English county season 2008 (VI)

JKLever wrote:

Augustus wrote: The whole country's grim apart from farmer country.

You haven't really travelled much outside industrial cities then it seems...

I wouldn't really recommend any large city in this country tbh - Bath,Cambridge,Oxford are much better. This countrys beauty is in its towns and villages too.

I've been nearly everywhere in this country, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I've also seen the majority of France, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg*, Belgium and Austria, as well as small parts of Switzerland and Italy. Perhaps I simply have intolerably high standards? Northern Ireland is a beautiful place, as soon as you get out of the bric-a-brac meanie towns, the end terraces of which are covered in IRA or UVF propaganda. Scotland too is a beautiful country, but the cities are garish. The same applies to England - the Lake and Peak Districts are absolutely gorgeous, so too are a lot of the villages within them, but once you get out of the open country, back into South Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire or up into Cumbria you're back in tired old 1960s Britain, an ugly concrete metropolis founded on cheapness.

Any town with a bit of self-pride would abandon those ugly metal streetlights and bring the old lanterns back, albeit with electrical workings. For what it's worth, Winchester is a really nice place of those I've seen. Kent's a nice county. Devon and Cornwall are beautiful and villagey; probably the best of English. The Highlands of Scotland are fantastic, but largely wet and cold, soon becoming tiresome when you've trodden on them for too long. I remember France as a lovely place full of classical, oldy villages, where night comes in and all of a sudden it's 'proper' dark and everyone's in their bed. Germany was a nice country full of nasty-sounding people. Once you get too far to the East of Europe it's hard to look beyond the ugliness of the language and I have consequently yet to visit. Africa's next on my list, starting with Egypt, moving on to the sub-Saharan nasty-lands.

Back to this country, Hampshire and Berkshire are my favourite counties of those I've lived in. Once you get past the strange, entlike pronunciation of Berkshire it's a really pretty place. It took some getting used to though when I went round a friend's house and he had a stream in his garden. And a wood. Southerners and their dirty, inherited, elitist money.

* - Which, frankly, should not be permitted to be called a country. It should be annexed to us.

holcs wrote:You wouldn't want to live at the bottom of that hill, and have to walk home over those cobbles after a sneaky few at the pub!!!

It would beat the usual Chav dodging though!

Augustus wrote:

JKLever wrote:

Augustus wrote: The whole country's grim apart from farmer country.

You haven't really travelled much outside industrial cities then it seems...

I wouldn't really recommend any large city in this country tbh - Bath,Cambridge,Oxford are much better. This countrys beauty is in its towns and villages too.

I've been nearly everywhere in this country, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I've also seen the majority of France, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium and Austria, as well as small parts of Switzerland and Italy. Perhaps I simply have intolerably high standards? Northern Ireland is a beautiful place, as soon as you get out of the bric-a-brac meanie towns, the end terraces of which are covered in IRA or UVF propaganda. Scotland too is a beautiful country, but the cities are garish. The same applies to England - the Lake and Peak Districts are absolutely gorgeous, so too are a lot of the villages within them, but once you get out of the open country, back into South Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire or up into Cumbria you're back in tired old 1960s Britain, an ugly concrete metropolis founded on cheapness.

Any town with a bit of self-pride would abandon those ugly metal streetlights and bring the old lanterns back, albeit with electrical workings. For what it's worth, Winchester is a really nice place of those I've seen. Kent's a nice county. Devon and Cornwall are beautiful and villagey; probably the best of English. The Highlands of Scotland are fantastic, but largely wet and cold, soon becoming tiresome when you've trodden on them for too long. I remember France as a lovely place full of classical, oldy villages, where night comes in and all of a sudden it's 'proper' dark and everyone's in their bed. Germany was a nice country full of nasty-sounding people. Once you get too far to the East of Europe it's hard to look beyond the ugliness of the language and I have consequently yet to visit. Africa's next on my list, starting with Egypt, moving on to the sub-Saharan nasty-lands.

Back to this country, Hampshire and Berkshire are my favourite counties of those I've lived in. Once you get past the strange, entlike pronunciation of Berkshire it's a really pretty place. It took some getting used to though when I went round a friend's house and he had a stream in his garden. And a wood. Southerners and their dirty, inherited, elitist money.

You sound like a cynical miserable old qunt Gus!!!

JKLever wrote:

holcs wrote:You wouldn't want to live at the bottom of that hill, and have to walk home over those cobbles after a sneaky few at the pub!!!

It would beat the usual Chav dodging though!

You have a very valid point there JK.

Augustus wrote:
Back to this country, Hampshire and Berkshire are my favourite counties of those I've lived in. Once you get past the strange, entlike pronunciation of Berkshire it's a really pretty place. It took some getting used to though when I went round a friend's house and he had a stream in his garden. And a wood. Southerners and their dirty, inherited, elitist money.

Augustus wrote: Africa's next on my list, starting with Egypt, moving on to the sub-Saharan nasty-lands.

Good man Gus. Get off the beaten track there as well. There are some simply stunning places in the back of beyond.

West Africa for all its issues is fantastic.

And places like Rwanda and Sierra Leone are pretty much safe as you can get out there now.

I really want to see the Congo, especially the river, but the 1000+ a day death count that is supposedly still being totted up by the Mai-Mai is a little off-putting. Uganda and Sudan are also there, but I'll wait till after the referendum over whether South Sudan should become a separate country first. No doubt there'll be civil war.

