After Grog Blog

QUITE A PAIR

Two very fine quotes about kegs ...

"Having testicles is like being chained to the village idiot; sad, but there it is."

-- Harry Hutton.

And ...

"Balls to Monty?"

-- Guess

Both are brilliant, but I can't decide which is better. Not even sure the second qualifies; what with the question mark, and all. And the first contains a 'like', which would seem to boost it's claims. Can't think why, mind you.

Come to think of it; just what DOES constitute a quote? If anything.

FACE IN THE HOLE

Driving to work I heard a wickedly funny song on JJJ. This song was better than many on the national yoof broadcaster; most cause me to wince in pain. John Butler, for instance, who was on next. And Missy Higgins who was on before. Both almost made me career into oncoming traffic.

Of course, once the stinking hipsters among you recognise the song you will probably bellow "Where have you been, dickhead? That song's been around, like, for-EVAH, duude!" But I'm not so hip, it's the first time I'd heard it and when I did, it made me laugh out loud; Lotion by Greenskeepers.

I'm looking down the hole, you're looking up at me
You're cold and tired, that is easy to see
There are the ropes, the bucket on the line
Your membrane will be soft and smooth,
and your heart will be mine

It rubs the lotion on it's skin
Or else it gets the hose again
It rubs the lotion on it's skin
Or else it gets the hose again
Yes, Precious, it gets the hose again

Doooooooooo Oooo Oooo
Doooooooooo Oooo Oooo

The look inside your eye is driving me from control
Evoking visions of my favourite casserole
And if I eat your heart, I'll also bite your soul
And when I've done with that,
I'll use your skull as a bowl

It rubs the lotion on it's skin
Or else it gets the hose again
It rubs the lotion on it's skin
Or else it gets the hose again
It gets the hose

It puts the lotion in the basket
It puts the lotion in the basket
It puts the lotion in the basket
Yes it does
Put the lotion in the basket
Put the lotion in the basket
Put the lotion in the basket
Put the lotion in the basket
Yes it does

Doooooooooo Oooo Oooo
Doooooooooo Oooo Oooo

The night is very cold, I'm feeling kind of weak
I think I'll make myself a cap from your right buttocks cheek
And then I will go walking with my little dog
And then I'll bury you underneath a log

It rubs the lotion on it's skin
Or else it gets the hose again
It rubs the lotion on it's skin
Or else it gets the hose again
Yes it does, Precious

It puts the lotion in the basket
Bitch, put the lotion in the basket
Ooooh put the lotion in the fucking basket
Bitch, put the lotion in the basket

Now I'm going to take it lower like this

Doooooooooo Oooo Oooo
Doooooooooo Oooo Oooo

If you don't know what it's about, that's your problem. I have no time for ignorant halfwits.

NAUGHTY / LOVE

"Not only is Safin a beautiful tennis player on court, we love him because he is a very naughty boy away from tennis. He loves fast cars and very beautiful women and that is good."

-- Leonid Moiseev, Russian Ambassador to Australia

Is there an Ambassadors transfer market? We'll take Comrade Moiseev, they can have Andrew Peacock.

WHAT'S GOING ON?

Newsy things bore me lately.

I could do the cricket. Michael Slater, for instance. "Now I'm a commentator I can be controversial; Murali doesn't throw." ** Well, whoop-dee-doo, Slogger; best not jeopardize that Asian TV gig. How about the tennis? Afterall, they're banging away about 200 metres down the road. The other day ABC radio, 3AW and the papers were all over Alicia Molik's bogus line-call. Pity Channel Seven weren't; barely mentioned it. Channel Seven news NEVER mentioned it. Just like Channel Nine and the cricket. It'll be a cold day in Madras before they approach a dicey topic. If you don't wish to read harsh language look away now; Official Broadcaster!

How about politics? I used to do heaps but now I'm just not interested. Although I DID hear some insider dish. It seems there's been an election called in WA. No, that's not the hot news, that's been in all the papers. No, my dish relates to the polls.

There's been much speculation as to the result with the polls showing The Liberals in with a big chance. Plenty articles have suggested The Libs will get up. As I've been told, though, both Liberal and Labor polling indicate little vote-shift in the electorates that matter. Barring a major mis-step on the hustings, both sides expect Labor to hang on.

That is all. I'd better go to work now.

** Paraphrased from The Fox Cricket Show.

I DON'T!

