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Fingertapper

Listed below are comments made by Fingertapper between Tuesday, 29th September 2009 and Friday, 4th December 2009.

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How HBOS escaped closure 10:57am on 04 Dec 2009 6 - Stanilic
Yep, pretty much spot on and particularly so on a day when 2,000 people on Teesside lose their jobs with consequential job losses yet to follow.
Certainly I'd like to see the tumbrils rolling but for all that I don't think you'll get your revolution.
For all that there must be a few skeletons rattling with mirth within the Kremlin walls, even as we speak.
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 4:18pm on 02 Dec 2009 It's only another version of "I'll take my millions to a tax-haven if you continue to tax me" that we get from the very rich.
Time to take on these city welfare cases. We've had a quarter century of "The City knows best" and where has it got us?
Zap 'em Darling. Let them resign. Taking your expensive expertise to Dubai, gentlemen??
When politics matters... 08:45am on 10 Nov 2009 256 - Bobmattfran
Don't bother trying to explain the voting system to some of this lot. They didn't vote for him and he's a Scotsman into the bargain. Don't argue with logic. Go have a brew-up and relax. I've been reading (and very infrequently writing to) these blogs for a number of years and many of the protaganists can't haul in the difference between a parliamentary system and a presidential one.
Maybe it should be an educational priority for the brave new government of Rupe and Dave.
When politics matters... 08:30am on 10 Nov 2009 184 Yellowbelly
Yes I've heard of it, though like the rest of the Murdoch media, it has no place in my household (granted, I keep a few torn-up sheets of the Sun next to the toilet roll as a symbolic option).
Don't suppose Rupe's men would do anything so base as to wind up poor Mrs Janes into an anti-government campaign and serialise it in one of their wretched recyclables, would they?
So how was your local Remembrance Sunday - or are you going tomorrow instead? We had a decent turnout, despite the downpour.
When politics matters... 8:20pm on 09 Nov 2009 103 Yellowbelly and a few more
No, sorry - I didn't see it live yesterday either. I was down at my local war memorial in the tanking wet rain. It somehow seemed a better idea than sitting by the telly waiting to see if I could make some cheap political points if Brown failed to bow or scratched his bum in the middle of the national anthem.
Still, if you all stayed home to watch it on telly yesterday, the UK residents among you will now be free to attend your local war memorials on Wednesday morning and support your local British Legion in its annual Act of Remembrance. Gordon won't be on telly. No excuses now......
The rise of the English South Africans 3:06pm on 06 Nov 2009 83 AndyPlowright
Oh dear, where to start.
No, I had no problem whatsoever with Colin ("born in India") Cowdrey or for that matter Ted ("born somewhere in Italy while his Dad was working away")Dexter because both had progressed through the ranks of our domestic cricket system and had spent the majority of their lives here. I was, however, less enthusiastic about the inclusion in an England team of Graham ("wait till my passport comes through") Hick who was born in Zimbabwe, raised in Zimbabwe and played representative cricket in Zimbabwe.
Nor is this an issue of multiculturalism. The current Yorkshire first-team squad contains three players of unmistakeably south asian origin. Yet they share the same identifier as their team-mates who may, for all I know, be descended directly from the Vikings - they were born in Yorkshire (Shazad and Rashid) or have been there since very early childhood (Rafiq). They're as Yorkshire as me.
Moving now to the allegations of "rubbish"; a term which seldom encourages informed debate. I'll set aside the spectre of International Invitational XIs for a moment. In my view the thing which must be preserved in all our plans for the future of cricket in this country are the lines of opportunity. Lines which run from the primary school kid knocking a ball against a wall with a bat too big for himself to the adult walking out to open the batting for his country or county. Few will achieve it but the odd one or two will get through. Once we start bringing in the finished article from overseas - whether they're South Africans, Zimbabweans or Eskimos - you compromise those lines of opportunity available to our own would-be internationals. Once the dream becomes unattainable the rot sets in. The kids will no longer play - in fact there is evidence that we're already on the downward slope. Once we reach critical mass it will be too late to revive the game at grasroots level.
So back to the International Invitational XIs. Possibly far fetched but consider.... If we have a regime which permits the "anglicisation" (in cricketing terms) of even one overseas born-and-raised-into-adulthood cricketer after five years' residence and to then be exempt from any kind of quota, we can still expect that cricketer to perform at a decent level for up to another ten or fifteen years. Meanwhile we start on another overseas recruit. Eleven years from now you could have three such players and all of them perfectly legal. Throw in any others who can slip through the gaps with EU passports or whatever other exemptions they can wangle and you can soon have half a team made up of S Africans, Zimbabweans and Eskimos. The danger then is that you reach tipping point - the indigenous apprentices have already given up and everybody throws their hands up and says "we'll just have to get them from overseas - so we'll relax the rules"
So where and when do you draw the line?. I recognise that a more mobile society means that qualification by birthplace alone may no longer be realistic. Personally, as a starting point for discussion, I'd settle for ten years (or half life if less) of bona fide UK residence as an alternative to a birthplace qualification, at both county and test level. This would accommodate both the future Cowdreys and Dexters but also the kids of immigrants who have settled here. It would, however, exclude the Hicks, Trotts and Pietersens.
Finally don't mock whatever internal strife you perceive in God's Own County. It's what keeps us sharp. However it's remarkable how quickly it's shelved when threatened from outside.
The rise of the English South Africans 12:32pm on 06 Nov 2009 Oliver
Sugeons, lawyers and the like don't form teams under a national banner to do battle in their respective fields against other nations. If they did and half the UK lawyers team to play the Aussies were qualified in South Africa then yes, there might be a parallel.