The problem with a lot of the countries is that they seem to go in cycles of peace and anarchy. Just on the borders of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan and Tanzania you can think of a few prominent rebel groups with the capacity to cause grief. The interahamwe in Rwanda, the LRA in Uganda, Sudan and the Congo. The mai-mai, like I said.

Still, steer clear of the Congo and I'll be fine, I'm sure.

Augustus wrote:I really want to see the Congo, especially the river, but the 1000+ a day death count that is supposedly still being totted up by the Mai-Mai is a little off-putting. Uganda and Sudan are also there, but I'll wait till after the referendum over whether South Sudan should become a separate country first. No doubt there'll be civil war.

The problem with a lot of the countries is that they seem to go in cycles of peace and anarchy. Just on the borders of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan and Tanzania you can think of a few prominent rebel groups with the capacity to cause grief. The interahamwe in Rwanda, the LRA in Uganda, Sudan and the Congo. The mai-mai, like I said.

Still, steer clear of the Congo and I'll be fine, I'm sure.

Congo is fine. Its the Fun and games in North Eastern DRC thats where the issues are.

Rwanda is as good as it gets these days. Policing is very high, and if a copper doen't give out a ticket for an infringement they get sacked and lose their homes etc...

Sudan/Juba is NGO heaven at present, so you'd be fairly ok there as well.

I have a good friend in Uganda, and he loves it there as well. Its fairly strange but in most of those places, its as you say tribal, and your fairly unlucky in my experience to get caught up in it.

A great trip is from Kenya, moving North into Uganda, and then you can jump into Juba/Sudan.

Augustus wrote:
Back to this country, Hampshire and Berkshire are my favourite counties of those I've lived in. Once you get past the strange, entlike pronunciation of Berkshire it's a really pretty place. It took some getting used to though when I went round a friend's house and he had a stream in his garden. And a wood. Southerners and their dirty, inherited, elitist money.

Hampshire's proper nice. Loads of cute little towns and villages. The New Forest. Country pubs and restaurants. Lovely.

Then again, I moved here from the festering spunk-receptacle that was Manchester, so it's hardly a surprise that I prefer it.

I prefer punching myself repeatedly in the kidneys to living in Manchester.

And, as if I needed any further proof: type Hampshire into Google images and the first picture you get is...



Why would you want to live anywhere else?

First image for Bristol is this:





Kind of looks nice from that picture. That's just the rich part though.

Bristols quite nice tbh, just like various other cities has it's sh!te areas....

Just need to adjust your hearing setting to 'pikey yokel' and I quite liked it.

JKLever wrote:Bristols quite nice tbh, just like various other cities has it's sh!te areas....

Just need to adjust your hearing setting to 'pikey yokel' and I quite liked it.

But Bristol is also the drugs capital of England. I have never been to a place in England where the contrast between rich and poor is so obvious.

PearlJ wrote:
But Bristol is also the drugs capital of England.

That would be Liverpool.

Div 2 looking very interesting. Judging by the number of wins you have to say Worcs deserve to go up.

If Essex or Nhants can win their upcoming game, I reckon Warks will start bricking it.

Only trouble from an Essex pov is that we'll get served up a Monty special at Wantage road and we have no Kaneria. Doomed...

Meanwhile, Glos continue to be mostly crap.

JKLever wrote:

PearlJ wrote:
But Bristol is also the drugs capital of England.

That would be Liverpool.

No, it's Bristol. Home of the most raided building in the country and of the road with the most drug dealers per mile. Thems fax.

JKLever wrote:Div 2 looking very interesting. Judging by the number of wins you have to say Worcs deserve to go up.

If Essex or Nhants can win their upcoming game, I reckon Warks will start bricking it.

Only trouble from an Essex pov is that we'll get served up a Monty special at Wantage road and we have no Kaneria. Doomed...

Meanwhile, Glos continue to be mostly crap.

Glos aren't that bad. Most of the other teams are just lucky feckers.

We 've been docked 2 points for a slow over rate in this game. We need another 25 to be sure of going up. Just hope the weather improves.

You should be fine. Most wins & least losses.

It's those dirty bears playing their infamous 'draw' game that we're all chasing down...

JKLever wrote:You should be fine. Most wins & least losses.

It's those dirty bears playing their infamous 'draw' game that we're all chasing down...

Aye, it's not even funny anymore. Someone on the Worcs forum applied the Aussie points system to Div 2 matches this season, and your lot were second to us.

The CC system does have to change. It's a joke.

Putting it crudely, the Aussie system is six points for a win and six points for first innings lead. There is more to it than that, but it does appear to favour sides who actually win matches!

I'd like 6 for a win, 3 for 1st innings lead & no points for a draw.

The way it's set up at present teams are rewarded for not losing and some are playing safety first cricket.

JKLever wrote:I'd like 6 for a win, 3 for 1st innings lead & no points for a draw.

The way it's set up at present teams are rewarded for not losing and some are playing safety first cricket.

Yeah, that would work. No-one pretends that championship cricket pulls in the crowds anymore, so why bother with bonus points, which do nothing to promote positive cricket.

The Aussie system's two for a first innings lead and six for a win. If you win you get six points no matter what. In certain circumstances, such as in a tie, you can get 1 to 3 points (first innings tie and overall tie). England should adopt a similar system but make sure you get bonus points on top of victory. Two for a first innings lead and six for a victory, meaning you can earn eight points. A team that wins a battle of first innings in a drawn match can earn a maximum of two points.

It would also destroy the stupid amounts of points teams end up on in English cricket. 200-odd; why?