As some kind of weird fiesta, Fox Classics showed Everybody Loves Raymond all through Australia Day. There are two things wrong with this, of course. One, it is American. Two, it is f**k!

BAWL OF SOUND

Tears For Fears, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending is their first album since the 1980's. And it shows. It's as if the last fourteen years have never happened. Because, basically, the album could have been lifted out of a 1989 radio studio.

That's not good.

With the exception of the title track, Call Me Mellow and Who Killed Tangerine, which are all excellent songs and manage to elevate the album to credit, the album is full of excedingly well produced pop saccharine. The longer it goes, the sappier it gets.

Mojo

Hot on the heels of Gary Jules' evocative Number 1 version of Mad World comes a new offering from the original Tears For Fears duo, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. Their last album together, 1989's The Seeds Of Love, was filled with overwrought stadium pop that won over mainstream America, but lost them a critical edge. This one has lingering 80's elements, with some pompous lyrics, laborious arrangements and long drawn-out vowel sounds, yet it is also fresher and less strenuous than before. There's none of the electro-dance roots that first made them compelling, alas, but we do have jet-propelled harmonies and warm Memphis-styled horns on tracks like Call Me Mellow and Secret World. Despite a little Beatles Revolver-era pastiche, an intense soulfulness comes through.

AGB Rating - Credit

GIRT USED TO IT!

Allons enfants, Comrade.

Let's denounce the old world!
Let's shake its dust from our feet!
We're enemies to the golden idols,
We detest the Czar's palaces!
We will go among the suffering brethren,
We will go to the hungry people;
Together with them we send our curses to the evil-doers,
We will call them to struggle with us

That's La Marseillaise, don't you know. It was once the Russian National Anthem. Different words, of course. "Curses to the evil doers," surely that's a joke. But The Marseillaise, never the less.

The French national anthem is THE BEST national anthem; bar none. The full-length version is simply amazing; marching-music meets Cowgirl In The Sand. A real slow burner. Both the long and short versions make Advance Australia Fare pale by comparison. In fact, the only anthem to rival it would be The Star Spangled Banner.

Unfortunately though, anthem-wise, we're at a disadvantage down here in Straya. We've never sacked a Czarist palace or, for that matter, stormed a Bastille or shelled a Fort McHenry. So when it comes to picking a rousing anthem, we're somewhat stuck for stirring subject matter.

"Egorger vos fils et vos compagnes!"

"To cut the throats of your sons and squeezes." Now that's the kind of material we need. Huzzar!

In the meantime, though, can we just stop the nonsense about our song. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just a song. It's much better as an anthem than mediocre pop ditties like Sounds of Then (that canefield song) and Great Southern Land. Or a frightful, whiny, hideous dirge like Reckless.

If we haven't found a better anthem by now, it's unlikely there's one out there. Unless some hitherto unrevealed rebel outfit sacks Canberra and executes the government, should AAF still be there in 50 years, no one will give it a second thought.

Or just maaaybe ...

Hey, true blue ... is it me or you ... well we've ....

ENGLISH CHANNELLED

They're from Canada, Montreal to be precise, but right off the bat I'd say The Dears are most heavily influenced by The Smiths and Blur. That's no great insight, though, because any fool can spot it. And in fact, any (and every) fool has. In review after review those two influences are cited.

In short, if you like Britpop, then chances are, you'll like this.

As it turns out, I rather like it, too. I don't love it, or anything. I just like it. There's the odd excellent song, Who Are You, Defenders Of The Universe (that's one song) and The Death Of All The Romance, for instance. But too often, just as it looks as though a song is about to take off, it pulls itself back so as to remain remorselessly "on message". The message being Britpop.

That's not a bad thing of itself, mind you. It's just that on No Cities Left the determination to stick to the script means you are continually left with moments in songs that promise much, but suddenly don't deliver. They seem less than fully fleshed out. "Let down" would be too harsh a phrase, but it would indicate the essence.

In the main, though, I'm not about to bag it because it sounds like something else. Because, let's face it, going down that path means were just about fucked with popular music.

I'll leave that to someone else.

Pitchfork

So that's what you're up against: the peculiar sort of dramatic, flower-throwing, cheekily campy pop record British people were making between the day Morrissey went solo and the day Oasis hit U.S. radio, only without loads of references to London neighborhoods whose symbolism you can't parse-- suave crooning, rainy-day pop strumming, cabaret orchestration, melodic guitar solos, lyrics like "Somewhere someone says they've got it all/ But that's not even what we want/ Not even close." Made by Canadians. In the twenty-first century. Passably well.

