International Cricket in a Fix

This week the cricketing world is rocked by a latest scandal uncovered by the News of the World alleging match-fixing by four Pakistan cricketers. This proves again that the international cricket authorities still have a mountain to climb in terms of eradicating the scourge of betting-related cheating from the modern professional game.

Sky News

Former South Africa captain Hansie Cronje's public breakdown before the King Commission in 2000 tore open festering wounds, revealing a very dark side to professional cricket. Uncomfortable viewing, one could not help lament Cronje's fall from national icon to international villain, but it was evident that he was the man unintentionally taking on the face of a pernicious side to the game. The lure of easy money was too much to resist for players even at the pinnacle of their careers, and who, by rights, should have wanted for nothing other than integrity in the sights of their peers and the public.

Cronje's case was by no means the first to bring match-fixing in cricket into the public eye. As far back as 1991 allegations of betting syndicates offering professional cricketers bribes first came to light. Through the nineties, several more cases of cash for 'throwing matches' or providing sensitive information implicated several players and test-playing countries. Ultimately the trial of Cronje brought the reality of this practice into the public eye, tarnishing the image of the professional game forever.

Glory Days (Photo: The Tribune- India)

The sting set-up in August 2010 by the UK tabloid News of the World, has again brought the entire professional game into question. These allegations do not only relate to what is happening on the field of play now, but any number of preceding matches involving Pakistan, and quite possibly other test-playing nations too. This is a proverbial quagmire of worms considering the number of matches and players that could potentially be involved.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting instantly voiced concern over the recent historic victory over Pakistan in Sydney. Ponting's concerns rightly not only relate to the outcome of the match (which Australia won by record margins), but the negative slant it puts onto the individual performances of his team. This in-effect applies to any recent competitive matches involving the alleged perpetrators, and even the Pakistan team as a whole. If guilty, these men have not only cheated the sport, their country and the public, but also the overwhelming majority of upstanding competitive athletes that call the game of cricket their profession.

The high-profile bans of Hansie Cronje, Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja in 2001 rocked the cricketing world casting an uncomfortable shadow over 'the gentleman's game.' The suspicion did not end here, with Australia's Mark Waugh and Shane Warne, England's captain Alec Stewart and former New Zealand skipper Martin Crowe all having to face some uncomfortable questions from the authorities at some point. The News of the World sting shows that the cricketing and legal authorities have not made things uncomfortable enough. Match-fixing, even on a 'small' scale, as in this case, is still livelier than a wet Newlands pitch.

The tragic deaths of Hansie Cronje (2002) and Bob Woolmer (2007) resurrected a multitude of conspiracy theories relating to match-fixing and betting syndicates based in and around the Indian sub-continent. Theories mostly revolved around ideas that both Cronje and Woolmer were allegedly murdered by such syndicates. The point is, this industry has a seedy underbelly, much of it operating informally and beyond any type of surveillance or control. Turning over millions of dollars each year, even the sceptics will agree that simple economics adds weight to the potential ruthlessness, persuasiveness and reach of these syndicates. It is unlikely that murder is the case in this instance, but money is seductive in any language and immune to moral and personal stature.

In the same vein (pun intentional), cycling is also a sport currently embroiled in allegations of wholesale cheating and medical doping, and similarly appears to be rotten to the core. The banning of now disgraced Tour de France 'winner' Floyd Landis has resulted in a major federal investigation throughout the sport. Allegations even point to multiple Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, himself a self-styled crusader against doping. This investigation has seen a number of high-profile competitor and management bans within the sport, long-time sponsors withdrawing their support, and entire teams dissolved for knowingly encouraging the dark arts of professional doping.

Despite all of this, there is currently an acrid cloud of suspicion over virtually every professional rider and cycling event, which many rightly believe makes an absolute farce of the sport as a profession and a spectator sport. This will inevitably be the case for years to come. Hopefully a few more busts on the scale of Landis, and more finger pointing will eventually bring all the cheats into the light. In the short-term, it is inevitable that the sport and its fans will suffer, but if this eradicates institutionalised cheating, then amen to that. Honest and true competition will recover any sport to its deserving glories.

Time to come clean...

The same tree-shaking happening in cycling is now required for international cricket. Right now the International Cricket Council has to act with an iron-fist, temporarily forego the image of the game, and stop pandering to the needs of sponsors, as has lately been their priority and proved by the 2007 World Cup débâcle.

Given the fanatical support of the game on the sub-continent, and the manner in which the betting syndicates operate, the lure of match-fixing is unlikely to be brought under control in this arena, just by scale and sheer lack of resources. The responsibility for terminating the practice therefore falls squarely at the feet of professional cricketers, the administrators and the respective national cricketing bodies.

