The Idler, Thursday, July 13, 2019

Woe is us –

and it could

get worse

CAN we sink any lower in this Cricket World Cup? Our single measly point has been garnered from the wash-out against the West Indies, where we were already in trouble when the rain came pelting down.

Who can believe we would have survived a full day's play against a West Indies side in their present carefree and boisterous mood, which seems to be taking them back to their glory days?

Can things get worse? Well, yes they could, dare one say it? To lose the next one against Afghanistan – a country almost bereft of level ground for the playing of cricket – would be the bitter end.

One's confidence in a resorgimento in the five-day game – Test cricket, the purest form, where we are still high in the world rankings – is more than somewhat shaken by events in England.

One bright spot. So far the Proteas at least haven't been snookered by our traditional nemesis, the Duckworth-Lewis formula. That would call for sackcloth and ashes on a national scale.

 

 

Origins

EARLIER this week we discussed the origins of the title of a book – Every Meal A Banquet, Every Night A Honeymoon – by veteran Africa foreign correspondent Peter Younghusband. (It was the response of a colleague to a sarcastic cable from his news editor in Fleet Street asking if he was still "alive and well and living in Africa" – not having heard from him).

It recalls another excellent book on Africa by Chris Munnion, once the London Telegraph's man in these parts. And, oddly enough, Younghusband played a part in its title.

At the mouth of the Congo River is a little port named Banana. Not too much happens in Banana that's newsworthy, but it was Younghusband's burning ambition to be there at a weekend and write a news despatch with the dateline Banana Sunday (like the banana sundae ice cream dessert – geddit?)

At last he contrived to be in Banana. He put together and sent off a stirring despatch under the still more stirring dateline: Banana Sunday.

But unfortunately the foreign page of the London Daily Mail was crammed. Younghusband's powerful piece had to be held over for a day. It appeared under the dateline: Banana Monday.

Oh, the trials and tribulations of a foreign correspondent. The frustrations and fury. The foreign press corps in Africa – of which Younghusband was unofficial doyen – rolled about laughing.

The title of Munnion's book in which the story is related: Banana Sunday.

 

 

Swashbuckling breed

YOUNGHUSBAND (who is still around somewhere in the Western Cape) was one of the last of a swashbuckling breed of foreign correspondents who believed in getting the main facts straight but saw nothing wrong with embroidering the secondary bits. The readers had to be entertained at their London breakfast tables.

If he had to travel from A to B for a story, invariably he would swim a "crocodile-infested river" to get there.

His companion on such jaunts would often be a fellow named Monks, who was from the rival London Daily Express.

One day Monks received an indignant cable (in the condensed telex jargon of the day) from his news editor: "Why you unswim crocodile-infested river like Younghusband?"

Yep, them wuz the days.

 

Tailpiece

TEACHER asks little Johnny to spell "bowling".

Back came the answer : "B-o-e-l-i-n."

"That," says Teacher, "is the worst spell of bowling I've ever seen, including the Proteas."

 

Last word

 

Egotism is the anaesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. -Frank Leahy