If that's the sort of thing you'd like to listen to, you're welcome in my apartment any time. But we will not talk about the Dears. We will listen to Pulp and watch old Smiths videos and throw flowers at one another. Like common people.

AGB Rating - Credit

RANDUMB BREATH TEST

Yesterday on Sydney's M5 motorway, I was pulled over for a random breath-test. Brandishing his tester in front of my face, a cheery copper said "Count to ten, Sir." Thinking he meant I should blow into the breathalizer for ten seconds, I leant forward to blow but couldn't find the nozzle to blow into. Instead I slobbered all over what looked like a mobile phone. "You only need to speak to them," he laughed; pulling out a cloth.

KILLER CAT!

More Indians are killed by Leopards than Tigers **.

One of the spotted cats attacked a girl who had just returned home on a summer evening; it snatched her from outside the front door and dragged her into the darkness. Another leopard pounced on a middle-aged lawyer during his usual early morning meditative stroll. Many of the people killed were residents of slum dwellings without indoor plumbing. The cats struck as their victims squatted outside, heeding nature's call.

Not overly discerning are these marauding Leopards. Although I'm sure the little girl was quite the tender morsel.

** Courtesy of the definitive source; television.

FULL METAL PACKET

I'm sitting here listening to Tago Mago, trying to pick a riff that's winding through Oh Yeah. I just can't put my finger on it and it's driving me nuts. No doubt it will come to me in time, but right now, no bloody go! I best think about something else entirely. Bananas or summer fashions or Shottky diodes, that usually works. When it comes back to me, I'll get back to you.

In the meantime.

Can are the Gott-Fathers of Krautrock. Percolating out of Cologne circa 1968, they are as good an instrumental band ** that ever went round in rock music. Anywhere. Not just in Germany.

** Original singer Malcolm Mooney was a frenetic performer typical of the more out-there front-men of the day. Think no further than Syd Barrett or Roky Erickson. True to that form, Mooney suffered a nervous breakdown in 1970. Rather than replace him with like-for-like, Can pulled in Munich busker Damo Suzuki who provided a whole new "mood" dynamic. This moved the band away from the standard -- Well, as far as that era's freakers were standard -- late sixties alt-rock and allowed Can to develop what is now sometimes derided as Krautrock or Prog-Rock. Instead of what it should be called; super f**kin' brilliant guitar, drums and electronic music. In Can's case, anyway.

They are everything Pink Floyd tried to be between Syd Barrett's Saucer Full Of Secrets and Meddle. Can easily outstripped pedestrian psych-outs such as Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother. Before, that is, Floyd went in a different direction with DSOTM. If you need those initials explained, you've some serious homework to do.

Traffic liked to stretch things out. So when turning Dear Mr Fantasy, Feeling Alright or Shanghai Noodle Factory into full-on rock-out jam sessions, they could have comfortably looked to Can for guidance.

It's also possible Sly Stone and Funkadelic, in their more ambitious moments, would have milked Can for inspiration.

To be fair to those four bands, who were all excellent in their own right, there's no doubt Can looked to them for pointers in return. These things work both ways.

And, of course, as is so often the case, there's The Velvets. Though their influence is more obvious on Monster Movie.

Just re-released by Spoon Records, Tago Mago (along with Monster Movie, Ego Bamyasi and Soundtracks) is a must-have album for anyone interested in what skilled craftsmanship can inject into rock music when in the right hands.

Go and get it.

 Mojo

The electrified primordial ooze of Tago Mago display's Can's psych-free and disciplined sides at their most ritually balanced. It's both oppressive and liberating, and on such into-infinity tracks as Oh Yeah and Halleluhwah, shows just how levitating Jaki Liebezeit's hyper-repetetive drumming could be.

AGB Rating - High Distinction

THE F WARD

Last night I had to make a decision.

Driving home from Clovelly to Potts Point, I was heading north along South Dowling Street. Approaching Oxford Street Artee said, "Go right and take Ward Avenue." Nubie disagreed, "Naaa. Go left and take Darlinghurst Road." As it happens, they're about the same. Darlinghurst Road is shorter, but Ward Avenue has less lights. I was in the left lane so I took Darlinghurst Road.

Bad move.