Ivory Towers - ICC Headquarters, Dubai

Legal prosecution, life-bans, and any other means available must be used to eradicate the affliction of match-fixing from the game. Every individual found or suspected of influencing a cricket match in any small manner, irrespective of their stature in the game, has to be taken to task in the public eye. As true lovers of the game the ICC owes us complete transparency.

Ultimately it is the mandate of the ICC to restore cricket to its rightful place as one of the most respected sports and great international institutions.

Having trouble getting that promotion or a date for Saturday night? Change your shampoo

(One from the archives. Published 2006, Citizen Reporter, South Africa)

A cynic's view of advertising

The ever-further reaching tentacles of modern advertising are present in virtually every facet of our daily lives. Constant bombardment of our senses via digital and print media, broadcasting, music and film has constant retail-driven bulletins changing the way that we view the world and ourselves.

An advertisement recently appearing on British television could easily double as a trailer for a typical Sunday afternoon movie exploring the joys of familial values and love.

The Labrador puppies, playful laughter and overly affectionate blonde-haired family frolicking in the soft light of an autumn morning were all too perfect. It was selling fabric softener.

Andy Warhol Still Life Polaroids

Appease Our Desires

Advertising is about image. Advertisers solicit our emotions offering their wares as a means to appease our many desires. Happiness, fashion, acceptance and status are all used to sell everything from motor insurance to cat food and washing powder.

We are misled into believing that the gentle touch of soap and softeners can change our lives by washing away our daily blues. Our kids will love us, our mothers and wives will be more appreciated and men will mend their errant ways and transform into doting dads and devoted husbands.

Dirty laundry can no longer destroy the family unit with every home now having a therapist in the shape of a washing machine.

Instantly Conditioned

Having trouble getting that promotion or a date for Saturday night? Change your shampoo. Once that troublesome hair is gone your life will be instantly conditioned.

Your dress-sense will improve, the once-bespectacled supermodel in accounts will suddenly take notice, the boss will love your work and on careful inspection the bathroom will also be renovated along with your life.

Repetition

Advertisers love slogans. Little catch phrases are quickly adopted into our language and even become ingrained in our culture. These ever-visible tags instantly brand us like a herd of sheep, so part of human nature and invaluable to the corporate world.

'The Real Thing' Cross
David Poston, England 2004

"Coke adds life." Coca-Cola has brought the world some of the most repeated slogans. "Make the little people think they have no life without Coke" was no doubt the reasoning.

After all, "the real thing" is the elixir for life offering a perfect escape from the stark reality of the daily grind. With all that sugar and caffeine we will obviously feel better for a few minutes. It also rots your teeth and makes you fat. That is the reality a mere fizzy drink will add to life!

Get that pair of Nike shoes and you too can look exactly like seven-hundred-and-fifty-million other absolute individuals out there. "Just do it!"

Nike vs Warhol

Make a stand for conformity along with Reebok and Adidas. After all, it is the uniform of the modern teenager who is still insistent that he is so misunderstood because all he wants is his own identity.

Mobile Billboards

We brand ourselves like cattle. Who are Dolce, Gabbana and Hugo Boss? They have become so important that millions are prepared to sacrifice their own identities and act as nothing more than mobile billboards for products in which they have no stake other than emotion. You get to pay for that privilege too.

Popular music cannot escape the grip of the corporate sales pitch. The biggest stars trade their talent for a few dollars and to have their surgically enhanced faces splashed across billboards touting worthy causes such as nutritionally-deficient imitation-flavoured soft drinks and sports-shoes that give a ten-year-old Cambodian a job in a sweatshop.

Going cheap...

Detergents and soapsuds are instantly fashionable with their advertorials raiding the charts for number one hits as their soundtrack. So irony seals the fate of the truly washed-up rock star.

Baywatch Barbie

The lowliest of commodities are not immune to commercial exploitation. By the power of advertising the usually discreet tampon has the means to transform Miss Dead Dull into a bronzed athletic Baywatch Barbie that believes the menstrual cycle is a form of exercise.

Incidentally, the tampon in an emergency makes for an excellent way to stop a severe nosebleed. Thankfully one cannot see Tampax Nasal going up in lights at the exits to Johannesburg International.

One of the most powerful tools in selling anything is sex. As one of our strongest psychological attractions sex has the ability to be effortlessly bought and sold. (And it is perfectly legal too.)

