Posts by Matthew Littlewood
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It'll lay ya out for 5 days at a time.
Usually 2-3 days if NZ is involved.
I think this current match will only go three days if India decide to bat for that long. Jeez, there were times I wish I weren't so obsessed by cricket. Certainly my blood pressure would be a lot lower right about now.
Certainly, there is something about tennis and cricket, especially, that can engender itself to good writing- maybe it's the subtleties and inherent eccentricities about both games (because there is something bizarre about cricket, and to a lesser degree, tennis, when it comes down to it).
I just wished sometimes more sports writing matched the obsession with eloquence, rather than just being middle of the road punditry. I guess this is partly the result of the player/commentator phenomenon.I think it goes back to the old player/coach analogy, in that the greatest players don't necessarily make the greatest coaches, nor do they make the most eloquent commentators. As the current Channel 9 Commentary team for cricket bears out.
In fact, sometimes I'm really conflicted about the way sport is covered- look, I was disappointed as anyone by NZ's igmonious exit from the 2007 RWC, but hell, the tenor of the coverage made it utterly unbearable to watch the news or read the newspapers for almost the next week. If sport does act as a microcosm of society, I guess we shouldn't be surprised when it reflects the worst aspects as much as it reflects the best.
Football (or "soccer" as we seem to call it New Zealand and the few other countries around the world where it's not the national sport) has a strangely entangled relationship with literature too- for every hundred turgid ghostwritten biographies of overpaid, overrated and oversexed Premier Footballers, occasionally there's a work that brings it all into context.
One of the most fascinating bios is Garry Nelson's Left Foot Forward: A Year in the Life of a Journeyman Footballer, not least because it actually gets to the heart of what it's probably like for the majority of professional footballers. It's a real "grounds eye" view of proceedings. Meanwhile, the Damned United, about manager Brian Clough's ill-fated 40 day tenure with Leeds, is brutal, vicious, dramatic stuff, albeit partly fictionalised.
And say what you will about Nick Hornby (and I'll most certainly join you), but Fever Pitch did a lot to put the spotlight on the ordinary football fan (or sports obsessive in general) and the sense of self-loathing and self-justification that it comes equipped with in between the fleeting moments of euphoria- and it's worthy too, because it anticipates the formation of the Premier League, and what that ultimately meant. Also, it's interesting how different Arsenal are viewed now, too...
Although I'm not a fan of boxing, it's probably the sport that has inspired the best books, films and literature out of them all. Norman Mailer's The Fight is some kind of New Journalism classic, but it's not even the tip of the iceberg. Unsurprising really. I mean, the whole sport could be seen as a goddamned metaphor.
That excerpt of Tom Wolfe writing about Nascar blows my mind, though I'm not sure why- maybe it's the fact that NASCAR has been exclusively pigeon-holed as a "rednecked" obsession.
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^^
Apologies for the appalling grammar in the above post. -
Actually, he was far from the best bowler in the series. He went for heaps in the last two completed games without taking wickets, and that made a big chunk of the difference. Deciding to bat second in Sydney and then first in Adelaide might not have helped either, although it's easy to say in hindsight.
The boy and I will be at the 20/20 match at the Basin tonight, he said casually.
Vettori was not his consistent self in the series, for sure, but I think that was partly because in those two completed games the Australians decided to deliberately target him, reckoning (rightly), that if he got rattled, then it would bring them that much closer to victory.
As for batting second at Sydney, don't forget that NZ could've easily taken that match- and indeed were making a good fist of it right up until the dying stages. Again, the failure of the top order is what did them. In the Adelaide match, NZ were undone by the fact that they simply didn't make enough runs- the pitch was clearly a 270-280 one, and so they were at least 30 short of that mark. Also, poor fielding and some dodgy umpiring decisions didn't help their cause, either.
I actually thought Mills and O'Brien were the most impressive of the NZ bowlers, actually. Admittedly, O'Brien was expensive at times, but he took wickets, bowled well at the death (when you're on a hiding to nothing), and seems to have picked up an extra yard of pace on the tour. It seems he's starting to settle into the ODI format as well as he had been in the tests.
The batsmen were inconsistent, but Elliott impressed me throughout. If we're at the stage where we accept that Oram is unlikely to be fit for most series (and unfortunately, it appears we are, much like Cairns, it seems Oram's body can't stand the battering he's given it), then he seems a natural fit for the no. 6 spot, and his medium-pacers are a very good option indeed in the middle stages.
Even when Oram returns, I'd be tempted to have him at no. 7 and Oram at no. 6, as that would strengthen our middle order no end. That said, Ross Taylor also batted very well in bursts, too, and Guptil must be furious that (so far) his two best performances with the bat for NZ were ultimately in vain.
It was a frustrating series, for sure, but I think in the end, NZ was undone by bad luck and a couple of bad decisions, and ultimately bad weather. The way Guptil was batting in the final match (and with Southee and Vettori to come), I'd have backed them to win it 9 times out of ten. They didn't even need to go at a run a ball.
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The 2004 remake of Dawn was far superior to his 1978 version, including in acting (which isn't saying very much).
As good a remake as it was, I can't really agree with that- partly because it seemed to broadbrush a lot of the gallows humour and the subtext of the original. It was better in the sense that it was more professionally made (and in terms of the performances, I suppose, but those films are never really about the acting), but as a result, something went missing in the process, it became just a very slickly done action-horror pic.