At Darlinghurst & Burton the lights were red. "Should've taken Ward Avenue," said Artee. At Darlinghurst & Liverpool the lights were red. "Should've taken Ward Avenue," said Artee. Approaching the Cross the traffic was slow, "Should've taken Ward Avenue," said Artee.

Bucking the trend entirely, the Bayswater Road lights were green. Even better, whilst there were about ten cars lined up to go left down Victoria Street, there were none in my lane. The one straight up to McLeay Street.

Then, f**k me dead. Just as I was about to cross Bayswater Road, a taxi pulled out of the Victoria Street line. Right there in front of me. Despite my tramping on the brake, a crash -- I hate "bingle" -- was inevitable. My front-right corner got gnarled; the taxi's front-left fared slightly worse. We both pulled around the corner so the cabby and me could exchange details. It was all rather civil, actually. The formalities done with, I drove off. "F**k," I said belatedly.

"Ward Avenue looks good."

I took Ward Avenue. You can't fight these things, you know.

DARK VICTORIES

Never been much of a Nick Cave fan. Always found him too "calculating". Intentionally cool, if you like. And a rank, if cunning, name dropper who often picks references that are bound to excite the pundits. Greil Marcus's Stagger Lee, for instance. Or Elvis Presley's "His Hand In Mine".

But it must be said; Abattoir Blues / Lyre Of Orpheus is one fine album. Or is that two? I wish people would release albums with one name, not these stupid double affairs. Not sure I see the point.

Anyhoo, I prefer the moodier Lyre Of Orpheus. Well, today anyway. The poppier, more upbeat Abattoir Blues goes very nicely indeed. Especially songs like "Nature Boy" and "Let The Bells Ring".

Uncut

For too long coasting on his reputation and accepting garlands for sub-standard, self-parodying work, Cave roared back to deliver not one, but two albums of fiery genius. The first crashed in with the visceral "Get Ready For Love" and never went off the boil, while the ballad based second was equally clever and caustic.

AGB Rating - http://aftergrogblog.blogs.com/agb/2004/11/album_ratings.html

SHORT, BACK & CYANIDES

"Let's do it!"

-- Gary Gilmore.

Carson City Prison, Nevada, 1924: Chinese tangster Gee Jon became the the first person executed by poisonous gas in the United States. It took place in a converted barber's shop.

I strenuously disagree with the death penalty. With one exception. People who chew food with their mouths open should be beaten to death with plates. Filthy animals!

"I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this."

-- Thomas J. Grasso.

More Death Penalty Quotes.

YOU MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING BEFORE ELECTRICITY

I've always been a bigger fan of Bob Dylan's electric music than his earlier folk material. That's probably for two reasons. One, I was raised on a diet of lush popular arrangements which, over time, morphed into a love of drums, guitar and bass rock & roll. And two, by the time I got around to listening, the revolution as Bob sung it was no longer in the air.

Dylan's earlier accoustic folk never really "spoke" to me. That doesn't mean I think it's tosh, mind you, just that it came around well before I did and spoke to a whole other generation. A generation way more interested in that airy revolution.

Based on Bootleg 6, though, the guy could perform. With just a guitar and a microphone (excluding the Baez assists), Bob had this Philharmonic Hall audience eating out of the palm of his hand.

The added bonus for us "younger" Dylan fans, reared on years of Surly Bob (I've seen him live three times and never heard him speak), is that he's bantering with the audience. Maybe it's just schtick, but he's funny and he's enjoying it.

A terrific chronicle (Ho Ho) of where it all kicked of for one of the most significant figures in popular music.

Pitchfork

Live 1964, recorded on Halloween night at New York's Philharmonic Hall, is Bob Dylan's first all-acoustic live record, and is most noteworthy for its gooey formative circumstances: This is pre-Dylan Dylan, an impeccably recorded portrait of the guitar-toting folk singer, the giggling, sheepish heir to Woody Guthrie's dusty proletariat throne, a Dylan who had yet to wail electric at Newport, convert to Christianity, or write and star in Masked and Anonymous. Charming and curiously personable, Dylan seems deliriously comfortable on stage, engaging an appreciative audience (no hollers of "Judas!"), even enlisting their help with the first verse of "I Don't Believe You", asking, after a bungled opening, "Does anyone know the first verse of this song?" Featuring only longtime-cohort Joan Baez (who appears on four tracks) and his own harmonica and guitar, Live 1964 is a spare, earnest portrayal of neo-Dylan-in-training, a man who, having long mastered one form, is just a few years away from revolutionizing another.

