45 minutes to get there because we were drawn in by lots of used clothing shops, artisanal tee-shirts booths, and stands selling fresh noodles and veggie buns. Danny searched for a classy jacket that would fit his shoulders properly, but alas. Also, I've also never been accosted by so many people advertising their curry houses. The beigel (yes, that's how they spell bagel) shop was a bit disappointing...it's supposed to be one of the best in London, but the bagels just tasted like a Lenders bagel. Oh well...we'll be back to Kupel's in a few months! Then we spent some time exploring the side streets and seeing the Columbia Road flower market close up for the day. Overall the neighborhood has some cool little shops (including one where we bought some Sicilian oranges and home-made jam), but I wouldn't describe it as "gentle", as this New York Times article did.

Okay, I think that just about brings us up to speed. And speaking of speed, in case you didn't know, Danny and I are running a half-marathon in June when we get back to the states, so we've also been running a lot lately. Expect some running-focused blog posts in the upcoming future! Here's a running-related photo to tide you over:


Self-inflicted by repeated kicking, or tendon re-attatchment surgery? You be the judge...

England 1, Australia 0

England wrapped up their victory in the second Test rather quickly last night.  Here’s what my facebook status updates looked like during the course of play:

• The last time England won a Test in Australia without already being behind in the series?  November 1986.  Today/tomorrow (weather permitting) could be momentous.
• Hussey gone!  Five to go.
• Into the tail!
• One to go…
• 1-0!

It only took England 17 overs (a bit over an hour’s play) to take the final six wickets.

This wasn’t just a key victory for England in the series.  It was absolute demolition.  This comparison probably says more than anything else: in this match, England scored 620 runs and lost 5 wickets; Australia scored 549 and lost 20.  For those of you keeping score at home, that means that England averaged 124 runs for each of its wickets.  Australia averaged 27.

The next Test is December 16 at the WACA in Perth.  If England win, they’ll secure the Ashes for the next two years.  Stay tuned.

Not-the-broadcaster can bat and bat and bat

The dominant figure in the Ashes has been someone who I didn’t even mention in my series preview: England opener Alastair Cook (not to be confused with his near-namesake Alistair Cook).  He’s never been a flashy player.  He was on the verge of being dropped this summer against Pakistan.  And here’s what he’s done so far in this Ashes series.

• Score 438 runs.  That is a lot of runs.  In 2002-3 Michael Vaughan scored 633 runs, widely hailed as one of of the greatest performances by a visiting batsman in Australia.  Cook is already within 200 runs of that, and that’s after only batting three times.
• Got out once.  Thus far, his scores for the series look like this: 67, 235 not out, 136 not out.  This means that he’s averaging a cool 438 runs per dismissal in this series.  We should all be so lucky.  Note that that 136 not out could increase considerably on day 3 of the current Test – England would love to bat for the better part of the day, and Cook would love to be there the whole time.
• Face 842 balls.  A big part of being a successful Test batsman is just hanging around at the crease for a long time.  The longer you stick around –> more balls for the bowlers to bowl –> tired bowlers.
• Bat for almost three days without getting out.  Back in July, I wrote that “Cricket rewards consistency and concentration, the ability to toil and grind your way along to victory.”  Victory is hardly assured for England at this point, but if they do win this match, it’ll be in large part due to Cook’s ability to grind away.

I’ll leave the state-of-the-match analysis to Becca.

Your Ashes guide

For those of you who have been living under a rock (or are American), the Ashes begins today.  Or is it tomorrow?  One never really knows with events that are occurring in Australia.  If you’re on the east coast of the United States (as I suspect most of you are), it begins at 7:00 PM on Wednesday.  If you’re in England (I know there are a few of you), it’ll be midnight Wednesday/Thursday.  And if you’re in Australia, well then you don’t really need an American to tell you anything about the Ashes, do you?

Right, so what’s the Ashes?  Only the biggest cricket series in the world.  If you’ve been over to our apartment in the U.S., you’ve no doubt noticed the 3-DVD 2005 Ashes box set.  It’s kind of a big deal.  But never fear, reader, I’ll get you up to speed just in time.