Prostitute Your Loyalties

More money changes hands for sex in a single day through advertising than in a banging year for Amsterdam’s red light district. We as consumers gladly prostitute our loyalties to the most emotionally and physically appealing bidders. Reason and values sell out to sex for the sake of fashion and acceptance.

Personal happiness no longer comes from within. People constantly search for a magic bullet to create the ideal image they desire to portray to our voyeuristic world.

Religion and spirituality are discarded in the quest for the ultimate commodity to transform life instantly. Personal contentment is found discounted on supermarket shelves, in alluring displays in the ersatz environments of shopping malls, staged corporate-controlled television and on the airbrushed models in the tabloids.

The rapid advancement of the broadcast and digital media guarantees that our addiction as habitual consumers will forever remain at the mercy of corporate advertising, allowing it to shape our lives and the way in which we interpret the people and world around us.

Correfoc Under Fire

One thing that has struck me since relocating to Mallorca is the value and fervent celebration applied to the  culture and identity of the Spanish, and particularly the region of Catalunya.

Starting in June of each year, the region's villages and towns present a multiformity of celebration in the form of  local fiestas. These have both religious and pagan origins, and often appear to amalgamate into a common revelry and observance of tradition. The fiestas are characterised by an all-encompassing acknowledgment of culture; involving food, drink, music, the arts, religious and pagan rites, and the highlight for many Spaniards, pyrotechnics.

It is obvious that fireworks, for the Spanish, are a way of life. As a consequence the individual fiestas are all a delirious outlet for this noisy and smoke-filled past-time.

All Hell breaks loose...

The correfoc or “fire run” is the culmination of the relationship between the traditions of the fiestas, an army of willing participants and fireworks.

The correfoc takes the form of a parade where participants dress as devils (dimonis), carrying effigies of dragons (dracs), which by design are intended to daunt and overawe those in their path. The dimonis similarly carry devices holding a variety of fireworks spewing sparks and acrid smoke directly into the surrounding crowd. Part of the tradition sees spectators have an active role in this procession, almost deliberately blocking the advancement of the dimonis and dracs, a symbolic warding-off of the forces of darkness. This stand-off results in a curious dance, with the spectators almost enticing the dimonis to cast fire in their direction.

Dancing with the Devil

 In Mediterranean culture and celebration, fire is cathartic and historically relates to a ritualistic and figurative cleansing against evil.

These chaotic scenes are played out to a backdrop of a relentless and rhythmic pounding of drums. The din of constant crackers and sparklers, the heat, and a night sky alive with flame and acrid smoke, results in surreal and almost apocalyptic scenes. What would have been a peaceful village square moments before, suddenly erupts into a fiery cauldron of light, noise, smell and human bodies. This is where all hell breaks lose, and is as close to Armageddon as we are likely to experience.

Drac

 The electric environment and combined adrenaline rush of the hundreds of participants leads to what is fundamentally a tribal atmosphere, rekindling the most basic of human instinct. Once over, correfoc participants commonly agree that being part of this event is instantly addictive

Good vs Evil

There are however some that disagree.

The European Union is now the greatest threat to the future of the correfoc as it is currently celebrated. Health and Safety directives (as usual) are currently proposed so as to fall in line with general EU safety requirements. This would in-effect mean that in the future there would be very little, if any, public participation in the correfoc. The cultural ramifications are clear.

Predictably there is a firm backlash against the EU directive, not only in Spain, but also from the large Catalan community in France. French-Catalans have already seen the correfoc, as traditionally celebrated there, confined to history within one year as a direct result of EU regulations. French lobbyists are now requesting special cultural exemptions for the Catalan festivals.

As regards Spain, the Ministry of Industry in Madrid will ultimately decide whether to enforce any EU directives. The Spanish government has thus far overruled EU safety legislation with the reason that Spanish culture remains a priority, and the use of fireworks is part of this heritage.
The EU stance on health and safety is somewhat general with respect to the correfoc. It is known that the risk of accidents is actually very low in context, with the number of injuries actually declining over the last decade.

Armageddon

This issue has therefore become an issue of politics versus culture. Consequently the outcome is going to be critical for all EU nations; this in-effect a measure of how much the bureaucrats in Brussels will be allowed to influence national and regional culture.

Correfoc is by far not an ancient tradition as would be expected. This celebration rose out of the ashes of the removal of Franco's tenure, as a means to resurrect the cultural traditions suppressed and obliterated by the dictatorship. It is felt in many quarters, that in-essence, the correfoc took on an additional meaning in that participants embraced and taunted fire as a means of catharsis following decades of Franco's authoritarian rule.

