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Another rock star of British media

Nobody has dared attempt to explain cricket to me — they make novelty tea towels about explaining cricket to Americans and I’m an extra special sports-impervious case — but I gather England has just done really well against India. Um, yay?

As I understand it, cricket is a game that involves this man, Henry Blofeld, nattering on the radio for days on end about…pretty much everything except the sports contest in front of him. As Wikipedia put it:

Blofeld’s cricket commentary is celebrated for his plummy voice and his idiosyncratic mention of superfluous details, including cranes, numbers of pink shirts in the crowd; pigeons, buses, aeroplanes and helicopters that happen to be passing by. He is also known to talk about the food on offer, in particular cakes, for extended periods of time after the tea and lunch breaks with occasional interruptions of the situation on the field. He also uses the phrase “my dear old thing”, or variants thereof, to address fellow commentators and guests.

By the way, Uncle B heard that Blofeld’s brother, a high court judge, pissed off Ian Fleming and thus gave a name to supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Wikipedia says it was either Henry’s father, who went to school with Fleming, or another Blofeld altogether, depending on which page you consult.

Whatevs.

Here’s a YouTube that will give you a sense of the accent and the dialogue.

Also, the same exact thing happened to my father, only he ended up behind a potted palm in the lobby.

Comments


Comment from Mono The Elderish
Time: August 16, 2011, 9:40 pm

Oh wow. ’tis funneh, Almost fell out of my chair laughing. He does ramble a bit though doesn’t he?


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: August 16, 2011, 11:41 pm

One of UB’s heroes.

OK… I realise that will come as no great surprise.


Comment from MIke C.
Time: August 17, 2011, 7:24 am

I was on a forced cricket diet in T&T during the World Whatever back in 2007. If the cricket event and my contract had lasted another year or two, I might have caught on to what was supposedly occuring on the field or pitch or whatever.

At least it wasn’t soccer…


Comment from Pupster
Time: August 17, 2011, 12:18 pm

he ended up behind a potted palm in the lobby.

Uhm…wut?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: August 17, 2011, 1:21 pm

He tells a story in the YouTube. Something similar happened to my dad in a hotel in Kentucky.


Comment from Pupster
Time: August 17, 2011, 6:27 pm

Oh. I thought you meant he was a James Bond villain.


Comment from Bondage. James Bondage
Time: August 17, 2011, 9:21 pm

When i was on a secret mission in America, the souvenir shop at the Ritz had a towel explaining the principles of constitutional republic to Brits.

Bloody impudent Yanks. After all we’ve done for them they have the temerity.


Comment from Tottenham Youths
Time: August 17, 2011, 9:39 pm

We are the real stars of English TV.
The old chap? We shall see how much quids be in his trouserz.


Comment from Deborah
Time: August 17, 2011, 9:40 pm

Re: Cricket—-(Stop me if you’ve heard this before.) 😉

In one of Tom Clancy’s books, he writes a scene where a Englishman walks into a hospital room in London, to find the patient (an American) watching cricket on TV. The man says, “Do you understand the rules?” and the agitated patient shouts back at him, “Rules! Why spoil it with Rules?”


Comment from Hermann Goering, Reichsmarschall der Luftwaffe
Time: August 17, 2011, 9:43 pm

I am not so sure das England is vorth bombing with theze veirdoez.
I vork on something big, it will really light up das Ostfront.

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