AGB Rating - Distinction

ROAD WERRIWA WARRIOR

"Drive thy business or it will drive thee."

-- Benjamin Franklin

Taking Four-Eye's (Benny Bifocals to a cheeky young Jefferson) advice, I've just driven my business up to Sydney.

Not much to report. Left Melbourne at 5:45am and arrived Chateau Potts at 3:45pm. 898.2 kms door-to-door in ten hours on the dot. The car was silver, the road black, the grass brown. The Tarcutta bacon and eggs were pink and white, respectively. The hash browns were, well, brownish. The Vegemite black and full of mity goodness.

The various animals eating the brown grass were whatever colour. The kangaroos, in the main, dead. The sheep were white, but operating contrary to expectations, were tall and gangly. Come to think of it, they mightn't have been sheep at all. They looked like sheep (kind of), but they might have been some form of "exotic" beasty. Anyone got a handle on short, white, woolly giraffes?

And surprising no one, Latham fell on his pancreas.

Is anyone going to see The Handsome Family on Thursday? Send me a photo so I'll know who to avoid. You Sydney people are filth.

PS: Heard some dishy goss yesterday. A few years back, a once high profile footballer was sacked from his job for cheating on the office footy tipping. Ha!

SPLIT DECISION

This time round, with their lush arrangements and 60's pop sensibilities Lambchop echo Burt Bacharach and Serge Gainsbourg. The music could provide a soundtrack for any Melville film. Perhaps Kurt Wagner sees himself as a modern music version of Alain Delon. Twitching his hat and chaining Gitanes. Or Gauloise.

While that has it's undoubted attractions, though, what with all the tenaciously lo-fi cool, I find myself needing an hit of Gian Maria Volonté. Some of that wild-haired menace that offset Delon in The Red Circle. And, which here, would every now and then crank it up a gear.

Trimming it down to one CD wouldn't go amiss, either. Maybe the production team couldn't make up their minds what to cut.

There is one obvious thing wrong, though. Aw Cmon and No You Cmon are supposedly two albums, yet the two CD cases are sold only in one box-set.

The weirdness doesn't stop there, either. The Aw Cmon CD is labelled No You Cmon and vice-versa; the No You Cmon CD is labelled Aw Cmon.

And just in case you not confused enough already, the Aw Cmon case is backed with the No You Cmon track-list and the No You Cmon case is backed with the Aw Cmon listing.

But wait! There's more! The Aw Cmon wrap contains the No You Cmon track-list. Conversely, and not a little perversely, the No You Cmon wrap contains the Aw Cmon list.

In the end I found myself navigating through the songs by matching the song lengths on the back of the outer box to the timer on my CD player.

Once you know what's going on, I suppose it's no matter. But, still, it's a stupid idea.

Mojo

Many of the songs - in contrast to Is A Woman's beautifully rambling epics - are short, some (in the case of the fine, two-minute Four Pounds In Two Days) feeling cut off in their prime, others a little undeveloped. A few of the instrumentals seem little more than a good riff that's perfectly content with being just that, a backdrop for the band members to showcase their skills (the Mowtowny Being Tyler, or Sunrise, where everyone from strings to steel gets to take a bow). One or two have an incidental music quality, less individual pieces than a slice lifted off a movie soundtrack (in the case of the nice and cheesy Jan 24, '70s porn). [TT: That last, not in my opinion]

The vocal songs are interesting. The Gusher's mix of bossa nova, heavy rock and smoky Parisian murmuring recalls a latter-day Serge Gainsbourg. On Low Ambition, There is Still A Time and Steve McQueen, the lavish string arrangements, late-night melodies and Wagner's deep, muttering, falsetto-free voice bring to mind Tindersticks. There's a garage rock song, a neo-J.J.Cale and a couple of tracks that would have sounded at home on their last CD. All very nice, but Aw Cmon and No You Cmon (the record company insists they're individual, separate albums, though they're as similar to each other in content as in title and are only sold as a pair) still feel less like albums than a celebration of being Lambchop. Something, whan it comes down to it, worth celebrating.

