Monday 15 December 2014

Aaron Sorkin and cricket- has Josh Bartlett got a sweep shot?

As a child, it is ( I think) quite common to imagine oneself as something or someone else, in a sort of aspirational way. A grown up, a cowboy, a super hero..whatever. In my case it was either a wizard or a detective.

It's unusual, or rather unhealthy, to do the same a an adult. Perhaps"unhealthy" is a bit harsh, but certainly  not entirely healthy. 

The only two other things I have ever , since I came into man's estate, wanted to be at any moment in time are David Gower and a character in an Aaron Sorkin script. Any character will do (and they are all the same -but then so are all Brian Lara's flicks off the hip for four and no one's complaining about that). Life would be so much better if Aaron Sorkin wrote it- a not unusual opinion among middle class liberals of my type.

While accepting that I wouldn't have anything particularly original to say about the WS Gilbert of modern TV (google it) I did think I met get a blog post out of the recurring half arsed cricket references. Rewatching Studio 60 reminded me to punt it on the site.

Then I googled this and realised that others (and proper,talented others like Jarrod Kimber) had got there years before me. Apart from reminding me of Dorothy Parker's poem about Wilde ("I never seek to take the credit/ We all assume that Oscar said it") it reminded me that winter nets will soon be upon us. 

At these I always try to sweep the spinners and I always get bowled round my legs. Knowing I don't have that particular shot, I safely tuck it away for another year and don't try it again until the next lot of meaningless winter nets.

I can't decide if this is a good thing or not, but it is a thing and I can't alter it.