What you need to know

• Still unsure about what cricket’s all about?  Can’t tell an LBW from a silly point?  Becca’s wonderful tutorial is the place to start.  The one wrinkle for the Ashes is that all these matches are of the multi-day variety, which means each team bats twice rather than just once.  And by “multi-day,” I mean up to 5 days.
• Every other year, England and Australia play each other in a 5-match series to determine world cricket supremacy.  Or so they like to think – as of right now, they’re ranked 4th and 5th in the world, so it’s more like supremacy within the mediocre ranks of Test-playing nations.  Still, if you gave most England cricket fans a choice between winning the Ashes (especially in Australia) and winning the World Cup, I’d suspect they’d choose the former.
• The winner of the series gets a (replica of) trophy.  And by trophy I mean a tiny urn.  It’s got to be the most ridiculous trophy in sports.
• The 2005 Ashes in England (which England won 2-1 in thrilling style) is widely held to be the greatest series of cricket in history.  It’s no coincidence that I started following cricket at exactly this time.
• In 2006-7, England sought to retain the Ashes when they traveled to Australia.  They failed to do so, losing 5-0 in what turned out to be the farewell series for Australian bowlers Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, two of the all-time greats.  In retrospect, the first ball of the series, bowled by England fast bowler Stephen Harmison, gave a pretty clear sense of how the whole trip would go for England.
  

  This is the equivalent of the pitcher throwing it so wide that the catcher can’t even touch it on a full dive.
• Last summer England took the Ashes back, once again winning the series 2-1 in England (and Wales).  England’s victories never seem to be as resounding as their defeats.
• So that brings us to today (or tomorrow).  England are back in Australia, convinced that this is the year when they’ll finally beat Australia in Australia.  There are some good reasons for thinking this:
  • Australia, once all-conquering marauders with cut-throat instincts, have suddenly forgotten how to close out matches. Test matches are won as a result of five days of intensity and concentration.  If Australia continue to slip up…
  • England have been playing wonderfully.  They’ve been the better team by some distance in all their warm-up matches in Australia, including the one where they didn’t play any of their best bowlers.
  • Graeme Swann.  Clearly a man who does 1,000 push-ups is unstoppable. [Watch all the way through.  Really.]
    

    The best part starts around 7:50.
• The cast of characters.  Here are some of the key players on each side.
  • England
    • Andrew Strauss – England’s South Africa-born captain and opening batsman.  You can spot him by the wedding ring he wears on a necklace.  In true captain form, you can expect plenty of bland cliches about taking each session/day/match one session/day/match at a time.
    • Jonathan Trott – England’s South Africa-born #3 batsman.  Known for the digging trenches while batting.  You can also see him in the video above at 8:35
    • Kevin Pietersen – England’s South Africa-born #4 batsman.  Typically described with words like ‘brilliant,’ ‘mercurial,’ and ‘aggravating.’  Currently sporting a mustache for Movember, though he has some aspects of the pantomime villain, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept it.  Fun facts: middle name is Peter.  Born in Pietermaritzburg.  You can’t make this stuff up.
    • Paul Collingwood – England’s Northern ginger batsman.  Typically described as a ‘nurdler’ and ‘nuggety’.  Which means, more or less, that he’s not very talented.  He’s what American baseball fans would call ‘scrappy’.  Look for him to hang around, as they say.  Also one of the world’s top fielders, although the frequency of his drops is on the increase.
    • Ian Bell – England’s Midlands ginger batsman.  He seems to have recovered from his broken foot.  Known for making very pretty 30s and 40s but then needlessly getting himself out.
    • Matt Prior – England’s South Africa-born wicketkeeper/batsman.  Not too much to say about him – steady with the bat and gloves.  I mostly just wanted to highlight the fact that England have four players born in South Africa.  South Africa, incidentally, also plays Test cricket.
    • Stuart Broad – One of England’s pretty young fast bowlers.  Turns out he can bat a bit, too, though his dancing leaves something to be desired.
    • Graeme Swann – The video above says it all, really.
  • Australia
    • Shane Watson – It is not possible to imagine someone looking more Australian.  As my friend Ivan points out, all he needs is a surfboard under his arm.  In spite of his hulking physique, known for frequent injuries and crying.
    • Ricky Ponting – Arguably the second-best Australian batsman ever.  Has something of a temper, as this clip shows.
      