In light of this, it is inconceivable that such a meaningful tradition should be allowed to end at the hands of what could be essentially be described as another dictatorship.

Viva Correfoc! I, for one, will be back next year.

The Moon Is Shrinking!

This week the Centre of Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. officially announced that the moon is shrinking. Since the NASA Apollo missions to the moon, a dynamic process of crust shrinkage has become evident.


Naturally this has resulted in global panic as the USA tends to have a reputation for landing in uncharted territory and then screwing it up wholesale. A short United Nations statement put up on the notice board in their New York headquarters reads, "The USA are taking the rap for this one. The moon is not our jurisdiction. Back after lunch.”. The ramifications of a shrinking moon has global implications with several stakeholders now closely monitoring the situation.

The Russians have brushed off any concerns stating that they never believed the Americans got to the moon before them anyway. The Conspiracy Union of Lunar Theorists have similarly stated that the moon landing in the first place was a glorified movie with Ronald Reagan playing the lead role, and secondly, the moon is really created by trick photography and made of cheese.

Neil Armstrong's continuous avoidance of the global media with respect to the moon landing has further supported the claim of the CULT members. Armstrong was last seen in 1979 during an ad-break in a Buck Rogers episode buying several packets of salted biscuits and a cheese knife from a local delicatessen.

Roger Waters, erstwhile leader of Pink Floyd, the progressive rock band credited with first discovering the dark side of the moon in 1976, denied any involvement stating, “Just piss off, you don't understand anything about the moon, it's only figurative, and like Swiss cheese it's really all about the holes. For that, you're all fired and I want the rights to the flying pig!”
 
Further developments have seen Dutch and French cheese cartels implicated in illegal cheese mining, which internal sources believe may be contributing to the decline of the circumference of the moon. The French quarter has vehemently denied any involvement, adding that there is no evidence of smelly cheeses anywhere on the moon. Neither US or Japanese moon missions have reported any foul smells other than Jim Lovell's jettisoned underpants from the Apollo 13 problem.


The global effect of the Smithsonian findings came to light out a South African Rugby news conference ahead of the test match against France. In a surprise outburst, legendary player Cheese Van Tonder stated “The bladdy game has gone soft. In my day it was only hard Cheese or go home. In-fact, since July 1969 our rugby players might as well be playing on the bladdy moon!” France captain Feta Fromage refused to comment on Van Tonder's outburst.

This crackdown has also claimed it's innocents according to reports. Prominent international DJ Timo Maas was arrested at Schipol airport in a case of mistaken identity. Having to unpack his entire record bag and play the contents to customs officials, an impromptu rave in baggage reclaim had to be broken up by Dutch security forces. No cheese of any nature was found on Maas and he was freed without charge. Airport officials apologised stating that although the "techno music was lekker”, Maas' name was unfortunately flagged as that of the Dutch Maaslander Gouda dynasty.

International investigators have also taken in Wallace and Gromit for questioning following their Grand Day Out to the moon in 1989. It is however now revealed that although their moon mission was authentic, no actual cheese was removed from the lunar surface, with plasticine cheese stunt doubles used in all cases.
Scientists at the Smithsonian have urged calm until all data on this situation is collected and processed. “Governments and the general public need not be too concerned about rising tides and the expected lunar influences”.

In a statement on the Smithsonian website, the general public are however advised to “lock their animals away, hang garlic on the doors and windows and lock cemetery gates firmly.” A contingency plan has similarly been sent to the Birmingham City Council outlining proposals for a beach-front esplanade and “Monte Carlo styled” yacht basin.

http://smithsonianscience.org/2010/08/smithsonian-scientist-discovers-moon-is-shrinking/

Proud Owner of a New Blog!

Hello all and sundry. Welcome to my new blog!

After weeks, months and years of deliberation and nagging from those who know me well, I now have a spot in blogland to call my own.

What is it about?
I don't know!. Let's see what is happening in the world at present and take it from there.
What I do know is that along the way you will get satire, politics, sport, music, rants, strongly-worded letters, random experiences, the totally inexplicable, and just to keep you interested, a smattering of sex, drugs and rock n' roll. 

We all live a too literal existence, and need a different perspective on life and it's experiences to make sense of this ever-changing world in which we find ourselves. Fortunate enough to have lived in three countries and experience a diversity of people and their cultures, I have realised that there is a wealth of life and living on this planet beyond our immediate surrounds.  

Please be liberal with your feedback, suggestions and general comments. I believe this will only serve to inspire both you and me to give this blog some momentum and ultimately entertain and educate all of us in some way.

Craig H