Nigel Warburton
This year, the predictably unpredictable British weather has lived up to pessimists’ expectations. Through much of July and August, the barbecue summer augured by weather forecasters proved much soggier than anticipated, complete with Test match draws and delays. How should we respond? The Stoic philosophers believed that getting worked up about events that are outside our control is simply wasted energy. For the Roman Stoic and dramatist Seneca, anger was a useless emotion to be eradicated or converted to inner calm—a sentiment traditionally echoed by the cricket-playing English gentleman. And, as the Greek Stoic Epictetus argued, the only worthwhile good comes from those aspects of our character we can consciously control. “Man,” he taught, “is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them.”
Is this wisdom, or a recipe for inhuman indifference to what is going on around us? In our age of genetic knowledge and technological prowess, it can be hard to know where the bounds of human control end. In August, the sprinter Usain Bolt demolished his own world 100 metres record, clocking a stunning 9.58 seconds. Genetic gifts and focused training have produced a quite exceptional athlete, and a man so much better than the rest that it seems almost unfair. Yet—as David Edmonds explores in his essay on human enhancement in this issue (p42)—scientists are probably already working on a biomedically enhanced Wunderkind who will grow to topple even Bolt’s records. Why be Stoical about your nature, or Nature itself, when the means to perfect these exist?
It’s a question that we may soon have to face from a practical as well as a philosophical perspective. Yet, if this summer has a message, it’s that for the moment we should enjoy the sunny days when they come, and celebrate sporting achievement where we find it, even if both include large elements of luck. In the future, after all, we may find that we have to blame our seasonal woes not only on underperforming forecasters and athletes, but on less-than-perfect weather-makers and geneticists too.
CityBoy
City boys in the best seats?
Its decision time in the Ashes today. But while we’re all glued to the action as Muppet’s England—not, i stress, a nickname of my creation—take on Ricky “Punter” Ponting’s posse, a few eyes will be drifting in the direction of the boxes overhanging the Oval.
Over the course of the financial crisis corporate boxes might have been emblazoned with the names of high street banks. But their contents have resembled something more like the captain’s cabin of the Marie Celeste; the food and drink all laid out but no-one around to partake. Alas while the fate of that ship has been recognised as one of the greatest maritime mysteries of all time, I suspect the case of abandoned boxes will not find its way into cricketing mythology.
Mervyn King—or shall shall we call him Il Papa?—explained in June that the Church Bank “cannot promise that bad things won’t happen to our flock”. And just as he predicted (after the event), so it has (already) come to pass. As is proper in such circumstances the guilty financiers have accepted some degree of penance (largely enforced by public opprobrium) albeit without the hair shirts and cat o’ nine tails. And all season it now seems they paid for their boxes, and yet forgoed using them. My, how wrong we have painted them! Never mind that this week marks the grand finale of one of the sporting spectaculars of the year, with the result delicately poised and tickets selling faster than Harry Potter books on ebay. Their steadfast resolve will not be broken by such trifling matters.
But wait? Might it be that, with the Ashes hanging in the balance, the bankers might dane to return to the best seats in the house? I will be at the Oval for the first day’s play, and will be looking for signs of periscopes peeping over lofty balconies, just in case one or two lapse at the last, and Beelzebub’s temptations (in the form of Pimm’s and cucumber sandwiches) prove too great. But perhaps a trip to the cricket would do Mr King, at least, some good. His musings appear increasingly mystical: apparently, like our ultimate destination, we must leave the financial sector in the hands of the Almighty for “the prevention of all financial crises is in neither our nor anyone else’s power, as a study of history or human nature would reveal”. Better to think about a batting collapse, eh Merv?
James Crabtree
It's not just verbal pressure
Nine words to dismay sporting traditionalists: “Maybe it will turn out that test cricket has no long-term future.” They come in the conclusion of Prospect’s July interview, where Edward Marriott talks to former England cricket captain Michael Brearley, an unusually thoughtful sportsman and now a leading psychotherapist.
The two elements of his career at first might seem quite different, but Brearley says that behind the gentle veneer of cricket lurks a game of surprising psychological pressures, including unusually high suicide rates and public breakdowns among players. More significantly, perhaps, both test cricket and traditional psychotherapy take time to deliver results, and now find themselves under pressure from brasher, speedier rivals—like Twenty20 cricket, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
While the latter treatment is increasingly popular with the government, Brearley defends the longer, subtler benefits of psychoanlytic treatments. The former, meanwhile, will be tested when the Ashes begin on 9th July. An exciting, closely fought series similar to the one ending in England’s victory in 2005 will rebuff doomsayers who see little future for the long form of the game. But, given the extraordinary rise of Twenty20 cricket and the rapturous reaction by crowds and commentators to the recent Twenty20 world cup, either a boring series or a comprehensive Australian victory (or, worst of all, both) will surely be interpreted as the beginning of the end for cricket matches played in white over five days. Brearly thinks the result will be a 2-2 draw. It might be one situation where a draw is the right result.
David Herman
Attenborough: the great enthusiast
Sunday evening was a great moment to see two great old enthusiasts doing what they do best – and for taking in the death of a third. First, there was David Attenborough’s passionate tribute to Darwin, ‘Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life’ (BBC 1, Sunday, 1 February, now available on the iplayer). There may be more revisionist or highbrow accounts of Darwin (see Adrian Desmond’s article in the new issue of ‘Prospect’ for a terrific example), and I don’t know what Steve Jones would have made of being buried as ‘consultant’ in the closing credits. Nevertheless, this excellent documentary managed to mix a sense of Attenborough’s passion for geology and the natural world with Darwin’s story, to make a compelling hour of television. What was so moving was Attenborough’s lifelong enthusiasm, from schoolboy to old man now in his eighties. There will be no one to replace him.
There was just about time enough to change channels at the end for Sunday’s ‘South Bank Show’, to see the more youthful Melvyn Bragg introduce Nigel Wattis on the impact of Footlights on TV and radio comedy in Britain over the past half century. Melvyn Bragg has been producing and editing arts programmes since ‘Monitor’ in the 1960s, and yet this was as fun an hour of arts television as any he’s been involved with. The archive film and stills research was, as ever, superb and the talking heads were well chosen and illuminating.
Finally, the death, last Saturday, of Bill Frindall, the Bearded Wonder of ‘Test Match Special’, will have moved many. Cricket has always appealed because of its mix of sport, tradition and statistics, and Frindall was the embodiment of the obsessive counting which has drawn so many Englishmen to the sport. His own mix of passionate enthusiasm and benign omniscience won him the respect and admiration of many, many thousands of listeners. Read more »
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