Bibliography, August 2009

Acquired:
still haven't counted

Read (13)

BOTM: A. Burroughs, Dry

J. Binns, Ascetics and ambassadors of Christ
B. Bryson, Made in America
R. Carver, Where I'm calling from
D. Dales, Light to the Isles
R. Grant, Colony
G. Greene, A burnt out case (probably read earlier but not recorded)
G. Haigh, Silent Revolutions
A. Lebor, City of Oranges
G. Morgan, AD 69. The year of four emperors
A. Proulx, Brokeback mountain & other stories
P. Roth, I married a communist
H.H. Scallard, From the Gracci to Nero



Cracking month this - barely a bad book, but Burroughs the best. I was very pleasantly surprised by the honesty and the wicked humour of what is fundamentally a depressing litany of alcohol abuse and terminal illness of one's best friend. Uplifting in the end, but very well written. Couple of honourable mentions worth going to Scallard's excellent textbook on the end of the republic and Gideon Haigh's collected essays. A peerless collection from the best cricket writer active today.

It's an odd boy who doesn't like Sport

In one of their odder tracks, the Bonzos recorded a ditty where they reminisced about sport, more specifically, about the odd boy who doesn't like sport. It's an odd song that cannot quite make up its mind about whether to parody the hale and hearty public school vision of sport or the miserable child who has no desire to play. I always remember school as a time when I didn't like sport, though on calaculating reflection I appear to have done a lot of it - all badly. Then, I rather stopped doing and following it for some years at university, and was rather dismissive of those who saw it as important.


Anyway, I'd meant to do a quick sport round up, but time appears to have caught up with me. So very briefly

• I now do think it's important, and smugly spent two days at the Oval watching us win in glorious fashion, before being very hungover the following day
• I am appalled by what Harlequins have done. It's as bad as football and they should be relegated. They were underservedly not banned.
• Football appears to have started; before then end of the cricket season, and seems to be injuring both their own fans (who cares) and indeed members of the England cricket team (much more serious)

I think the reason I dislike football so much is that they appear to have missed the point. It is always meant to be a game, a game taken seriously, but a game. The serious part is the playing. And football forget that long ago. What saddens me is the rugby looks like doing it now; especially my own team. And then there is no point watching. I loved the fact last year that when Harlequins played Stade Francais, fans mingled, fun was had and everyone went back on the same train. Cheating at blood replacements isn't the beginning of the end, but in some ways it the end of the beginning and we can only hope the gutter doesn't beckon.

For to follow football, that would be anathema indeed.