The Decisive Moment*

The Squire and his factotum, the ever-obliging Third Man, made their way to Bath this weekend.  The Squire was keen to lend his name and good lordship, to a campaign against Bath and North East Somerset Council’s intention to charge admission to the Victoria Art Gallery.

“We must do what we can, TM.”

Their signatures added to the petition, the travellers took advantage of free entrance into the first museum show for 22 years of one of the UK’s major photographers, Roger Mayne.

The image above, was taken in Addison Place, North Kensington, London, W11, 1956.

“Do you think Mayne appreciated the serendipity of capturing a sweep shot against the background of the sweep shop?” mused the Squire.

The photographer introduces his web site with a quote he gave to Peace News in 1960, ‘Photography involves two main distortions – the simplification into black and white and the seizing of an instant in time. It is this particular mixture of reality and unreality, and the photographer’s power to select, that makes it possible for photography to be an art. Whether it is good art depends on the power and truth of the artist’s statement.’

A post card of a very particular young man; neat of sock, precise of grip, full of concentration, brought to mind ‘Hope of His Side’.

The reverse of the card identifies it as ‘Boy with a Bat, Wapping. 1959’, but the website suggests it was taken in Addison Place, again, in 1957.

And here is a very modern shot in both senses. It is taken in Clarendon Crescent W2, just before its demolition in a slum clearance scheme. A year or two earlier it had featured as a setting for a car chase in The Blue Lamp.

And finally, an image that begins to do justice to the mastery of the exposure of the prints on show; fielders awaiting a sky-er.

“Bet they had to retrieve that one from a roof top, TM”

Look down you Jilted Generation on these baby-boomers.

* H.T. Cartier-Bresson who in his book Images à la sauvette quoted the agitator Cardinal Retz, “There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment”.

A catalogue with an essay by Ann Jellicoe is available with the exhibition (£6.50 plus p&p) and there are ‘vintage’ prints for sale.

Compare the Drives No. 11 – Jonny Be Best

Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Jonny B. Best

Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell

Go go
Go Jonny go
Go
Go Jonny go
Go
Go Jonny go
Go
Go Jonny go
Go
Jonny B. Best

It is nearly a year and a half since the last Compare the Drives looked at A.A. (Archie) Jackson and  Usman Khawaja.

Yesteday the West Indies’ Number 11 scored a record breaking 95 and Jonny Bairstow sadly unable to break free from the fate identified here and associated with a certain kind of modern batting was bowled for 18.

Recalling to mind the ol’ Chuck Berry classic.

He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track
Oh, the engineerswould see him sitting in the shade
Strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made
People passing by they would stop and say
Oh my that little country boy could play

Go go
Go Jonny go
Go
Go Jonny go
Go
Go Jonny go
Go
Go Jonny go
Go
Jonny B. Best
His mother told him “Someday you will be a man,
And you will be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Saying Jonny B. Best tonight.”

Go go
Go Jonny go
Go go go Jonny go
Go go go Jonny go
Go go go Jonny go
Go
Jonny B. Best

In and Out of the Pool – An England Selection Test

Out: the England selectors have sent James Anderson poolside for some R and R.  Appropriate given his resemblance to Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool.  

In: Jonny Bairstow, the low handed slapper, who the West Indies caught wearing one at Lord’s and several at Trent Bridge.

His is a technique suited to reversing and quick scoring on low and slow surfaces, but looks shockingly suspect in Test cricket. 

Note the perfect example of the low handed slap with tell-tale horizontal elbows, below, and the direction in which the ball has been hit.

And from a different angle, same shot but another match:

There was much moaning that in county cricket Bairstow would not have been exposed to the pace and hostility of a Roach.   But the following image might have been of his first ball at Trent Bridge … but it isn’t. 

It is difficult to get hands above the ball with his technical approach and modifying something so ingrained could take more than the ten days between the Second and Third Tests.

Make My Day, Punk! – Pietersen Negotiates T20 Deal with ECB

Kevin Pietersen is a great batsman and a lousy negotiator. 

His technique is ‘take me or leave me’, as he showed when settling terms with his masters over the future of coach Peter Moores.

This time, it was during the recent Lord’s Test against the West Indies that the switch hitter opened and closed discussions with the Board over their decision to ensure that the central contract linked selection for T20 with availability for those lucrative ODIs. 

Third Man was at the back of the Pavilion, waiting for the Squire to come out for a turn round the ground, when he heard raised voices from the Tennis Court dressing rooms.

“Make my day punk!” said a South African voice.

“Au contraire, my dear fellow, make ours,” countered a man from NW4.

Later the following statement was released by the ECB:

“Pietersen, who discussed his position with the ECB during the recent Investec Test at Lord’s, accepts that his current contract will continue to run through to September 2012 but that the contract will be downgraded to reflect the fact that he will only be selected for Test cricket for the remainder of his current contract.

“The terms of the central contract state that any player making himself unavailable for either of the one-day formats automatically rules himself out of consideration for both formats of the game as planning for both formats is closely linked.

“This is designed to reflect the importance of one-day international cricket which is a strategic priority asEnglandlook for improved performances in the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy and the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.”

He didn’t have to, but, for the record, Pietersen has said in 130 characters, “For the record, were the selection criteria not in place, I would have readily played forEnglandin the upcoming World Twenty 20.”

