The thought proccesses of an amateur Batsman (or, How not to bat)

Right, what's this? I'm in, OK. Pads, check, gloves, check, bat, check. Pick up and put on helmet. Right, off we go, to the crease. What's this? My partner might not be up for taking quick singles, OK, I'll let him call when he wants to run. OK, here we are at the crease, I'll take my guard at middle please, Umpire. Thank you. Mark middle stump... Oh, there's a line there, I'll use that. Right, get into the stance. OK, play a nice defensive innings, just bat out the game for 8 overs, you'll be fine. [this next bit is accelerated].
Ok, there's the bowler, here he comes. He's running up, he bowls... right, it's wide of my off-stump, [Before I go on, here's what should happen next: Right, it's the first ball, I don't want to take the risk of being out, it's not going to hit my stumps, I'l leave it alone].
I'll hit it. Might as well try and get some runs. Front foot forward and across, bring the bat down and through... right, connected. Oh dear, it's in the air. And heading for that fielder, he might catch it. Oh, that's OK, I've seen him field, he's got no co-ordination, he'll never do it...
F**K
Right, helmet off, back to the pavillion.

High Drama at Trent Bridge

Picking up from where my last post left off, here's how it happened:
Gilchrist went to a magnificent flying catch from Strauss,
Shane Warne was caught out for 0 and the final 3 wickets came quickly, leaving Australia all out for 218. England then decided to enforce the follow-on, so Australia had to bat again. This innings did not go quite as well, with wickets being few and far between, one notable one was Australia's captain Ponting being run out by the substitute fielder, Gary Pratt, Ponting was not pleased. England finally bowled Australia out for 387, leaving England chasing 129 to win.
This should have been easy, but with careless shots from a few England batsmen (naming no names), and some clever fielding form the Aussies, England lost wickets quickly. Flintoff, after making 26 was unfortunately bowled.
Hoggard and Giles came to the crease with England at 116 for 7. THey both played a sensible innings to take England to 2 to win. Ashley Giles, facing a ball from Warne, swept down the leg side and ran the final two, causing a small riot on the balcony where the rest of the England team were standing. We now go to the Oval needing only a draw to win the Ashes.
It's Lions 2, Convicts 1.

Could this be the year?

Could this be the year that Australia's dominance of World Cricket finally starts to crumble? I think it might be.

The story so far:

Ashes 2005, England vs. Australia in a five test series.

Lord's:
A poor start to the series with Australia defeating England comfortably, putting hte series on 1-0 to Australia. It looked as if it was going to be a long series.

Edgbaston:
"The Greatest Test". With Australia needing 3 runs to win and England only needing one wicket, Steve Harmison bowled the crucial ball which caught Michael Kasprowicz on the gloves. The ball carried and the England Wicket Keeper Geraint Jones dived forward to take the winning catch. England win by 2 runs, and the series moved to 1-1.

Old Trafford:
Rain robbed England of a victory. Needing just one wicket at the end of the fifth and final day of the Test, England just oculdn't seem to get either Lee or McGrath out. Australia hung on for a draw, keeping the series at 1-1.

Trent Bridge:
We're only 2 days in, but it looks as if England could walk away victorious once agian. England racked up a first innings total of 477 all out with Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff making 102, assissted by Geraint Jones, Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughn. Shaun Tait, replacing the injured Glenn McGrath, made a stunning debut, taking 3 wickets. Australia's innings started immediately after tea. They proceeded to lose 5 wickets, with Matthew Hoggard leading the England bowling assault. Australia stand on 99 for 5, with Katich still in and Gilchrist about to step up to the crease. It looks set for another thrilling test match.

A note to the Australians: Bow down before the awesome power that is Andrew Flintoff and the England side you convicts, you.

In the words of Channel 4's resurrected W.G. Grace: Bring it on!

Guantanamo Bay

What happens when you break the law? You're arrested, tried, and punished. Yes?
Well, no. You see, America is breaking the law. It has been for some time now, but they're not being punished for it. I'm talking about Guantanamo Bay, a camp where we have reports of prisoners being tortured. THe Geneva Convention, which America has signed, expressly forbids the torture of Prisoners of War. That's what these people are, PoWs. So America is breaking the law by torturing them.
Of course they can't be PoWs, because if they were, why would America be trying to have them tried by a Military Tribunal? So they must be criminals. If so they should have been charged, and they still shouldn't be being tortured, it says so under American law.
Well, the Americans are trying to get round this by saying that they are "Enemy Combatants" and therefore afforded no rights by the Geneva Convention, or American Law. Yes, "Enemy Combatants". This is a phrase invented by the Bush Administration to try and get round the legal points that have been raised (see, they know that they're breaking the law). However, aren't Enemy Combatants that have been captured PoWs?

The Casualties of the Price War

It has recently come to my attention that people in South Africa are going bankrupt. This is because of the price wars that are waged in British supermarkets.
To understand this, you need to see that the goal of the supermarkets is to make a profit. They do this by minimising their losses (such as the price they pay to the farmers in South Africa). However, with the price wars making the supermarkets drive their prices down, and offers of "buy one get one free" means that the supermarkets take less money than they would if they didn't do these things. However, in a Capitalist society, they must, because they wouldn't make money otherwise.
This leads to the supermarkets paying the farmers less, which means the farmers make less money and go bankrupt, forcing them and all their labourers out of work.

Isn't Capitalism wonderful?

Hiroshima

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only times that a nuclear bomb has been used in war. And we are still in possession of them. I would have thought that these two atrocities alone would be enough to make us disarm. If not, then surely the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been. But no, evidently not.
One of the interesting things about these two atrocities is that they were used against civilian targets, after America had just called the Blitz "inhuman barbarism". Then what was Hiroshima? What was Nagasaki?
What makes them even worse was that the Japanese were looking for peace. Was an unconditional surrender, as opposed to the conditional one that the Japanese undoubtedly wanted, worth the murder of all those innocent civillians?
Antoher strange thing is that the commander of the Enola Gay (the aircraft that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) expressed remorse. Oppenheimer, the man that invented the bomb, should remorse also. The pilot of the Enola Gay didn't. Hmmm, I wonder why?