It’s Day 2 of the 4th test in the 23 Ashes and I have always loved cricket. But another part of me is exhausted by it. I’m 57 not out in a few weeks time and I have been watching the Ashes from England since 1975. First trauma was 77 when Australia lost and then Greg Chappell retired. I suffered through the nightmare of 81 tour and then the long bleakness of 85. But somehow I was able to watch and enjoy it but these days with so much weight it seems so foolish to care about who wins. I want to stop caring about the result and enjoy the contest. But it is so in my blood to care that I seem not to be able to get real joy from the game. I always found that I was less parochial when I was at the ground; then the players were people and as a kid you could even wander out on the playing field. But now cricket seems a more potent symbol of life’s absurdity than respite from it.
I am fairly serious when I say that I would love to defeat the need to be / » Continue Reading.