Two More from Kinsella

A couple of posts back, Third Man was able to express his glee at finding the long lost image of what he was to learn was ‘The Hope of His Side’, a painting by E.P. Kinsella depicting a young scamp enjoying cricket. 

Here are two more.  Above, the splendid ‘The Catch of the Season’ and below ‘Good Enough for His County’.

They were issued as postcards as well as small prints and must have found their way onto the doormats of many a young hopeful, just as King Edward VII took guard.

India Pale Ale – Commentary from an Empire Chaise

Congratulations to Test Match Sofa on being picked up by one of the big outlets.  Third Man has always valued irreverence and he hopes that they gain the wider audience that their cosy cheek merits.  If only he too were 29 and lived in Crouch End.

Congratulations also to Sportskeeda whose hits, according to the sports entrepreneur Porush Jain, exceeded 50,000 a day for the first time yesterday. Feel that width.

The other afternoon, while taking his ease in the Empire Room and casting a weary eye and a pulverized ear over an IPL encounter, the Squire wondered whether there was a niche market for a lower key commentary covering the tournament.

“A kind of IPL Ordinary, Third Man.”

He quickly summoned the village smith to put together the technology by which a rota of staff at the Great House could provide a languid and, frankly, muted alternative to the so-called commentary of those roustabouts making a crore bigging up IPL Entertainments Inc..

The Squire considered that he could make a quite decent Head Summariser, in the manner of a youthful David Gascoyne.

“It would be as laid back as this couch, TM.  Hardly a murmur. A sedative for the soul. We would utilize the Benaud Principle – silence is all that is necessary.”

“Your Grace, perhaps the mill could grind a lens to cover the screen and tone down some of the colouring”

“A serious option TM:  IPL Light.”

Chris Dillow, that radical left arm around the wicket bowler whose front-on and off-the -wrong-foot action delivers very late away swing – a sort of Proctor Through the  Looking Glass – has an interesting piece on the Media vs Bloggers.

Chris, a seasoned blogger, ‘can remember when mainstream journalists looked down upon bloggers as ‘socially inadequate’ angry ranters who were no replacement for serious journalism. But I’m starting to think that the opposite is increasingly the case. It is mainstream journalism that comprises linkbait (Samantha Brick), trolls (“Rod” Liddle, A.A Gill, The Mail’s nastiness towards female celebs) and shallow self-absorbed diarists, whilst many bloggers are serious, intellectual and high-minded.’

For those who enjoy reading good writing about cricket there is wondrous enjoyment to be had at Different Shades of Green,  or by calling in on Backwatersman  or seeing cricket with the excited, born again perspective of  Pencil Cricket  to name but three that echo the quality of Dillow’s examples.

Chris argues that ‘there’s the tendency for people to specialize in what they are best at. Mainstream journalists have an advantage over bloggers in some things – such as celebrity and Westminster gossip – but a disadvantage in other respects; such as their excessive deference and ignorance of statistics.’

Not something for which you could ever criticize Idle Summers .  

‘This,’ writes Chris, ‘creates a space for intelligent blogging.’ [And the quirky, don't forget the quirky - TM]

In cricket the mainstream journalist can too easily be dependent upon sources to speak truth unto power. Or to have been picked for their celebrity rather than their prose or perspective.

The mainstream are forced to chase eyeballs with brashness.  From this tyranny the blogger is free.

And the Dillow conclusion?

‘I suspect blogs are a little like the BBC. There’s a lot of rubbish, but the structure of incentives is such as to facilitate a minority of great work to a greater extent than is the case for the capitalist sector.’

“Third Man, find out if Dillow is free for the Whitsun Bank holiday fixture against Quill and Pen C.C.”

“Now are we on air? Good.  ‘Coming in from the Venkatashwera End, arms pumping like the 8.25 out of Thurminster Newton …’”

It is a red letter day, with a brand new extra large 90p first class stamp stuck on the top right hand corner

First, THERE’RE BACK. 

The first House Martin showed up this afternoon, bang on schedule after a 6,000 mile flight,  to take possession of their part of the cottage Third Man shares with these loyal friends.

A quick look at the remnants of last year’s nest and off down to the river for some fresh mud.

The cricket season can now begin in earnest.

Secondly, back-a-long, Third Man mislaid his mother’s favourite cricketing picture; a young scamp in an oversized hat with a bat too large for him taking guard with just a hint of trepidation as he eyes silly mid on waiting to pounce.

TM has looked high and low for any reference to this picture. 

No Bubbles advertisement this. 

What was it?

And failing that, where could a replacement be found?

And there it was, lurking on some site devoted to UNcool Britannia along with a crude etching of Francis Hayman’s Cricket at Mary le Bone Fields.

Hurrah!

Thirdly, it would seem that the artist, E.P Kinsella, produced a series of six in total, all circa 1902, and sold them as postcards.

So, here’s another, particularly well suited to Third Man. 

The apprehension on the poor fellow’s face , though craftily concealed from the bowler, was obviously well founded.

The shock of it!

And soon the sense of humiliation.

What are the odds on TM now finding the original, illusive portrait under a pile of the Squire’s blueprints and technical drawings?