      If things go poorly, his captaincy could be under threat.
    • Michael Clarke – Another injury-prone batsman who can bowl a bit.  His latest injury is a sore back, and his readiness for the first Test match remains in doubt.  Long seen as Ponting’s successor as captain, Clarke’s been the subject of some discontent in the locker room recently.
    • Mitchell Johnson, Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle, and Doug Bollinger – Australian fast bowlers of various sorts.  All seem to have a distinguishing physical characteristic, so you should be able to distinguish them pretty easily: Johnson has a narrow, aerodynamic face; Hilfenhaus always sports some manly stubble; Siddle just looks mean; Bollinger just looks goofy.  Only three of this group are likely to play in any one match.

• Staying up late watching cricket is hard work – it’s not as if there’s constant action to keep you biting your nails the whole night through.  Fortunately, the Guardian comes through with a guide to how to stay awake.  Apparently bacon and eggs are key components.

How to follow the action

• The classic English way of following the Ashes is listening to Test Match Special and its inimitable cast of characters.  You may or may not be able to listen from the US, but if you are, this is the way to go.
• Follow the ball-by-ball descriptions at cricinfo.  The Guardian’s over-by-over coverage offers a slightly more sedate pace with more jokes.  This tends to work better if you’ve got a handle on the lingo, but you can learn fast if you keep this open at all times.
• For the twitterers out there, @Aggerscricket and @Swannyg66are the ones to follow.
• If you’re really committed, you can even spring for a package from Willow TV and watch the action to your heart’s content.  It’s not cheap, but if you find yourself with a spare 150 hours over the next six weeks, why not?
• Keep reading here, of course.  Chances are I’ll be jotting down at least a few thoughts on each day’s play, especially since Becca’s not here to listen to my daily gushings.  My apologies, in advance, if the terminology rapidly becomes obscure and silly.  Feel free to ask for clarification.

What to look for

• Cricket scores are notoriously opaque to non-cricket fans.  It’s too complicated (how many wickets are down, what’s the pitch doing, etc.) to provide any easy guide, but it’s safe to say that a team scoring 100 runs in its whole innings has done very poorly and is likely on its way to a quick defeat.  Likewise, a team that puts up 500 runs in its innings is a pretty safe bet to win or at least put the other team under severe pressure.  There have been exceptions.  In general, big numbers before the slash and small numbers (say, 0-4) after it are good for the batting team.
• How many players will Australia use throughout the series?  Even on the eve of the first match, they’re basically undecided about who’s going to be playing for them.  If things go poorly in the first match, look for the Australian selectors to make significant changes in the lineup in an attempt to save face.  By that point, it may already be too late.
• If you’re listening to Test Match Special, play some Boycott bingo.  If you’ve ever wondered what a crusty old Yorkshireman sounds like, this is your chance.
• How many posts on cricket can I possibly write in a six-week period?

Sports-related pub discovery #2

It turns out that the Sky Sports feed at the Dartmouth Arms is German - straight after Chelsea-Blackpool finished, on come what appeared to be the Straubinger Tigers-Augsburger Panther game.  So for you forlorn Deutsche Eishockey Liga fans in London who can't get your fix, make your way to Dartmouth Park!

A day at Lord's

We had hoped to go to the 5th day of the England-Pakistan Test at Lord's.  You know, the one in which Stuart Broad cemented his place as a real Test batsman.  But as it turned out, the Test finished halfway through the 4th day, with the shadows of spot-fixing allegations hanging over the Pakistan team.  So our hopes to see Test cricket at the home of cricket were dashed.

Instead, we opted for a rather less significant match: a Pro40 one-day match between Middlesex and Derbyshire last Saturday.  Last Saturday was a pleasant day, so why not spend it outside?

The match itself was a pretty tame affair: a 7-wicket win for Middlesex, with little sense of any other possible result for most of the afternoon.  So rather than you a rather boring recap of the game action, here's a series of observations about watching a domestic cricket match at Lord's, the home of cricket on a Saturday afternoon in late summer.

But first, evidence that we were there:

Becca with the Media Centre.





