The cricket Test

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Will the Global Mod pass the cricket/baseball test ?

Actually I think the Americans have found the answer - have a world series in a sport that nobody else plays and therefore nobody can support a foreign team !

American Exceptionalism and genius solves intractable problems yet again !

Baseball is played in about as many countries as play cricket. Look at listof birth places of any MLB team.

okay no one told me they were going to fly! I would have watched the wedding just to see the Hurricane and Spitfire in flight.

They did that for the Queen's Jubilee when I still lived in London. It was awesome.

[Captain Oates 910]

Baseball is played in about as many countries as play cricket. Look at listof birth places of any MLB team.

They did that for the Queen's Jubilee when I still lived in London. It was awesome.

But not soccer (football)

Most of the places that play baseball are little tin pot places like Panama

Soccer is played in Russia and Brazil and Germany and Argentina and France and Spain and Italy and Australia and just about everywhere

Edited April 29, 2011 by Alan the Red

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

BUT NOT FOOTBALL (SOCCER)

I think we are all aware of that.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

But not soccer (football)

Most of the places that play baseball are little tin pot places like Panama

Soccer is played in Russia and Brazil and Germany and Argentina and France and Spain and Italy and Australia and just about everywhere

I think the Japanese take baseball more seriously then Americans (and probably have better players too)

[_Simpson_ 250]

I always support the USA at soccer in the world cup - it would be wonderful if they were engaged at a high level in the biggest world sport after fishing and puking on curry. They have a good soccer team with a lot of spirit and as yet unrefined skill. Perhaps Brazil and the world cup will give it a boost

If England was playing the US for the world cup you would cheer for the US?

It's ironic that soccer is a girls sport here in the USA but when I played baseball at school in England it was known as 'rounders' and only girls could play it after age 11. So I had to retire at age 11 and go on to rugby or soccer (football)

Because most men choose football over soccer. Soccer is female friendly.

Edited April 29, 2011 by _Simpson_

[Captain Oates 910]

I think the Japanese take baseball more seriously then Americans (and probably have better players too)

Can't see the Japanese ever being a big rugby nation - but all my cars and bikes are Japanese

[Captain Oates 910]

They should have had the arrows up the Mall

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Margaret Thatcher's Minister Norman Tebbitt introduced the 'cricket test' which said that if a British born Pakistani supported Pakistan against England, then they had not become assimilated into British Society

Today I was watching the Royal Wedding and a flight consisting of an AVRO Lancaster and a Supermarine Spitfire and a Hawker Hurricane flew up the Mall (Mall as in Pal - not MORL)

The BBC had a commentator of South Asian appearance who said they were 'World war 2 jets'

Unfortunately, BBC has quite a few correspondents who fail to research what they are presenting (not all of them desi); you try complaining about their lack of research (especially on a forum) and your comment is 99% likely to be removed (I've had this happen more than once--though I got through recently with a comment that "breaking house rules" is oft coverup of having their own lack of research exposed)

I reached for my aspirin and nearly fainted with indignation

That guy failed the 'cricket test' miserably

Poor old Blighty - the country really has gone to the dogs

And here, even worse--as many of the media correspondents (especially Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, ...) are even more ignorant than the EBCD you described, and get paid in one year probably what the EBCD would earn over his total career.

...

Because most men choose football over soccer. Soccer is female friendly.

If you've ever seen Milwall Lions (or teams of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, ...) play, you would not make such a comment

[Captain Oates 910]

Unfortunately, BBC has quite a few correspondents who fail to research what they are presenting (not all of them desi); you try complaining about their lack of research (especially on a forum) and your comment is 99% likely to be removed (I've had this happen more than once--though I got through recently with a comment that "breaking house rules" is oft coverup of having their own lack of research exposed)

And here, even worse--as many of the media correspondents (especially Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, ...) are even more ignorant than the EBCD you described, and get paid in one year probably what the EBCD would earn over his total career.

If you've ever seen Milwall Lions (or teams of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, ...) play, you would not make such a comment

Why would a post be removed that refers to what a UK government Minister said about the 'cricket test' ?

Isn't that taking political correctness a bit far - especially as I am merely referring to what every Brit over the age of 40 knows about as a talking point on TV radio and the press

I referred to a person's understanding of an unfamiliar country in the same way as I might refer to American baseball as 'rounders' which is the English word for the game. The bit I was shocked about is that any man living in Britain would refer to a Spitfire as a 'word war 2 jet', and therefore that the age when every schoolboy knew battle of Britain planes has now passed to an age where the difference between a propeller plane and a jet isn't known by a BBC commentator because his background is so different

It is like me getting a job on US TV and referring to a police officer as 'the local bobby'

I don't care what color the guy is or where he came from - but he should have familiarity with the culture there if he is going to be a BBC commentator

What is wrong with saying that ?

