English Cricket nonsense

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With the England Cricket squad apparently doing well in the Ashes, the whole media and my office seems to have gone cricket mad.

Why? It reminds me of when the England Rugby squad won some tacky trophy and everybody suddenly became a fan and expert on Rugby (for about two weeks).

Is it just me or does anyone else find this herd behaviour annoying? Is this my AS coming out in me or am I just a grumpy old sod?

you're a grumpy old sod.

cricket and rugby are WONDERFUL!!

and...

go, boys, go! get them ashes back here where they belong!! ! woo hoo!

Don't get me wrong, I actually quite like Rugby (but just can't get Cricket), but I don't understand why everyone suddenly becomes a "fan".

Is there something I'm missing here? If Cricket is so great today, why did nobody seem to give a stuff when England weren't doing so well? Seems like people are very fickle!

Because the only reason pommies watched it was to see England win.

ROFL!

sour grapes, sweetie?

i went to Barbados, several million years ago, to watch england vs the windies.

we were shat on from a great height, naturally.

everyone loved it.

an interesting fact - my old school tie is practically identical to the MCC tie. ho, ho

Rugby is rather boring to watch and lacking in skill but it is a sport of sorts even though some rules are rubbish but cricket is an abomination, a glorified, far more boring version of rounders and a slap in the face to real sports that get far less coverage. The scores are silly, the rules are silly, a game can last forever and even the bat is silly.

I must say that the media coverage has went right through the roof now that England have won for a change, usually the news just makes a poor excuse for losing (like the ground or wind being against England) and move on. Even another boring bat sport in baseball makes some sense and gives you a proper bat that you can have a swing with.

nah - england lose cos they're crap, mainly.

of COURSE it's silly! that's why it's so magnificent. furthermore, the silliest thing is that it's so marvellous to listen to on the radio. richie benaud, in his hey day, bless him, was a genius:

"and nothing much is happening here at Lord's. oh look - there's a bus just going by in the distance. and we're having madeira cake.."

sublime...

I heard they just did...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/4237610.stm for details.

/me sings (at top of lungs... and i'm an classically-trained singer, so that's LOUD!):

"fli-intoff, fli-i-intoff, flintoff, flintoff,
fli-intoff, fli-i-intoff, fli-inTOFF!"

"pietersen, pietersen, pieterseeeeeennnnnn!
pietersen, pieterSEN, pieterseeeeeee-en!"

go, boys, go!! we got the Ashes back! yeeeeee har!

AND the women won, too!

woo hoo!

Paaaaaaaarrrrrrrrttyyyyyyyyyyy!

have to say - the aussie team were magnanimous and dignified in defeat, so a toast to the gallant losers, too.

and if you're reading this, kevin pietersen OR freddie...

I WANT YOUR BABIES!! !

Yeah, Sports is funny that way. A local team going on a winning streak can cause old fans to revive, and then of course these "herd behavior" people come out because the group has gotten larger.

The good-time fans don't really annoy me, I see that as very common. However, I never could understand why some people act like sheep or cattle, and it's not just the so called "normal" people but anyone that isn't of the "social" type, that find this behavior annoying. It's just that NTs just see it as a standard part of society, as their instincts tell them that some people do that, but sometimes I wonder if those instincts are just telling them not to question what they've seen all their life.

It's not just sports.
I remember Hurricane Katrina. (Ok, it wasn't that long ago at all )

Anyway, most people were jumping on the donation/help bandwagon. Don't get me wrong, that itself is a good thing.

However, comments like, "And how much did YOU donate?", "Yeah, well I donated X$", and what-not would pop up (There's a topic on GameFAQ's that says something like, "Bill Gates only donated 1.5 million"). And once media coverage dies out, for a lot of people, it's like misfortune no longer exists. (Going off of GameFAQ's again, as an example, the topic count has dropped from nearly 500 to 100. Why so fast? Most of the topics were just repetive lip-service posts that ended up with 1-5 posts saying, "Yeah, me too")

The same person that could have been scolding you for not giving blood to the Katrina victims is liable to almost never donate blood throughout the year.

I have no job, no allowance, and I'm deathly afraid of needles, ever since an immunization shot when I was little crippled me for a couple hours, practically paralyzing my legs. I don't need people patronizing me for not participating in a feel-good fad. My advice and time is available for free year-round (often an active attempt to help find other more informed people for the person to talk to. Also, I have 60 hours community service volunteering at a charter school last year, none this year. If I can get a ride, I'll probably start volunteering again. Always looks good to have volunteer work on applications anyway >_>)

The point is:
It's nice that people want to help. It's mildly annoying when they do it because it's hip or trendy at the moment, and not because the people need it. Elsewise, most of them wouldn't regularly ignore it the rest of the year. It's downright offensive when people are trying to make me feel bad for not following a fad.

I feel for the victims and family of victims of Hurricane Katrina. However, while they're getting a ton of media coverage, I'd rather tend to the forgotten local people to the best of my ability. Ironically, Hurricane Katrina is becominh largely forgotten by trend followers, AND a number of the relocated people are now in Texas, my home state. So they're practically part of that group now. Go figure.

(I'm referring to no particular person/s with this post, except maybe those one's on GameFAQ's griping about Bill Gates. Or even people in general. There're also a lot of good people out there that are genuinely interested in helping people. This post is just to give another example of people doing things for the sake of what is 'it' at the moment.)