All posts by ralphyt

The Sofa has been warming up for the new cricket season by covering the closing games of IPL 3 his week. And what jolly good fun it has been.

When you cross the threshold into the masonic lodge that is Sofa command, you never know what is going to confront you. Of course, some things are taken as given. Discarded Stella cans, tick. Clouds of smoke of Icelandic proportions, natch. And Jarod poking Tom with a sharp shitty stick.

Mike popped in for the first game, filming the Sofa's take on "The Hurt Locker": shouty men with borderline personality disorders performing heroic work in difficult circumstances and trying not to get killed (shurely "sued"? - ed) in doing so. Give the man an Oscar! Manny was in residence, resplendent in his TMS t-shirt and, er, necktie. I assume the tie was for the camera rather than the Sofa's silverback indulging in acts of auto-erotic asphyxiation in the mid-innings break. Ubergruppenfuhrer Danny had also been rifling through the dressing up box, sporting a titfer and ebullient shirt - think less George Clooney, more Captain Sensible.  And also, as part of the Sofa's remit to innovate, Dev watched part of the Mumbai-Bangalore game in a pair of Lennon shades, trialling our Avatar-inspired 3-d glasses for enhanced listening pleasure. They'll be available for our listeners to download soon. Sod the t'interweb player, this is cutting edge technology. Oh! Sofia's shoes. How could I forget the shoes. Turquoise bliss! It was clearly too much for Dave the Bard, tuning in from his bathtub, busily soaping his bits as the Mumbai innings, er, climaxed. And who can blame him?

One notable absentee has been the Zoob, A conscientious objector when it comes to the trifles of the Twenty 20 game. he's been confined to an internment camp on the Sussex borders, left alone with Dame Kiri to bake greengage muffins and play Sibelius on his harpsichord. Hopefully we'll see him soon.

All this mayhem will be up on youtube soon - today, right Dev? Lend us your ears and, to quote a knight of the realm, "give us your effing money" and join us for the IPL final on Sunday from 1545!

Forget Sachin's latest hit and giggle heroics , the big news story is the emergence of a new cricketing superpower in the east. Well, east of Jupiter, somewhere between Pluto and the Big Dipper. India watch out, the planet Mondas is where it's at - yes, the Cybermen have revealed themselves to be mad-keen cricket fans.

The evidence? Thin, admittedly, but this dude is clearly wearing a pair of GM or Gray Nicholls gloves circa 1990 and the latest version of the C&D Albion helmet. Hearing your partner's calls in that thing must be a nightmare.  They're probably more cut out for the Test game -  I can't see a Cyberman playing the Kolkata Knight Riders anytime soon for fear of the gold strip clogging the ol' respirator.

No doubt they're fans of the Sofa. Dan's had a run in with cyborgs before - something about a late night collegiate assignation with a femme fatale and an artificial limb. Hopefully he will share this tallest of tall tales with us again very soon. Hail our emmissary to Mondas!

Cricket and Dr Who go hand in hand. From Peter Davidson's cricket jumper to these lookalikes....

Sontaran -

Closey -

Leela -

Rachel Heyhoe Flint -

Last Friday saw the TMS wrap party for the recent England-South Africa series. A fine turnout (well, more people than you'd get on a damp day at Pontypridd watching Glamorgan 2nds) of Sofa legends and assorted groupies made for a fine night. Not unlike Studio 54 back in the day, just with fewer dwarves walking round with bowls of the ol' marching powder on their heads and I, for one, was not the recipient of a blowie from Bianca Jagger in the khazis. I can't vouch for the others though. I'd seen nothing like it since the Young Conservatives spring conference, Winter Gardens, Blackpool, '93. That one still haunts me.

If I'm honest, the evening was all a bit of a haze, courtesy of a few too many euro-fizzes and a light lunch. I do remember some chat about the merits of the Bangladeshi spinners and am amusing Zoob-aside about the damage women in comfortable shoes can do to one's lawn. Johnny Sapphic Handmaiden, no respector of the fair greem sward apparently. No wonder Lord's was so reluctant to let 'em in. Apart from that, nuffink, zilch, zip. Can anyone else fill me in?

