[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Such habitations as I passedthrough weren t really communities at all, but just a couple ofhouses and a gas station, occasionally a pub, and eventually eventhey all but ceased.Between Narrandera, the last outpost of civili-zation, and Balranald, the next, lay two hundred miles of highwaywithout a town or hamlet on it.Every hour or so I would pass alonely roadhouse a gas station with an attached café of the sortknown in the happy vernacular of Australia as a chew and spewand occasionally an earthen track bumping off to a distant, unseensheep station.Otherwise nothing.As if to emphasize the isolation, all the area radio stations be-gan to abandon me.One by one their signals faltered, and all thosesmoky voices so integral to Australian airwaves Vic Damone,Mel Tormé, Frank Sinatra at the mindless height of his doo-bee-doo phase faded away, as if being drawn by some heavy gravityback into the hole from which they had escaped.Eventually the ra-dio dial presented only an uninterrupted cat s hiss of static but forone clear spot near the end of the dial.At first I thought that s all itwas just an empty clear spot but then I realized I could hearthe faint shiftings and stirrings of seated people, and after quite apause, a voice, calm and reflective, said: Pilchard begins his long run in from short stump.He bowlsand.oh, he s out! Yes, he s got him.Longwilley is caught leg-before in middle slops by Grattan.Well, now what do you make ofthat, Neville? That s definitely one for the books, Bruce.I don t thinkI ve seen offside medium-slow fast-pace bowling to match it sinceBaden-Powell took Rangachangabanga for a maiden ovary atBangalore in 1948. I had stumbled into the surreal and rewarding world of cricketon the radio.After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be noother kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with thegame that the introduction of golf carts wouldn t fix in a hurry.Itis not true that the English invented cricket as a way of makingall other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that wasmerely an unintended side effect.I don t wish to denigrate a sport 106 B i l l B r y s o nthat is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing theright way, but it is an odd game.It is the only sport that incorpo-rates meal breaks.It is the only sport that shares its name with aninsect.It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many caloriesas players more if they are moderately restless.It is the only com-petitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in whichyou can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end ofthe day as you were at the beginning.Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each de-livery, collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with itout to center field; and that there, after a minute s pause to collecthimself, he turns and runs full tilt toward the pitcher s mound be-fore hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before himwearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to handle radio-active isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg.Imagine more-over that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartenshim sufficiently to try to waddle forty feet with mattresses strappedto his legs, he is under no formal compunction to run; he may standthere all day, and, as a rule, does.If by some miracle he is coaxedinto making a misstroke that leads to his being put out, all thefielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a hug.Then teais called and everyone retires happily to a distant pavilion to fortifyfor the next siege.Now imagine all this going on for so long that bythe time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your li-brary books are overdue.There you have cricket.But it must be said there is something incomparably soothingabout cricket on the radio.It has much the same virtues as baseballon the radio an unhurried pace, a comforting devotion to ab-struse statistics and thoughtful historical rumination, exhilaratingmicro-moments of real action but stretched across many morehours and with a lushness of terminology and restful elegance ofexpression that even baseball cannot match.Listening to cricket onthe radio is like listening to two men sitting in a rowboat on a large,placid lake on a day when the fish aren t biting; it s like having anap without losing consciousness.It actually helps not to knowquite what s going on.In such a rarefied world of contentment andinactivity, comprehension would become a distraction. So here comes Stovepipe to bowl on this glorious summer safternoon at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, one of the commen-tators was saying now. I wonder if he ll chance an offside drop I n a S u n b u r n e d C o u n t r y 107scone here or go for the quick legover.Stovepipe has an unusualdelivery in that he actually leaves the grounds and starts his runjust outside the Carlton & United Brewery at Kooyong. That s right, Clive.I haven t known anyone start his deliverythat far back since Stopcock caught his sleeve on the reversing mir-ror of a number 11 bus during the third test at Brisbane in 1957 andended up at Goondiwindi four days later owing to some frightfulconfusion over a changed timetable at Toowoomba Junction. After a very long silence while they absorbed this thought, andpossibly stepped out to transact some small errands, they resumedwith a leisurely discussion of the England fielding.Neasden, it ap-peared, was turning in a solid performance at square bowel, whilePacket had been a stalwart in the dribbles, though even these ex-emplary performances paled when set aside the outstanding playof young Hugo Twain-Buttocks at middle nipple.The commenta-tors were in calm agreement that they had not seen anyone caughtbehind with such panache since Tandoori took Rogan Josh for astiffy at Vindaloo in 61.At last Stovepipe, having found his wayover the railway line at Flinders Street the footbridge was evi-dently closed for painting returned to the stadium and bowled toHasty, who deftly turned the ball away for a corner.This was re-peated four times more over the next two hours and then one of thecommentators pronounced: So as we break for second luncheon,and with 11,200 balls remaining, Australia are 962 for two not halfand England are four for a duck and hoping for rain. I may not have all the terminology exactly right, but I believe Ihave caught the flavor of it.The upshot was that Australia was giv-ing England a good thumping, but then Australia pretty generallydoes.In fact, Australia pretty generally beats most people at mostthings.Truly never has there been a more sporting nation.At the1996 Olympics in Atlanta, to take just one random but illustrativeexample, Australia, the fifty-second largest nation in the world,brought home more medals than all but four other countries, allof them much larger (the countries, not the medals) [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl centka.pev.pl
