Oh, Australia

The first-choice England bowlers were supposed to struggle with the Australian Kookaburra ball, never mind the back-up. So it was with even greater satisfaction - if that was possible - that we watched first reserve Chris Tremlett (17 wickets at 23.35) find Michael Beer's inside edge to end the innings, the match, the bloody Ashes, with England victorious and Australian faces ground into the dirt in a way that no-one, not even the England team's most fervent cheerleaders, aka The Barmy Army, could possibly have envisaged two months ago without spending a night in the Arizona desert tripping their nuts off on some feverishly good peyote.

Nobody said anything about dignity.

The bowlers were meant to be one of the team's suspect faculties in this series, they said. Not got the heart nor the know-how to go toe-to-toe with Australia in home conditions, the whispers had it. They've got nothing if it doesn't swing, and the Kookaburra doesn't swing. How do we know? Aw look mate, if it swung we'd have seen our bowlers swing it. Cue semi-pitying eye-roll. Oh, it's funny to think of all that now.

For there is more than a whiff of schadenfreude in the air. It's sweet and sickly and will possibly make you feel a little bit ill once you've indulged, but it's impossible to resist none the less. Just ask Australia themselves. They certainly tucked in when they regained the urn back in 2007 and shoved the over-the-top celebrations of 2005 back in English faces. And why not? I mean, an open-topped parade through London after coming first in a two-sided contest? No matter its sporting or historical significance, that stinks of triumphalism.

On this occasion there will be no such fanfare, though the victory is just as sweet. To win against brave, skilled opponents, as they did in 2005, is one thing. To do it against spoiled, muscle-bound brats is quite another. And so it is difficult to resist the urge to crow, and I'm a fellow who gives in easily to temptation.

Jimmy Anderson, the best bowler in the series, whose abilities to swing the ball when old and new bamboozled the Australian batsmen and taunted their hapless bowlers, was described not long ago as "not tough enough to play against Australia" by Justin Langer - the Australian batting coach. Ouch. Speaking of swing, when the England fast bowling quartet of Jones, Harmison, Hoggard and Flintoff - the "Fab Four" who sadly never played together in the same England team - bowled England to victory in 2005, much of the Australian media decided to laud not these four players, but rather Troy Cooley, the Australian bowling coach who it was claimed had taught the four everything they know about reverse swing and without whom would be sending down the same polite pies that previous England bowlers had served up. So who was sitting in the Aussie dressing room this time, most likely with head in hands, as their bowlers singularly failed to emulate their English counterparts in getting any kind of reverse swing at all? That would be Troy Cooley, of course, lured away from the England set-up soon after the 2005 Ashes and who is now being parcelled off to run the national cricket academy. Incidentally, England's current bowling coach, David Saker, is Australian too - but, no doubt to much Australian chagrin, he has just extended his contract.

Ah, the Australian media. They have had it so good for so long and now - now that the Poms have emphatically, unequivocally relegated them to the second tier of test cricket, where they must be content for the foreseeable future to catch glimpses of the dust left in the wake of India, South Africa and England, never mind spotting the actual teams themselves as they battle it out for supremacy over the years ahead - they have, ever gracious, deigned to focus their attentions not on the strength and character shown by the victors, but the unforgivable shortcomings of the vanquished. Most of these flaws come down to the players not possessing surnames like Warne, McGrath, and Hayden, is the not very hard to find subtext hidden amidst the blood-letting. Of course, this cheerfully ignores the fact that the vast majority of the side are the same group of players who won in South Africa less than two years ago. Phil Hughes was there, scoring centuries and being proclaimed Hayden's natural successor. Mitchell Johnson was certainly there, on his way to being crowned the ICC world player of the year, as were Siddle and Hilfenhaus, bowling Australia to victory and ensuring headlines proclaiming a new generation of greats set to extend the era of Australian dominance. That is until England ruthlessly exposed Hughes's technique (in consecutive Ashes series) and managed to shake Johnson's confidence to the degree that the leader of the attack - when in the team, of course, for he was dropped for the first time in his career in this series - no longer takes the new ball and when it is eventually thrown to him the captain, be it Ponting or Clarke, watches events unfold from behind a metaphorical couch. He's the Australian answer to the Daleks, Mitchell - when playing England, that is. He seems to do all right against other teams, hence that player of the year award. Of course, none of this was mentioned when one national paper proclaimed this "The Worst Australian Side Ever". It is all, as Ian Botham might say, a bit ordinary.

Just a little bit of context goes a long way. India, South Africa, and England - or The Big Three, as they shall now be known - should produce some outstanding contests in the next few years. Watching the battered and bruised Australian team scraping the hubris off their collective face will also be fun. I hope Ricky doesn't retire just yet.