Danny with the Pavillion.



- Beer is cheap.  Well, cheap by pub standards.  You're going to pay £4 for a pint of ale, whereas I think the priciest pint in a pub I've had in London is somewhere around £3.60.  But given that you're at a professional sporting event, £4 is dirt cheap.  Those of you who have been to Fenway recently know how much beer at a baseball game will set you back.  And remember, here in England it comes in pints.

- People dress up to watch cricket.  I suspect that this is much more common at Lord's (with its connection to the Marylebone Cricket Club, a sort of old-fashioned gentleman's club with a special interest in cricket), but still, it's rather striking to view to see dozens of men dressed in blazers and ties while drinking beer on a Saturday afternoon.

- Some of the best players in the world play before small crowds in domestic matches.  I can't find any attendance figures for the match we went to, but I'd say that there were no more than 1,000 fans in attendance, most of them clustered together on one side of the pitch.  This, in spite of the fact that England captain Andrew Strauss turned out for Middlesex.  It was a bit of a shock to see him fielding, rather anonymously, at square-leg, just 15 meters away from us.

- Speaking of close contact with England players, we happened to find ourselves just a few steps behind fast bowler Steven Finn as we wandered around the stadium.  At first I thought it was just a fan wearing the Middlesex kit.  But we quickly realized that there aren't many fans that are 6'7".  So there he was, just walking back to the dressing room as we wandered back to our seats.

- Pimm's and Lemonade on tap!

If you happen to be in London this weekend and want to see English cricket at its amateurish best, the final of the Village Cricket Cup is at 11:00 on Saturday morning at Lord's.  Shipton-under-Wychwood versus Sessay for all the marbles.

Best discovery of the week

Our local pub, the Star, has an upstairs room with 1) a comfy couch, 2) a big-screen TV with the football on, 3) a fireplace, and 4) no one else there tonight.  Throw in beer from the bar downstairs and it's like a cozy second living room around the corner from us.

My first cricket match

Back in 2005, I played a 20-over cricket match between Christ's MCR and Christ's porters.  Rain came before the MCR's innings was over, so the result was a draw.  A good result for the MCR, since it was clear we were well on our way to losing to a bunch of middle-aged men.

So I count yesterday's fixture between the Hornsey 4th XI and the Highgate 5th XI as my true cricket debut.  A friend of mine here in London plays for Hornsey.  Knowing my fascination with cricket, he asked if I wanted to come along for yesterday's match to fill out the Hornsey XI.  How could I say no?

How did it go?  Well, we won by 42 runs, a comfortable margin, as these things go.  I suspect, though, since you're reading this blog, you're more interested in how I did.

I wasn't a complete failure with the bat.  Just a near-complete one.  After successfully keeping out the first delivery I faced with what the rest of my team kindly described as a "textbook forward defensive," I promptly edged the second ball to first slip, where I was caught out without scoring a run.  For those of you not up on your cricket terminology, you can think of this as me attempting a bunt and instead tipping it to a fielder a yard or so to the right of where the catcher would stand.

In other words, I didn't score any runs.  And I got out at nearly the earliest possible moment.  But at that point, our team already had 175 runs on the board, so it's not as if we were counting on my contribution with the bat.  My eligibility for the Primary Club will have to wait for another day.

In the field, I patrolled square leg and leg slip competently, if unspectacularly.  Basically, I didn't let the ball through my legs, which was really my great fear.

All in all, an enjoyable afternoon.  Maybe next time I'll take a catch and score some runs!

A birthday in London

Yesterday, as many of you noted with kind messages, was my birthday.  My 28th, a fact you may want to keep in mind for a brief story at the end of this blog post.  As birthdays go, this was a pretty fantastic one: good food, new friends, and more exploration of what London has to offer.

After sleeping in (helped by the fact that the bedroom in our basement is the most underground bit of the whole place, with only a bit of natural light streaming through a small window), Becca made me breakfast, constructed almost completely from this week's haul from the farmers' market.  Scrambled ggs with red onions and cheddar, with a hearty slice of a London Bloomer with tomato, basil, and buffalo mozzarella.  Ten days in, Becca has mastered the art of cooking eggs on a gas stove.