AGB Rating - Credit

ROCK OF PAGES

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

-- Frank Zappa

Deep. Makes me wonder what Frank Lloyd Wright thought about Lord Of The Dance. All those svelte young colleens prancing about in lines and squares. Quite the rake was Wright; I'm tipping he approved. Really though, LOTD is stunningly stupid. Not sure what Zappa would have made of it, either. Probably something lewd, "Do those legs go all the way up THERE, Maureeeeeeeen?" I guess we'll never know, though. Zappa's dead; his prostate swelled up bigger than a tennis ball. But I digress.

Via Boynton and Mick Hartley, comes this interesting post; The Best Music Scribing Awards, 2004.

Jason Gross at Rockcritics has written about where he thinks music writing is headed. What with the internet and blogs and zines and their like. He's also collected a pile of music articles. Some are good, some not so good and some are utter twaddle. Unfortunately, many aren't at the relevant links anymore. I disinterred most of them, though. Just copy the writer's name and the article's title into Google and nearly all of them pop up somewhere on the net.

Gross got stuck into Nick Hornby who had one in the NY Times. Sure, you can accuse him of Fogeyism, but for obvious reasons it made me reflect on the scheme of things. Music and age wise, that is.

Rock Of Ages

It's hard not to think about one's age and how it relates to rock music. I just turned 47, and with each passing year it becomes harder not to wonder whether I should be listening to something that is still thought of as more age appropriate — jazz, folk, classical, opera, funeral marches, the usual suspects. You've heard the arguments a million times: most rock music is made by the young, for the young, about being young, and if you're not young and you still listen to it, then you should be ashamed of yourself. And finally I've worked out my response to all that: I mostly agree with the description, even though it's crude, and makes no effort to address the recent, mainly excellent work of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Mr. Springsteen et al. The conclusion, however, makes no sense to me any more.

Go and have a read of some of the others. Bob Lefsetz of Music Thoughts wrote a couple I particularly liked. One on his Favourite Who Tracks, the other on the criminally under-rated Led Zeppelin II.

By the way, just in case you think Frank Zappa a bit of a crank; would a crank say something this profound?

"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."

I'm sure you'll agree; it's hard to argue with that.

CRACKIN' ON REGARDLESS

This will probably mean even less sense than usual to non-Australian readers, but The Libertines eponymous second album often reminds me of Sydney's Sunnyboys; those quintessential Aussie suburban guitar thumpers. Given Pete Doherty's drug issues and Julian Oxley's state o' mind, you could probably draw some parallels fuck-up-wise, too.

Other choice guitary influences you could chuck in would be The Jam, The Pixies and The Stones.

But after an extremely promising opening rip into Can't Stand Me Now and plenty of great hooks spattered throughout, and for all their undoubted good intentions, The Libertines can't ever seem to make up it's mind exactly what it's supposed to be doing. In fact, it's screaming out for a meaty remix and some judicious culling.

Coke-Machine Glow

Some of these songs are excellent, in an unfinished but inspired way. But many of the album's tracks evidence a band that's bursting at the seams with talent, only to stumble on unfocused, scattershot song-writing. The greatest single flaw with their arrangements, as with Up the Bracket, comes from their rhythm section; in addition to being ill-produced and low in the mix, it's skilled but bereft of drive, of real gumption. It sounds adeptly executed and is often relatively intricate; but given the band's skill, both the bass- and drum-work seem like something The Libertines could pull off in their sleep.

AGB Rating - Credit

SWEEET

"Ooh! What a jaffa!"

-- Trevor Bailey

Happily Fox Twelve have restored the balance.

Tuesday they showed the First Test from the 1989 Ashes. How's this for an England pace "attack"? Derek Pringle, Phil "Strange" Appa-Freitas, Neil Foster and Phil Newport. Zing! It was interesting to listen to the commentators in light of the fact that England actually held the Ashes at the time. Not even a hint of the gloom to come, just mild surprise Australia won so comfortably. There was also a slightly spoken commentator who seemed rather on the ball. Every time he opened his mouth he had something worthwhile to say. Succinct, too. Didn't go on at all. Pity I don't know who it was.

Today they showed the First Test from the 1993 Ashes. Warne's first encounter with the old enemy. Super-hunk Brendan Bernard Julian running around. Plonker McDermott before he twisted his colon, or something. And for England. Chris Lewis, Andy Caddick, Graham Hack, Appa-Freitas, Tuffers, Peter Such. What ever happened to Such? Where's Marty McCague? We know what happened to HIM; he couldn't play. England: a machine.