The Obama Effect

If we are to ignore the dubious spectacle of a seven year old Sammy Davis Jr. performing song and dance numbers while clutching a piece of fried chicken as Rufus Jones for President’s eponymous hero in 1933 - and please, let’s - the first black actor to be cast as the American President was James Earl Jones in The Man, a Rod Serling-scripted satire in which a series of improbable mishaps befall the governing hierarchy and eventually lead to Jones’s senator being sworn into office. The Man was released back in 1972 - coincidentally the same year that Shirley Chisholm, a New York Democrat, became the first black person to run for a major-party’s presidential candidacy - and further examples of black Commanders-in-Chief have been pretty thin on the ground since.

The Man, 1972

The few we have seen have ranged from the eminently sensible to the very odd: Morgan Freeman was born presidential, and 1998’s Deep Impact provided him with a wholly adequate dry-run for his inevitable portrayal of Nelson Mandela in Invictus; conversely, former wrestler Tom Lister, Jr. - aka “That Monster From Friday” - was hamstrung by a complete gravitas-deficiency in the previous year’s The Fifth Element, and his presence is evidence more of director Luc Besson’s wilfully unconventional casting strategy than of any tangible suitability for the role. Chris Rock attempted to transfer his brash, streetwise stage persona to the character of an ultimately successful presidential candidate in Head of State (2003), with mixed results. And that’s pretty much it: add to the list Louis Gossett Jr. and Terry Crews - Left Behind: World of War (2005) and Idiocracy (2006) respectively - and you can count the number of post-Jones, pre-Obama black movie presidents on one hand. So the question is: will we now, with the first black president in the White House, see more black actors being given a chance to take on the role of the world’s most high-powered individual? Will the “Obama Effect” extend to the movies?

These are early days - even if it has been more than eighteen months since his inauguration (glaciers have nothing on the inherently conservative collective Hollywood mindset) - but there are signs that it might. When Roland Emmerich was putting together the cast for his latest end-of-the-world jamboree, 2012, the director (no fan of the previous administration) specifically wanted a black actor for the role of POTUS as a direct nod to the current real-life incumbent. It’s not a great part, truth be told: saddled with the role of the dithering President Wilson, Glover is unable to bring to the party the same brand of decisive leadership Freeman did in Deep Impact, when the Earth was similarly staring into the abyss. (And he wasn’t granted the same opportunity for gung-ho flyboy heroics that Emmerich afforded Bill Pullman in Independence Day, either.) But issues of quality aside, the director has at least issued a marker for others to take note of and emulate. Whether they do so, and the paucity of black presidents in theatres is therefore redressed, remains to be seen.

In fact, in the first decade of the 21st century - pre- and post-Obama - it has been the small screen that has seemed to lead the way in this regard, as it has in many others since cable channels like HBO and Showtime began habitually raising the bar. 24 had given us a sort of African-American spin on the Kennedys when Dennis Haysbert and D.B. Woodside played brothers who both at one time occupied the Oval Office, before Heroes revealed (within a month of Obama’s victory over John McCain) that the president of its fictional America was none other than Michael Dorn, known to millions of Trekkies as Worf, the acceptable face of the once-nefarious Klingons.

But the biggest indication of a shift in attitude has come at the American network NBC - an organisation whose acronym industry insiders used to joke stood for “No Black Characters” not so long ago. The first episode of their new conspiracy thriller The Event is scheduled to air in September, in which Blair Underwood will star as President Elias Martinez. If that name sounds like it may be better suited to a president of a more Hispanic origin, it’s because that was indeed the original intention. The show was originally conceived in 2006, but after Obama’s victory the creators decided to change the character to a black president of Cuban descent in order to offer a cultural reflection of the historic result. The fact that Underwood was cast adds a further twist: the actor was a fervent advocate of Obama’s candidacy, and even spoke at some of his election rallies. Art imitating life, indeed.

Blair Underwood in The Event

If this is the start of a trend, there is one cold, hard factor that will have to play its part: Money. If people buy a ticket for, or tune into, something featuring a black president, then there will be a proliferation of them in theatres and on television screens. In this respect, the fact that 2012 has almost quadrupled its $200 million budget is an extremely encouraging sign. On the other hand Lisa de Moraes, TV critic at the Washington Post, pondered in the weeks after Obama’s victory what that result might mean for black actors in prominent roles, and their hopes rested, she argued, not on President Obama’s shoulders but on Laurence Fishburne’s. The Matrix star was in the process of taking over the mantle of leading man on CSI - one of the most watched shows in the history of television - from its long-time star William Petersen. “If the numbers on CSI stay strong with Fishburne, that’s good news for black actors,” she wrote. “If he flops, it’s bad news.” The viewing figures subsequently dropped from an average of 19 million in season 9, when he and Petersen made the swap, to just under 15 million the following season, when Fishburne headlined the show alone. Much may depend on Underwood and The Event.