Meanwhile I'm interested in your preferred cricket and football teams. Were you a little scouser who couldn't stand Lancashire CCC and decided to travel south to watch Essex instead? If so, I understand. Or were you an Essex Boy who thought Colchester and Southend Utd were a bit too humdrum? Or possibly neither. Clearly I respect your right to make whatever emotional affiliations you wish in such matters and recognise that for those families who move around a lot it becomes difficult to put down sporting roots. However this makes it difficult to have a full appreciation of local, regional and national affiliations. .
For many of us, however, such affiliations do indeed arise from having a common place of birth or place of childhood. These are the loyalties which are fiercest and most durable. Personally I only spent the first thirty percent of my life in Yorkshire - I've spent longer in a certain county in the south-west of England than I ever spent in my native county - but I'd never think of myself as anything other than a Yorkshireman. If Yorkshire win silverware (an infrequent event nowadays, I'll grant you) then I'll rejoice but it's tempered with the knowledge that we have done so with outside help. The only solace is that everybody else is doing it, but it doesn't make it right. However the euphoria can't compare to the days of Close, Trueman, Wilson etc when we won games with eleven of our own. Those wins really did count for something.
Similarly when England stuffed the Aussies, Indians, Pakistan or Windies with eleven products of our domestic game then yes, it felt good. Nowadays it's better than a kick in the backside but deep down you know you've done it with the help of people who have joined your team late in the day, who may soon be gone elsewhere and with whom you don't really identify. It's not the same buzz. Sure, people will still come to watch it and the prawn sandwiches will continue to fly off the concession stalls but at either test or county level, a contest between international invitational XIs won't be cricket as many of us have known it.
The rise of the English South Africans 7:15pm on 05 Nov 2009 Oliver
This isn't xenephobia - it's real concern for the longer term future of our game.
You are correct to draw a distinction between Strauss, who has been here since childhood (as has Prior, though for rather less of his childhood) and the likes of Pietersen and Trott who were not. In this day and age it is probably unrealistic to define England eligibility solely by birthplace. However it is surely realistic to ask that England players were either born here or were products of our own various forms of junior cricket. On these grounds, Trott and Pietersen are not qualified.
While don't doubt their best intentions, the danger of employing them is that we further damage the dream of every kid bowling a tennis ball against a wall or catching a ball off a roof. Once the linkage between that dream and an international or county cap - however tenuous, however unrealistic - is lost then we are on the slide to having a minority sport.
In rural Yorkshire half a century ago, where I first learned my cricket, communities of 150-200 people routinely put out Saturday and Sunday teams and frequently one for mid-week as well. Now I certainly didn't make the big time and I know of few who did but the sheer volumne of would-be Yorkshire and England platyers made it inevitable that some would break through. Now I live in the south of england, in a community of 12,000 souls and they struggle to put out one team at the weekend.
Now granted, there are other distractions - football, video games and general societal changes but we're already losing the link. If the quick-fix recruitment of a Pietersen or a Trott leads to one kid throwing his ball into the shed and taking up his playstation then it's been bad news.
Finally, Oliver, how come the Aussies never get involved in similar dilemmas. Cast your mind back to the 1970's and the foreign imports playing Sheffield Shield cricket. The adverse effect on the Aussie national team was fast and unmistakeable. Cast your mind back to Kim Hughes' televised blubbering in defeat. They at least had the good sense to look over the abyss and decide it wasn't for them. Collectively we haven't clocked it yet.
I've nothing against Trott or Pietersen at a personal level but if we coninue in the present vein the day will indeed dawn when we can't get a side together without the assistance of yet more southern hemisphere imports. Then we'll be on a par with basketball, gridiron, ice hockey and speedway - a niche sport with steady crowds but on the participation side dominated almost entirely by foreign imports.
The Kelly Report 12:50pm on 04 Nov 2009 No 16
Talking of the BBC, remember that Carrie Gracie (a hitherto obscure BBC News24 nightshift newsreader) admitted to hauling down GBP 92K per year - presumably plus expenses.
If the House of Commons is ever cleaned up I'd expect far fewer people actually wanting to be an MP. There's far better money in the media, talking about MPs.
The politics of 'proper behaviour' 8:20pm on 29 Sep 2009
Wouldn't argue with much of what has been said.
Once is youthful exhuberance, twice is stupidity but three four and five onwards are the signs of incorrigible criminal tendancies.
Recently our local neck of the woods saw the eventual jailing after twenty odd years of binding overs, probations, supervision orders, suspended sentences - anything but serious jail - of two characters who - independently of each other - were criminals by their early teens. Both were "rewarded" with money and privileges by the youth justice system for their malfeasances. Both continued to offend - anonymously as juveniles, less so once they turned eighteen. It was all "low level" stuff - burglaries, bag snatching, fights, etc but God knows how many people have had their lives damaged in the meantime.
We don't need more asbos or fancy initiatives. We just need a secure depository for the repeat miscreants in our society. I don't necessarily want them hanged flogged or humiliated. I might accept the rehabilitation and eventual release of a one-time murderer. It's the repeat muggers, burglars and shoplifters we need taken off the streets for years at a stretch. If they eventually come out and still re-offend then put them back in until they are effectively in for their natural lives.
However this country has a maximum jail population (of all security levels, including Open Prisons)of around 78K or therabouts. To expand this capacity we either have to pay more for new jails (unlikely in the present climate) or stack more in the existing jails. This isn't going to happen so long as HM Inspector of Prisons is around and our human rights legislation continues to conform to the ECHR. Dave was talking about changing this but it's all gone a bit quiet over there.

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