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Or, you know, “those” North v South matches if you’ve got some weird dialect or other.
Rivalries are rarely more intense than between two groups of people who are all but identical when viewed with any sense of perspective. The rest of the cricket world will look on in amused awe on Friday as the two halves of the UK trade insults about weather and cuisine.
“It rains fractionally more often than on one day in three where you’re from,” says the person from a place where it rains fractionally less than one day in three.
“You can’t even get gravy on your chips where you’re from,” retorts the person from an area where they put gravy on their chips.
All good fun, and then, when the matches are over, we all go and buy a pint of room temperature beer and congratulate ourselves on not being Australian.
Needless to say, the North team has been necessarily compromised by the inclusion of players from a bunch of southern counties to try and even things out a bit. Ben Duckett, for one, will be redirected towards the other changing room should he be tested with the ‘butter bath’ shibboleth.
If you’re poring over the squads, it’s also worth pointing out that Lancashire’s S Mahmood is of course Saqib, not Sajid. The latter doesn’t really play cricket any more, outside of Unibet adverts. He is instead busying himself with his ‘urban streetwear’ brand, Baulla.
When is the West Midlands v East Midlands match?
Also, it’s very confusing that Sam Northeast is in the South team. Tom Westley must be feeling hard done by. Not to mention Marcus North and Tim Southee.
I am welling with southern pride.
Just out of interest, are they to have two possible names for each interval:
* lunch/dinner
* tea/whatever you call the four-o’clock in the afternoon thing in the north, given that you mistakenly call “dinner” “tea”?
The butter bath thing pales into insignificance once you start worrying about meal and thus interval names.
We just have us tea earlier and that resolves the 3.40pm nomenclature issue.
What, you eat a full meal in 20 minutes mid-afternoon up there?
Of course you do. I don’t know why I wasted the keystrokes asking the question.
It’s not a north-south thing Ged, it’s a rich-poor thing. Everybody’s main meal was called dinner, but if you worked in the fields your main meal needed to be in the middle of your working day to replenish lost energy. Contrast that with the landowning classes, who rarely got out of bed before 11 o’clock and who therefore had their main meal in the evening.
I’m very much afraid, therefore, that your language choice marks you out as a member of the oppressor class, those who exploit the workers to maintain a parasitical and essentially feckless lifestyle. The revolution is coming! Workers of the world unite! Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree…
I was going to wade in for another round, marshalling dozens of factoids from the worlds of domestic science, economics and social anthropology to support the veracity and decency of my position.
But in the end, I thought better to leave the last word to thems from the land where the middle of the day meal comprises haloumi and tomato barms/Staffordshire oatcakes.
The world is run by a secret group of people who eat that cheese.
They’re the halouminati
Oooo ooo oo Ged, Ged, can I be in your southern team? I come from the south of India so I count too, right? I am assuming you have basic comforts like a different personal chef for every meal etc. etc. We’ll let plebs like Bert argue which meal is called what and then point and laugh at them while adjusting our monocles. Come on, it’ll be fun.
I think you’re looking for the Chap Olympiad rather than the North v South cricket match, Deep Cower.
Tickets available for a suitable fee, appropriate dress compulsory, as I understand it.
http://www.thechapolympiad.com/
But you might be better off with Bert’s team after all – he seems to be in with the global big cheeses now.
Being a Man of Kent (or possibly a Kentish man – never been sure of the difference) Ben Duckett playing for the north is entirely reasonable to me. He is from NORTHampton after all…
Frankly, it’s disheartening to see so many from north of Sevenoaks in that South side. If, as Northeast suggests, they’ve put a lot of of thought into it how did that happen? What are they playing at?
Actually, Ben Duckett is from Kent.
Hmmm…
…some say Men of Kent are from South East of the River Medway, the rest are Kentish Men…that would make Robert Key a Kentish Man.
…others say that Men of Kent are from the Diocese of Canterbury while Kentish Men are from the Diocese of Rochester…that would make Robert Key a bloke from East Dulwich – i.e. neither.
I’ll ask Mark (or Uncail Marcas as Hippity calls him) – he’s from somewhere in Kent proper and I’m seeing him later today.
http://ianlouisharris.com/2008/07/09/a-day-at-the-races-zyen-at-lingfield-9-july-2008/
Come to think of it, Marcas might be able to help out Deep Cower with his monocle and bizarre cuisine problems too.
Uncail Marcas confirms the River Medway distinction as the only one that “real” Kentish/of Kent folk recognise.
Mark then made some very off-colour comments about north and south of the M20, which would have had Bert frothing at the mouth, so I won’t repeat those comments.