Ashes Interrupted

The second test match between England and Australia, unfolding within the confines of the hitherto sunny and picturesque Adelaide Oval, has just been called off because of rain. It was obvious that this was going to happen because a) England, through their ruthless and sometimes exhilarating batting (especially KP's, who is on 200-something and looking like he could turn this into an exhibition or something should the mood take him), are in an extremely strong position to win the thing, and b) because I made a decision to fetch some more beers to see me through to the end of play, all six of which now seem redundant and knowingly mocking, though I think and hope I'm imagining that last bit - they're in the fridge two doors away, if they're mocking me it's not to my face. And if they are anyway, shame on them.

Um... my hero.

I had help though, oh yes: my house mate first cajoled, and then convinced me to do it - he's the guy who's now passed out to my left, a stance he's steadfastly adhered to since our return to base some time ago. I hold no hope of him stirring, and why should I? It is, after all, still raining in Adelaide. But for how long? How long? In other news, the world keeps turning.

Shameless Plug

A book containing one of my short stories is available to buy now at a very reasonable £2.99. Cannot say fairer than that. Find it here:

http://blankscreenbooks.co.uk/index.php?p=1_19

Meet A Guy Who Talked To A Guy Who Met Tom Savini (First Guy's Me)

Interview, conducted by yours truly, with director Jeremiah Kipp here:

http://www.butnu.co.uk/jerimiahkipp.html

...and my review of his film Contact here:

http://www.butnu.co.uk/contactreview.html

Freddie Flintoff

I bought the 2005 Ashes box set the day it came out, actually. It's been gathering dust for some time since its initial frenetic burst of activity in my DVD player, which is as it should be. Past glories mature better in the memory than they do on screen. And the memories are abundant, and most seem to feature Andrew Flintoff, who announced yesterday, after what must have been a close to soul destroying two-year programme of surgical procedures, bouts of ungodly rehabilitation, and ultimate failures to put back together his crocked knee, that he is finally retiring from all forms of cricket.

The timing could have been a lot better. Coming as it did on the final day of the most exciting County Championship finale in recent years, the announcement became the day's big story, overshadowing what proved to be an enthralling dénouement to the title race. A calculated move, I'm sorry to say, and one I hope had more to do with his advisers than himself. Even if that is the case, he has in the last few years proved himself very media savvy in his attempts to build the Flintoff brand, something the old school have sneered at but with which I've never had a problem - if a charisma-bypass like David Beckham can do it, why shouldn't he? But that was a step too far.

Now I'm going to talk about how he will be remembered.

He always said he was a batsman who bowls; his own insistence aside, it turned out to be more the other way around, but either way he was that rarest, most valuable of cricketing breeds: a genuine all-rounder. His statistics don't quite much up to past all-round greats like Botham and Khan, and they are dwarfed in comparison to his peer Jaques Kallis. But you ask any neutral cricket lover from Bombay to Brisbane which of those two they would hand over their hard-earned to watch, and they'll plump for Freddie Flintoff every time. At any rate, statistics are, as a wiser man than I once noted, the obsession of the unimaginative - and it's the imagination that Flintoff inspired whenever he came out to bat or got ready to bowl. He had the ability to make grown men weep - and not just supporters of the opposition, either. Lumps in throats were a by-product of Fred on a cricket field.

It's something of a cliché, so I'll allow Michael Vaughan to say it: "He cleared bars," the former England captain wrote yesterday, "and he would then go and join them in it afterwards." As a batsman, he was a stroke-making thug of a player. At his best, his brutal power meant that, if his game was in synch, his six-hitting could take the game away from the opposing team in less than a session, less than ten overs. The magic that seemed to twinkle around the ground when he was in the mood was like no other; I recall him swatting, seemingly at will, these mighty sixes on (I think) the way to a Test hundred against the West Indies in 2004 - with one of these he managed to pick out his own father in the crowd. Flintoff Snr. brought a bit of reality to the proceedings by contriving to drop the catch, but the look on Fred's face more than made up for the aberration. As a fielder, standing there at second slip with the batsmen's nicks disappearing into his huge mitts like they were just happy to get home, he was simply peerless.

His bowling was always quick and hostile, his strength and height enabling him to bang it in and shit up the opposing batsman, but in the second half of his career he picked up a bit more pace, in spite of his catalogue of injuries. Now a genuine fast bowler, he also added to his game the ability to get prodigious swing, both conventional and reverse. And late swing, to boot. The combination comprehensively overpowered Ricky Ponting in one of The Great overs in 2005, a defining point in a series that came to be known as Freddie's Ashes long before any news broke yesterday.