You might have something in the notion that his ideas are more fully realised than his actual filmmaking- I think there's an element of truth to that, yet the first two Dead films, in particular, get by on their energy, chutzpah, and neatly-deployed thematics.
28 Days Later , on the other hand, really took the conceit to another level, not least because, along with Children of Men, it had the bright idea of imagining London as the "last city", which meant visually it packed a huge punch. And Cillian Murphy's performance, in particular, had a ring of truth to it. Obviously, I prefer the version which has the original bleakly satisfying ending, but even the supposed "happy" conclusion is hardly complete salvation- not least because they're still stuck somewhere far away from most of civilisation.
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Nice... I think I could have gone for a lot longer that four minutes if any prick said anything like that to me. I just hope nobody died from testosterone poisoning on that shoot...
Scarily, that outburst has nothing on the notorious Lily Tomlin vs David O Russel I Heart Huckabees bitchfight (warning: probably best not to play this at full volume):
Two things stick out from those clips- watching them, you'd think David O Russel was psyching himself up for some Peckinpah-esque deliberation on the importance of the "code" rather than the somewhat prissy and self-involved picture that it actually became.
Secondly, watch Dustin Hoffman closely in that second clip- you can so tell the method man is wondering to himself "what the hell is my motivation for working with these people?"
Back onto the subject of zombies (and why the hell not?), Craig, what's your take on the last two Romero pics ( Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead)? They seem like extended footnotes to the original triology, rather than pictures that actually build on the mythology. Credit where it's due though, Land of the Dead was a hugely entertaining watch- and nothing says "inmates taking over the asylum" than casting Dennis Hopper as the CEO. And what kept the film moving is that the base premise was irresistible: as soon as the Zombies invade the island, the quarantined “refuge” becomes a prison.
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Results? The whole purpose is to harvest snippets of illiterate outrage that we can recycle as a substitute for news stories..
Along those lines, someone has actually created a BBC Have Your Say Generator which poses a great threat to the self-appointed ranters and ravers. I mean, if someone can generate this stuff, what are they left to do with their life?
Oh, I should say that the above is a direct quote - the first search result for "Heleban". It happened to fit perfectly, so I saw no need to alter it.
I laughed when I read the quote. Then, after you posted this, I had to check to see if you weren't pulling our leg. It turns out you weren't. I cried.
Great column btw, I'm still getting over the eerie accuracy of it. I laughed far too much.
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Another reason to like Federer: he's got Murray from Flight of the Conchords as his coach
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=mulAi7cno2Y -
Emma wrote:
(Federer is Sampras, surely: Nadal is Agassi.)
Yeah, that comparison holds up, not least because although Sampras still holds the record for the most open victories, he never won the French Open, whereas Agassi is one of the select group of players to win all 4 slams. On the other hand, it doesn't hold up for me, because I preferred watching Agassi to Sampras, whereas I prefer watching Federer to Nadal. That said, I do like Nadal and I'd prefer watching him the terminally boring Sampras, too. Jeez, watching Sampras was like watching a robot. Brilliant player, obviously, but...
Still on tennis matters, does anyone else think the women's draw is quite weak at the moment. Five or so years ago, we had Hingis, Davenport, Clijsters, Henin-Hardin and the Williams sisters all duking it out, these days it seems to all hinge on whether the Williams sisters can be bothered to turn up (literally as well as figuratively). I mean, don't get me wrong, what red-blooded male doesn't enjoy the, erm, 'aesthetic' value of say, Sharapova playing Ivanovich, but the actual quality of the tennis seems a tad tepid compared to a few years back.
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Our top ranked batsman, but only at 23. I don't know how it works, but he must be top 20 surely?
Styris is 26. Man hasn't played in months.
The rankings are strange aren't they, Bond was no. 1 for much of last year despite not playing for NZ at all during that time. I've never figured out how they're done, really.
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I'm loving this tennis and cricket talk!
A couple of things about Nadal. One is that he seems to be able to get inside Federer's head - he is so mentally strong that it becomes intimidating, and Federer makes mistakes at crucial times that one wouldn't imagine coming against Roddick or others.
The other is, as Nadal's mate Verdasco said, is that his ability to retrieve shots is such that means that opposing players feel like they have to win the same point 2 or 3 times against him. I'm guessing that gets a bit tiring after awhile :)
It will only become a 'rivalry for the ages' if the Fed can start winning some of these games - at the moment its becoming a pretty lopsided record. What price Nadal to beat Sampras record?
Yes, that's all very true. A couple of years ago Federer seemed comfortable to lord it over everyone on surfaces other than clay and just accept Nadal's dominance there, now it seems he doesn't even have that. And you're right, Nadal seems to be able to psych Federer out in the same way as Federer does to Roddick.
I wonder what it will take for Federer to claw back against him, because right now, Nadal's got under his skin. Still, it's worth reminding that most of their contests against oneanother go to five setters.
We had a bunch of other stuff to do yesterday, so we had the radio on for the [cricket] commentary, and whenever something interesting happened, we'd run to Sky. The radio commentary doesn't make me homicidal.
Yeah, I listened to the radio commentary last night too- Terry Aldermann is excellent, even-handed and often very funny. Certainly better than the droning sychophants of Nine's team, for sure.