.Such habitations as I passedthrough weren t really communities at all, but just a couple ofhouses and a gas station, occasionally a pub, and eventually eventhey all but ceased.Between Narrandera, the last outpost of civili-zation, and Balranald, the next, lay two hundred miles of highwaywithout a town or hamlet on it.Every hour or so I would pass alonely roadhouse a gas station with an attached café of the sortknown in the happy vernacular of Australia as a chew and spewand occasionally an earthen track bumping off to a distant, unseensheep station.Otherwise nothing.As if to emphasize the isolation, all the area radio stations be-gan to abandon me.One by one their signals faltered, and all thosesmoky voices so integral to Australian airwaves Vic Damone,Mel Tormé, Frank Sinatra at the mindless height of his doo-bee-doo phase faded away, as if being drawn by some heavy gravityback into the hole from which they had escaped.Eventually the ra-dio dial presented only an uninterrupted cat s hiss of static but forone clear spot near the end of the dial.At first I thought that s all itwas just an empty clear spot but then I realized I could hearthe faint shiftings and stirrings of seated people, and after quite apause, a voice, calm and reflective, said: Pilchard begins his long run in from short stump.He bowlsand.oh, he s out! Yes, he s got him.Longwilley is caught leg-before in middle slops by Grattan.Well, now what do you make ofthat, Neville? That s definitely one for the books, Bruce.I don t thinkI ve seen offside medium-slow fast-pace bowling to match it sinceBaden-Powell took Rangachangabanga for a maiden ovary atBangalore in 1948. I had stumbled into the surreal and rewarding world of cricketon the radio.After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be noother kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with thegame that the introduction of golf carts wouldn t fix in a hurry.Itis not true that the English invented cricket as a way of makingall other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that wasmerely an unintended side effect.I don t wish to denigrate a sport 106 B i l l B r y s o nthat is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing theright way, but it is an odd game.It is the only sport that incorpo-rates meal breaks.It is the only sport that shares its name with aninsect.It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many caloriesas players more if they are moderately restless.It is the only com-petitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in whichyou can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end ofthe day as you were at the beginning.Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each de-livery, collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with itout to center field; and that there, after a minute s pause to collecthimself, he turns and runs full tilt toward the pitcher s mound be-fore hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before himwearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to handle radio-active isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg.Imagine more-over that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartenshim sufficiently to try to waddle forty feet with mattresses strappedto his legs, he is under no formal compunction to run; he may standthere all day, and, as a rule, does.If by some miracle he is coaxedinto making a misstroke that leads to his being put out, all thefielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a hug.Then teais called and everyone retires happily to a distant pavilion to fortifyfor the next siege.Now imagine all this going on for so long that bythe time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your li-brary books are overdue.There you have cricket.But it must be said there is something incomparably soothingabout cricket on the radio.It has much the same virtues as baseballon the radio an unhurried pace, a comforting devotion to ab-struse statistics and thoughtful historical rumination, exhilaratingmicro-moments of real action but stretched across many morehours and with a lushness of terminology and restful elegance ofexpression that even baseball cannot match.Listening to cricket onthe radio is like listening to two men sitting in a rowboat on a large,placid lake on a day when the fish aren t biting; it s like having anap without losing consciousness.It actually helps not to knowquite what s going on.In such a rarefied world of contentment andinactivity, comprehension would become a distraction. So here comes Stovepipe to bowl on this glorious summer safternoon at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, one of the commen-tators was saying now. I wonder if he ll chance an offside drop I n a S u n b u r n e d C o u n t r y 107scone here or go for the quick legover.Stovepipe has an unusualdelivery in that he actually leaves the grounds and starts his runjust outside the Carlton & United Brewery at Kooyong. That s right, Clive.I haven t known anyone start his deliverythat far back since Stopcock caught his sleeve on the reversing mir-ror of a number 11 bus during the third test at Brisbane in 1957 andended up at Goondiwindi four days later owing to some frightfulconfusion over a changed timetable at Toowoomba Junction. After a very long silence while they absorbed this thought, andpossibly stepped out to transact some small errands, they resumedwith a leisurely discussion of the England fielding.Neasden, it ap-peared, was turning in a solid performance at square bowel, whilePacket had been a stalwart in the dribbles, though even these ex-emplary performances paled when set aside the outstanding playof young Hugo Twain-Buttocks at middle nipple.The commenta-tors were in calm agreement that they had not seen anyone caughtbehind with such panache since Tandoori took Rogan Josh for astiffy at Vindaloo in 61.At last Stovepipe, having found his wayover the railway line at Flinders Street the footbridge was evi-dently closed for painting returned to the stadium and bowled toHasty, who deftly turned the ball away for a corner.This was re-peated four times more over the next two hours and then one of thecommentators pronounced: So as we break for second luncheon,and with 11,200 balls remaining, Australia are 962 for two not halfand England are four for a duck and hoping for rain. I may not have all the terminology exactly right, but I believe Ihave caught the flavor of it.The upshot was that Australia was giv-ing England a good thumping, but then Australia pretty generallydoes.In fact, Australia pretty generally beats most people at mostthings.Truly never has there been a more sporting nation.At the1996 Olympics in Atlanta, to take just one random but illustrativeexample, Australia, the fifty-second largest nation in the world,brought home more medals than all but four other countries, allof them much larger (the countries, not the medals) [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]