[ready4ONE 5,400]

I think the Japanese take baseball more seriously then Americans (and probably have better players too)

We have Ichiro! They don't make better players than him! Seattle went on a slide after Sweet Lou left us though...

[TBoneTX 44,669]

Actually I think the Americans have found the answer - have a world series in a sport that nobody else plays and therefore nobody can support a foreign team !

The Toronto Blue Jays are in, uh, Canadia, or extremely northern North Dakota, or some such, si man... unless by "Americans" you mean "all Colonists north of the Rio Grande," verily man, wot. Please help us oot by clarifying, eh man, wot.

[Captain Oates 910]

The Toronto Blue Jays are in, uh, Canadia, or extremely northern North Dakota, or some such, si man... unless by "Americans" you mean "all Colonists north of the Rio Grande," verily man, wot. Please help us oot by clarifying, eh man, wot.

Yeah I tend the short cut and instead of saying 'U.S.icans' I say 'Americans'

Thinking a bit more about 'second world war jets' I have decided that it is simply my life experience passing to a new generation who were either not born in the UK or were born into a separate culture within the UK and who's life experience is simply different. The natives are shrinking as a percentage of the population and will die out one day to be replaced by an entirely new population with different ways and culture.

For instance, imagine a Pakistani woman living in Bradford who has been in the UK for 30 years and does not speak one word of English - what would she make of the Royal Wedding ? All these white people in this palace - she must feel ZERO connection to all that stuff.

Yet she is the future with her 12 children, and all these rich white rulers of German origin with their Aston Martins and designer dresses and 1.2 children per woman are going to be the past.

Heck it must be like a USian living in Texas with a black president and an ever expanding Hispanic population locally - it just takes a bit of getting used to that's all. If the populations were actually interested in each other's cultures then it would be fine - but they don't seem to be and so each population experiences a fragmented society.

Nobody is 'going home' so the ONLY fix is integration. Easier said than done and easier (one would imagine) between separate American christian populations US/Mexico than a Pakistani Muslim and a Yorkshire descendant of the Vikings

The 'cricket test' or it's equivalent will be more and more an issue in the future and already there is controversy because of Mexican history being taught in US schools.

What is the answer ? Convert totally to being a USian in all its cultural ways, or preserve the Italian/Polish/Mexican/etc culture even at the cost of dividing society and making populations different ?

Because if its size, the US has always allowed its Sicilian/Polish etc populations to do their own thing without much problem - but the UK is small and crowded and when your next door neighbour thinks it's ok to cut a sheep's throat in the back garden or beat his daughter because she has breached the honour code, some adverse reaction is natural

My best bet is just to watch it all happen and try not to disapprove - much more relaxing

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I think you putting way too much cultural explanation into what must have been a moment of broadcaster stupidity - I'm sure Cat Deely was just as likely to make the same mistake

[Captain Oates 910]

I think you putting way too much cultural explanation into what must have been a moment of broadcaster stupidity - I'm sure Cat Deely was just as likely to make the same mistake

Yes I agree it was a trivial thing - but it was just so symbolic of the difference between

a culture where every schoolboy could tell you the designer's name and armament and stall speed of a spitfire and now - when nobody can tell one from an airbus

I suppose it was the same for the Saxons in England when the Danes arrived, bringing all those crazy red-heads with them.

Or the Dutch in New Amsterdam when the English arrived and re-named it New York.

We will hear more from Trump when it is next renamed to 'Ciudad del Norte'

[Peikko 1,575]

Yes I agree it was a trivial thing - but it was just so symbolic of the difference between

a culture where every schoolboy could tell you the designer's name and armament and stall speed of a spitfire and now - when nobody can tell one from an airbus

I suppose it was the same for the Saxons in England when the Danes arrived, bringing all those crazy red-heads with them.

Or the Dutch in New Amsterdam when the English arrived and re-named it New York.

We will hear more from Trump when it is next renamed to 'Ciudad del Norte'

Your explanation for the fact that youngsters don't know a spitfire from an airbus is because they are all descendants of pakis who don't care about the history? That seems just a tad Daily Mail to me. Those nasty immigrants you fear made up 1.3% of the population in 2001, and even allowing for 12 births per every couple of pakis, that doesn't equal squat in 2011.

Ethnic group Population Proportion of total UK population

White 54,153,898 92.1%

Mixed race 677,117 1.2%

Indian 1,053,411 1.8%

Pakistani 747,285 1.3%

Bangladeshi 283,063 0.5%

Other Asian (non-Chinese) 247,644 0.4%

Black Caribbean 565,876 1.0%

Black African 485,277 0.8%

Black (others) 97,585 0.2%

Chinese 247,403 0.4%

Other 230,615 0.4%

Colombian 247,403 0.4%

What a threat they pose eh?

Your explanation for the inability of British kids to identify planes must lie elsewhere. Surely the more sensible explanation is that the kids today have never seen one?

Edited April 30, 2011 by The Truth™