Roll

When I was a kid they were buns. I’m not sure who was responsible for this terminology, since to all the other children they were rolls. My Geordie Dad is suspect number one, though food was normally “named” by my Mum, if only because she did more with it. My Dad’s relationship with food was purely as an end user.

I don’t mean my Mum named food. We didn’t have a tin of tuna called Harold, or a loaf of bread called Gunhilda, though we almost certainly should have done. The world seems divided up into those things that you are allowed to name – pets, cars, pot plants, boats, stuffed animals, genitals*, bicycles, mystical swords etc – and things that you are not – trees, curtains, knees, staplers**, non-mystical swords, fog, socks etc. Who makes up these rules anyway? Can I fight back by naming the rule that stops you calling things by a human name something? Can I call it Mary?

Conventions are being undermined all the time. There’s a TV channel called Dave, and that’s also the name of a friend’s dog. Somewhere out there is a geranium called Simon. And a gerbil called Derek. That’s all well and good, but when are we going to get a human called Pipsqueak?

Possibly when Peaches Geldof becomes a mother.

* Honest to God I have no pet name for my penis. But having said that I’d be absolutely horrified if any of my friends admitted to having one (a name for it, that is), so you have no reason to trust me on this.

** Though I did once have a stapler called Maureen.

Polish

Somewhere there's some sort of equivalent blog by a fan of Nick Griffin. If he sees this word he's going to come up with a very different piece.

One of my most ineffectual teachers was called Mr Sheen, like the polish. He taught biology. In theory biology should have been my favourite science - I quite liked the natural world as a school child and knowing how it all fit together is theoretically more interesting than knowing the specific head capacity of iron filings. Unfortunately, Mr Sheen was not the kind of man to imbue his subject with any joy. He was particularly unforgivable for turning a blind eye one year as the class bully moved his stool behind me and punched me regularly in the back of the head.

He also had a slight speech impediment, something I wouldn't mention if it was for the whole blind-eye-to-violence thing, but it was a little hard to stay interested through a talk about invertebwates wepwoducing. Still, we got to experiment with beans and blotting paper. I do hope that everyone got to experiment with beans and blotting paper, not because it was fun, but because if it wasn't standard teaching practice then I'm very scared as to why anyone wanted me to germinate a bean in a jar.

Still, I suppose it prepared me for an adulthood where about 75% of all the vegetables I buy have sprouted before I remember I own them. It's good to know exactly what's going on.

Gesture

4 years ago I sat in Sydney Cricket Ground watching as England got their arses kicked to the tune of a 5-0 Ashes whitewash.

Although most of my Australian friends were fairly sympathetic, one in particular decided to taunt me for the rest of my trip by gesturing at me with his hands and mouthing the score. Five fingers would go up, followed by the fingers and thumb shaped into an O as he soundlessly uttered "Five Nil!"

In 2009, when England retook the Ashes, I sent him message: "I'll admit that 5-0 is still a better scoreline," I said. "But 2-1 is a better hand gesture".

Sadly trying to turn "a record three innings defeats" is going to require someone fluent in sign-language to sort out.

Do you get the feeling I'm a bit fixated on the cricket at the moment? I do.

Brilliant

Ah, a fortuitous time for this word. I'm sat on the sofa watching the footage of England maneuvering themselves into a winning position and getting ready to watch them win a series in Australia.

There'll be a fair few people my age (or younger, since I was a late starter) who will remember the 1986/7 tour as their introduction to cricket played on a foreign field. That tour was a first time I stayed up with a radio next to my bed listening to the crackly coverage and it's list of exotic place names (or so I thought when I was 14). I foolishly thought the ease with with we shifted Tim Zoehrer would apply to all English cricket; instead I was treated to 25 years of Ian Healy, Adam Gilchrist and even Brad bloody Haddin rescuing the Aussies on those rare occasions when our bowlers were good enough. And of course most of the time we just had our bowling heads kicked in by Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Dean Jones, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer or any number of ready to roll off the production line batting geniuses that the Australians seemed to be able to pick at will.

Now Ponting's ludicrous 5-0 revenge in 2006/7, which at the time appeared to be an act of will more than cricket, now looks instead like an act of monumental sporting arrogance. The Aussie determination to not only reclaim the Ashes but to crush England for their temerity in 2005 meant that - unusually for them - they failed to introduce younger players into the team as they went. The 5-0 became an enormous bee-sting: it hurt England badly, but did Australian cricket suffer more? The bee is certainly looking a little bit sickly.

Ah, what do I know? All I *do* know is that after all these years it's absolutely brilliant to see England winning in Australia, and doing it as much through their own excellence as Australia's weaknesses. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.