h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sitting here in an apartment in Austin, Texas, where it's very hot and sunny, and apart from a few thunderstorms last weekend, has been that way for a month or more. I'm listening to a webcast from the ECB website of commentary from the Old Trafford Test where there has only been 18 overs of play today because of rain. People here ask me how could a game that lasts for 5 days, where they play for 7 hours each day, and which is so dependendant on fine, sunny weather have evolved in England? It beats the hell out of me.

Ah but the rain is a very important 12th player, often prayed for by the losing team to make a dramatic stand on the 5th day and carry it's bat. (Meaning= to carry one's bat is traditionally when an opening batsman plays through the loss of all 10 wickets)

Yes, I can see the logic in that. Perhaps you know the story about the American Indian chief who sends his son to Oxford to get a 'high class' education. Upon his return, the chief asks his son what he learned. "Well father, apart from my studies in class, I learned a great deal about the English." "Such as?" "They have a great many ancient and noble traditions, just as we do. They have a rain dance for instance." "Is it anything like ours son?" "No father, it is much more complicated. For weeks, a small number of dedicated men tend a small strip of ground in the middle of a large oval of grass. They mow it and water it and mow it and water it, until a week before the ceremony is due to begin. Then they continue to mow it, but keep it bone dry so that most of the grass dies. On the appointed day, many people crowd into the stands erected around the oval, and two men in long white coats walk out to the tended strip and erect a small shrine at each end, made up of three vertical sticks with two more sticks across the top. Then 11 more men wearing white come out and stand at designated points around the oval. Finally two more men wearing white walk out to the strip and stand at each end. They wear strange leg coverings and carry large flat sticks. At a precisely timed moment, one of the men in the white coats hands a red ball to one of the eleven men who came out together, and he shouts "Play". Then the heavens open and it rains non-stop for 5 days."

Good one

Conducts a small experiment...

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