Blog Posts in "cricket"

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs

Posted at 00:47:33 on Sun, April 29th 2007 by graham
in: australia (cricket team) cricket cricket world cup 2007 irony sri-lanka (cricket team) surprises

Oh look, Australia have won the cricket world cup. This is a totally unexpected turn of events, and cricket watchers all over the world are looking startled as they munch into their cucumber sandwiches.

Not convincing? No, didn't think so. I'll not bang on about it though. The lustre went out of the competition a while back for me, probably around about the time that I discovered just how many super eight matches there were, and although I'm incredibly chuffed for the Irish I can't actually say that the competition as a whole did much for me. There again, I've had over a month with cricket to listen to almost every day, so let's not go looking gift horses in the mouth before our time, shall we?

Nonsense at 3am

Posted at 03:38:00 on Fri, March 23rd 2007 by graham
in: cricket in the news

Auld acquaintance, forgot, etc.

Posted at 01:25:00 on Tue, January 02nd 2007 by graham
in: cricket general writing

Apparently it's 2007 now. I'll let you know when that actually sinks in (usually June-ish I find).

Sarah and I spent last night (or rather the night before last; I'm sat here typing this whilst listening to the opening overs of the Sydney test match - at the moment England are 14-0) in a pub with my Dad, his other half and an assortment of good family friends. The upshot of this is that I'm hoarse from shouting and still smell vaguely of smoke and whisky, and really need to have gone to bed over an hour ago. In accordance with the rules of drinking large amounts of intoxicating liquor I've been snacking all day, which isn't great considering that I'm supposed to be done with the overindulgences now that Christmas is over, but which I'm willing to let go in light of a Wednesday morning gym appointment.

So, on to other matters.

I don't do new year's resolutions. Or rather, I have in previous years, but this year have chosen to resolve to not resolve to do anything.

I haven't written, well, anything very much, for the last few weeks, a fact that's really starting to grate now because I don't know where the next lot of words are going to come from. I had decided to start working on the ideas for novel the second, but have never really got around to it. Most of the story ideas (for there's nothing solid at the moment, just ideas and a good old fashioned MacGuffin) are either floating around in my head or scribbled down in a sort of crabby shorthand in my moleskine.

I know I've got to get around to it sometime, otherwise it's just going to leave me forever and go on to find a writer more talented and probably also better looking. The truth is that even having written a novel-length manuscript before I've never really approached one properly; Muse-that-was was written piecemeal from a number of different ideas that just happened to fit together at the time, but I'm still not convinced that it really comes off as a story.

As you might have guessed, I'm still avoiding the extremely necessary rewrites. Maybe I'll leave them 'til February. Yes, that seems like a good idea.

Bed, and indeed sleep, beckon. Welcome to 2007.

My favourite few seconds of cricket this year

Posted at 08:21:00 on Tue, August 08th 2006 by graham
in: cricket humour

Goosebumps

Posted at 22:12:00 on Tue, July 04th 2006 by graham
in: cricket editing home in the news random events sport thoughts work writing

"Aha!" I hear you all cry, "An update at last!"

Well, yes. And yes, I'm going to stick my usual excuse in, which is "Busy, very busy." Also, I've developed a stinker of a head cold, which has left my sinuses filled with something not unakin to that white, fish-smelling glue that they give you to use in Primary school; the stuff that boys have endless fun making fake skin with in order to peel it off in front of some unsuspecting compatriot, usually female, always squeamish, just for fun. I'm in the happy position of having a new, full-time, salaried job. And as my day jobs all seem to go, this one has gone down the route of being hellishly busy. A deadline is looming at the end of the week and I'm having to work quite a lot of overtime to get the thing done, so once again there isn't much time for writing or editing. But that doesn't mean I'm not doing any.

I've edited the embarassingly explicit story and I'm quite happy with it. I'm probably going to give it another pass and maybe put some stuff in that I think is missing. I realised, thinking about it last night whilst trying to sleep, that although I know what's special about the main character, I've made a point of not saying it specifically in the story, wanting to let the story let the reader know in its own time. Unfortunately, I've found myself wondering if it's not a little too vague; there's a chance, I think, that people might come to completely the wrong conclusion and, if they do, that means they're not going to get the point of the story which largely... well, misses the point.

Yesterday, in a mini-splurge in Borders, I bought myself the Writer's Block (along with a couple of Python books, because writer I may be but geek I've always been; Python is my new favourite language), which I've wanted ever since I first saw it. My plan, once I've got some time, is to try and do a little work triggered by it each day, as a way of keeping my hand in the writing game and to keep my mind active. I might even post some of the stuff here for the sake of keeping you all amused when I haven't got anything better to say.

Of course, all this working and not writing (and, by extension, not posting) means that I've missed several key events during the last few days. England lost the ODI series to Sri Lanka, which I'd expected, and on the same day lost one of their greatest ever fast bowlers, Fiery Fred Trueman. Oh, and t'other England dropped out of the World Cup, though I couldn't really give two stuffs about that.

Lessee, what else did I want to comment on at the time? The anniversary of the London bombings is coming up; I'm waiting to see whether the new workplace will be any more affected than the old by it (I didn't write about it at the time because I was working there, but the Mob staff seemed disturbingly uncaring about the whole thing). If not I'll probably go into the town centre to observe the silence; it would mean more that way, somehow.

I spent this evening working with one eye on RealPlayer, which was showing NASA TV. I watched last year's launch of STS-114 and it sent chills up my spine. STS-121 was no different; I had goosebumps in places I didn't know geese could bump as Discovery roared into the sky. I'm going to have to go to the Cape some day, just to see a launch for myself (though they'll probably have retired the shuttles by the time I get there; maybe I'll go when they launch the next moonshot (pause for irony...). Oh, and PayPal cancelled my LibSyn subscription without asking me, so I'll have to set it up again if I decide to carry on podcasting. Thanks for that, PayPal people.

Anyroad. Back to work. As Fred would have said, I'll sithee.

Search

Latest Twitter

In Arrochar, Scotland. Living near the bones of the earth. 2008-08-26 21:19:22 (More)

Recent entries

Launchpad Bugs

Post Categories

10mm 15th of july upload amusing animals atheism august9upload august 9 upload autoportrait bass bbc bird blackandwhite blogging blogs buildings canonical caton church colourised computing cricket d300 d40x desaturated django editing flickr flower forestofbowland from the inbox funny general heysham home humour in the news lancashire lancaster landscape launchpad links linux london lune may 12th upload me monochrome morecambe morecambebay music nanowrimo nature news new site night norfolk norfolkbroads novel novel-the-second observations pendle people photography podcasts posts that started out differently programming python quotes ranting reading reflection religion science sea selfportrait sepia shadows sigma1020mm silliness sky stupidity sunset texture thoughts three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008 travel tree twitter ubuntu warren ellis, internet jesus water work writing writing ideas

About

Graham Binns is a writer, photographer, musician and software developer from Lancaster, England, with far too much hair, a penchant for odd t-shirts and a magnificent hat. He has been making things up for as long as he can remember and has been making code work for long enough to make a living from it.

He has written one novel, which is in the process of composting, and is working remembering how to write before embarking on a second. In the meantime, he photographs things, since it's easier not to have to make the world up in his head all of the time.

From the gallery

Corners No entry Tramway Smash Wasteland