Next we took the Northern Line to Charing Cross for a short jaunt across the City.  We stopped briefly in Trafalgar Square, hopefully for the one and only time this year (except to look out on it from the National Gallery).  The things that seem like perfect destinations as a 17-year-old tourist have a tendency to get rather stale after a decade, I suppose.  Still, Trafagar Square provided a remarkable contrast to the City on a Sunday: the first full of people and general chaos, the second practically devoid of all human activity (the City is London's financial district; with just 8,000 inhabitants, things get awfully quiet when the banks close - think La Défense in Paris).  By the time we reached Fleet Street after following the Strand, we practically had the place to ourselves.

But before that, our first church in London: St Clement Danes.  Designed by Christopher Wren in the late 17th century, it suffered heavy bombing in the Second World War and is now the central church of the Royal Air Force.  Most of the paraphernalia in the church relates to its current function: memorial plaques, flags of RAF units, and the like.  I was struck by its rather wide central aisle and its rather peculiar position in the middle of the Strand.  I suspect that the more time I walking around the mess of streets that is the City, the less striking things like this will be.

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St Clement also claims to be the St. Clement's mentioned in the famous first line of the English nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons", though this claim is hotly contested by St Clement Eastcheap.  St Clement Danes does have this plaque... so I'll leave it for you to decide.

Next it was up Ludgate Hill to St Paul's, all the while dittying "Feed the Birds".  I was intrigued by St Martin, Ludgate (another Wren church), but it's now the home of a Chinese congregation on Sundays, so it was closed to the public.

Tons to be said about St Paul's, of course, but we only stopped in for a few minutes on this trip, so I'll save the full report for a later time.  Instead, I'll try to amuse you with signs we saw walking from St Paul's to the Bank tube stop.

I'm a sucker for puns.  Especially when they involve hummus.

That's a street sign, folks.  Not "Poultry Lane" or "Poultry Road."  Just "Poultry."

A double whammy!  A funny-sounding name on one sign, and an obscure, archaic trade on the other.

After a short stop back in Dartmouth Park, we found our way over to Clissold Park in Stoke Newington to try to track down Curve for a bit of birthday ultimate frisbee.  Another warm, sunny Sunday, another London park full of people.  I haven't decided whether it's because Londoners love their parks so much or because they've been trained to soak in every last ray of sunshine in the summer.

We were just looking for some friendly pick-up, but it turns out that Curve had a match scheduled, so we got a full game in our very first appearance.  Good value.  The other team was a friendly bunch of high schoolers who had been playing together since last summer but had never played a competitive match before.  So it was a relaxed, low-key game with a teaching atmosphere.  The fact that a group of 16- and 17-year-olds from Ilford successfully arranged a game with an adult ultimate team illustrates one of the more endearing elements of English sports culture, its essential amateurish-ness.  I don't mean this in a pejorative way (though one does wonder why it's been almost 75 years since a British man won Wimbledon).  Rather, what I find so great is the idea that, on any given day, two teams, regardless of their standard of play, can get together for a game in a park.  Obviously this has its limits, but the prevalence of giant-killing in the FA Cup shows this happens even at the professional level.  You occasionally see major league baseball teams play their minor league affiliates or or university teams in exhibition games, but never in a competitive setting.  The amateurish nature of English sports promotes a rather friendly atmosphere around matches, especially at the lower standards.  In fact, I'm sure we would have gone to the pub with the other team, if not for the fact that the majority of them appeared to be 16 years old.

Not that appearances are always convincing.  Remember that bit above where I mentioned that yesterday was my 28th birthday?  Apparently I don't look it, at least to 16-year-olds.  Having heard my American accent, one of them asked me, "So, are you here on a gap year?"

That's right.  After eight years of post-secondary education and gray hairs that seem to be multiplying by the week, I apparently can still pass for 18 years old.  So here's a question for you, readers: is this a good thing or not?

After a drink at the pub with the friendly folks of Curve, it was back home, but not before a brief stop at the Happening Bagel in Finsbury Park.  It's no Kupel's, but still pretty tasty and left me picking poppy seeds out of my teeth.

Not bad for a day when we got out of bed at 10:30 in the morning.