Yesterday, I did a spot of what is proverbially known as 'organised loafing' - that is, going to see a cricket match. While England were toiling at the Oval, I went down to Hove with my dad to meet up with a friend of his and we indulged in the county cricket side of things. We fuelled up on a big English breakfast in a rather drab cafe-cum-pub with the weirdest toilet doors I've seen since Mongolia. The home team was Sussex and I wasn't going to rock the boat, supporting them over the visitors, Durham. As my dad's friend revealed, Sussex were near the top of the county league, only behind Lancashire and so the standard would be expected to be decent. As I entering the ground at 11.30, I don't know if it was the sea air, the sporific aura of cricket or a full stomach on little sleep, but I immediately felt drowsy, even dropping off for 15 mins (which, of course, had a sudden bout of mass run scoring). Cricket is one of those games, where it's important that they don't score runs from every ball, so that when they do score it perks you up. Sussex rattled up a 530 score (it was the second day of the match) with only five wickets taken and declared over lunch. Cue pub lunch in the rather nice adjoining pub to the ground. I have been missing my free cider-tasting that I had at the Double Locks in Exeter, but this sufficed. Back in, Durham were put out to bat and were promptly blown away for a 150; they had to make it to 150 - 150 away from 530 that is! With the insurmountable task that lay before them, the northern club were caught in two minds between stalling and vainglory and Sussex plundered. The rain virtually held off for the whole match (almost all other matches were rain-affected) and the visitors were thoughtful enough to lose their first innings in time for me and my dad to catch the 17.50 train back to Kent.
Watched last night Dragon's Den. The first series largely passed me by but I'm certainly into this one. Essentially it's another Pop Idol format where hopefuls come and parade their wares under the steely glare of judges. Unlike the catalogue of others, there is no braying audience who boo a judge pantomime-style after a cute put-down and the professionals (the judges) have the ultimate say. The studio is utterly pared down bar for a few curious objects to identify with the oddball entrepreneurs (and most of them are the former). I try to pay close attention so that hopefully some of the common sense of the dragons brushes off on me. However, Evan Davis, while highly personable as a correspondent, flounders somewhat as an anchor. I can predict every word of every sentence he utters when evaluating the situation that it's ridiculous. He needs a better script or that robotic grin of his will widen and widen til it bursts his face, although I would like to see him partnered with Graham Norton (who is wasted with his contemporia output) - it would be a hoot seeing Norton take the piss out of failed contestants.
Followed that up by watching Enemy of the State with Will Smith. It's like a 1970s paranoid conspiracy movie only with a happy ending which it is none the worse for (though austere film critics may beg to differ). The bad guys aren't just vacuous, selfish shells, but have families and loved ones and places the film in a more real context. The finale was good if not up to the standards of John Woo's Hong Kong work. Just makes you remember there were efforts to peel back civil liberties before a certain event 5 years ago in September and authoritarian junky politicians have taken succour from it for all its worth. In reality nothing changed on September 11th, certainly not the world. We just became more aware of what is a largely marginal threat, marginal because if the American forces had been co-operating instead of bickering they could have prevented it. If it had been prevented, we could of gone without the danger posed to our civil liberties as a Federal Judge rules in the USA that government wire-tapping without warrants is illegal. We would not have tolerated the measures because we not recognise them as necessary. The EU proposes 'positive profiling' (the issue being championed by, who else, the UK). Slightly more selective than 'ethnic profiling' and just as ineffective and antagonistic. A few days ago, I was on the underground at the top of the escalators and there was a young Asian man in fron of me. There were two police officers between the up and the down sides and as we passed them they intently focused on the young Asian man's rucksack. At the bottom, the Asian man's white friend said "they were checking you out," a little amused, a little incredulous. There is a threat, but we have always lived in dangerous times - it's the nature of the threat that, we are doom-ladenly told, has changed.