For all his mighty deeds on the field, the strange thing about him was his almost contradictory sense of familiarity. Despite his being a top-class sportsman, you knew someone just like him. You got the feeling that if you ever struck up a conversation with him down the pub, the evening might end with you round his gaff, closing the curtains against the break of dawn while he scoured the kitchen cupboards for a bottle of coffee liqueur he swears he saw in there last week or whenever. One of my favourite images was him being interviewed by the BBC or ITV before one of the England football team's 2006 World Cup games, at the ground it was being played at. Pissed as a fart (it was a lunch-time kick-off, I seem to remember), he rambled on almost incoherently while his good friend and England team-mate Steve Harmison stood by, sniggering like a loon. Anybody who's ever been to a proper house party that somehow just didn't manage to end would have recognised the tableau immediately. Not just a great, inspiring player, but a hoot to boot. Nice one, Freddie, we'll be lucky to see your kind again - and I'm dusting off that box set tonight.

Winston and the Black Dog

I was dreaming of a long flight of stairs, and in the dream I knew there was a park at the top of them. I had just decided to ascend when I felt something tugging at my leg. I woke up and saw Winston sitting at the end of my bed. He was staring into the laptop.

"You were snoring," he said.

"I was sleeping."

"Well I wish you wouldn't."

"Sleep?"

"Snore."

I knew he'd been drinking even before I saw the Highball next to the computer. He pointed at the screen and I saw he was on Gumtree again. He was fascinated by it for some reason.

"What's a WAG?" he asked.

"It stands for 'Wives And Girlfriends'."

He half turned to me and I could see in the weak light of the screen how his eyes glistened beneath his furrowed brow. "They are advertising on here a website which young ladies can join in order to become one of these WAGs. Can they not go about it in the normal fashion?"

"Well, a WAG is the girlfriend of a rich, professional footballer. It's kind of a thing now."

"So this website is for women who want to marry a rich football player."

It wasn't a question but I answered anyway. "I guess."

"So they themselves can become rich and, presumably, famous. By association."

"Well there are varying degrees, Winston... But yeah, sounds like it."

"Jesus Christ," I barely heard him say.

He turned away from me and raised the glass of Scotch to his lips. He took three long, deep swallows, but when he put the glass down it contained no less liquor than before.

I pulled the covers off and sat next to him.

"How bad is it?" I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

He made a snorting noise through his nose and then was silent.

We sat like that. The steady flow of traffic outside was mesmerising, and I began to doze. I was jolted back by Winston's elbow digging into my ribs.

"I am dead, you know," he said mildly.

"That's right. You're a ghost."

He laughed, and just then he sounded young, and his eyes began to sparkle with something more than booze and sadness as he recited to me: "'A ghost! One trusts such things? In will, and sight?'"

I had no idea what he was talking about. "Is that... Shakespeare, or something?"

"Ha! Close - Master Winston Churchill, I believe it was." He smiled, and whatever had been dancing in his eyes vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

He took another drink from his bottomless glass, and I waited. He drank and drank and when he was finished he slammed the glass down. "This," he bellowed at it, "no longer fucking works!"

I nodded my head. "I know man, it doesn't help anyth-"

"I didn't say it doesn't fucking help, I said it doesn't fucking work! When you are dead, alcohol no longer has any effect on you. Whatsoever. Point of fact."

"But I've seen you drunk loads of times. Like... now?"

His shoulders hunched and he held his hands up before me as if they held something. "What you see is a pantomime," he said, his voice wavering almost imperceptibly on the last syllable. "A placebo. Psychosomatic bullshit. I go through it because I know how to, do you see? But it doesn't work, and because it doesn't work it doesn't help. And so it rolls in, as it always did whensoever it would desire... and I'm powerless." He stared into me, his eyes wild, and what I saw within them wasn't fear or anger but a perplexed despair far more dreadful to witness than either. He turned away and bowed his head. I tried to put my hand on his shoulder but it went straight through him.

After a while he looked up, but not at me. "What time is it?"

I did not want to get into this.

"What time is it?" he repeated.

"It's six to midnight," I said eventually. "They haven't moved it since you last asked, Winston. They haven't moved it since January - and that was to put it back."

He wasn't listening. "Six minutes," he muttered under his breath.

"It's not..." But I didn't know what it wasn't. "It's not... so bad," I finished weakly.

He took another drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A faint smile appeared as he patted me firmly on the back. "Stephen, you're an idiot," he said - not unkindly - and then he faded away, taking his Scotch glass with him.