As no one else has posted to the blog I'm getting a bit worried that they didn't make it home. Do I call their mothers? The police? It'll be way past their bedtimes.

I spent a productive few hours today trying to find trinkets appropriate for my new shrine to the immortal Harold Larwood. Having read about his prodigious thirst, I thought about getting pumps and barrels fitted to my humble B&Q worktops but I get black looks from the current Mrs T already for my, well, sometimes enthusiastic refuelling habits so I thought better of it. She's of Welsh-American extraction so the Presbyterian-Prohibitionist streak runs strong in that one.

Anyway. I finally found some nice prints online of the great man and hopefully I'll be prostating myself in front of them on a Notts prayer matt sometime soon.

But fark me. There's some utter tosh out there. The usual boss eyed etching of Both circa 1985 and you can't move for the jingoistic rubbish they produced after 2005. However, can this be beaten? http://www.sportsgalleries.com/acatalog/Famous_Cricketers.html - yup, some 'tard thought it a great idea sell prints of Ronnie Irani, former Essex "great". In England gear. Was he even fit to wear the one day shirt, let alone Test garb?

I pity the poor 13 year old lad who got that in his stocking this Xmas. It's not like he's a even the best Essex allrounder - he's no Ian Pont, let alone Barnacle Bailey. Goochie's impression of Bob Willis carried more menace than the donkeydrops the Lancastrian never-was dished up. Reminds you how crap we were in the 90s. Jesus, those days were grim. Good job the whiskey bottle and revolver aren't at hand, I'd end it all now.

Who produces this shite? And have you ever recd such filth from a well-meaning new girlfriend or maiden aunt? A true Sofanista would dump the bitch/disinherit themselves, natch. Is this the next step for the Sofa? Email us your examples!

I wonder if the boyish Alastair Cook managed to catch Gordon Ramsay's latest sojourn in-between evensong and extra Latin prep this week. If he did, hopefully he'll have taken away some valuable lessons on how not to tour the subcontinent this spring.
 
The ghost of Tuffers hung like Banquo over the whole project. Needless to say Gordon  dutifully ticked off both the elephants and the poverty and squeezed in some cooking (sadly no dancing) along the way. His affirmative verbal tick commendably to the fore - "Don't fucking burn the bhajis, sunshine, !YES!" - Gordon single handedly put Anglo-Indian relations back a good 20 years.There was a lot of gratuitous swearing and shouting at the locals, clumsy flirtation with assorted dusky maidens and the usual nobility of poverty bollocks. Beefy's quip about Pakistan being the sort of place you'd want to send the mother-in-law  was a Ban Ki Moon piece of diplomacy compared to this guff.
 
So, young Alastair, take this away with you. Embrace the culture. Get out of the hotel. Get your hands dirty. Be polite and mind your manners. Smile. Enjoy the experience, you and your team are very lucky boys. It's not often playing for England can be compared to an away trip to Streatham and Marlborough in the Surrey league. We make the wearisome trip to an incomprehensible land to play on a dodgy track in front of no one, put up with the oppos odd and occasionally duplicitous ways, tolerate the limp sarnies and drink their pissy eurofizz. On more than a hundred grand a year we'd like you, KP and Mr Prior to do the same.
 
Us Poms spent much of the last 20 years trying to ape Australian ways. I suspect there's another lesson to be learnt here. From Tugga's adoption of an Indian orphanage to Brett Lee starring in Bollywood films, can their success in India be in some way attributed to embracing their Indian hosts, both the good and the bad bits? And as the subcontinent emerges as pre-eminent cricketing power, the England team should be seen to be gracious tourists for both cricketing and political reasons. Hopefully both English averages and our reputation abroad will be assuaged in coming months.