Ask Santa for Arm-Ball To Zooter

 

I discovered Lawrence Booth’s column, The Spin, in Guardian Unlimited, a few weeks after I joined Middlesex in late 2002 but before I had ever attended a Middlesex match.  It gave me humorous solace through that winter and has sustained me through summers and winters since.

 

Indeed, during my first season as a Middlesex member, 2003, Lawrence Booth and I conspired to get women admitted to the Bowlers’ Bar.  Our lobbying was of no consequence, apparently.  The letter I received from Roger Knight in Autumn 2003 politely informed me that the committee had already decided to admit women to that bar from 2004 onwards.  So journalists and members should not assume that people and media power can get results.  No sir-ee.  And of course, Roger chose to write to me and not to the Guardian journalist whose open letter had held the MCC up to public ridicule.  It was a very “The Spin” incident and Lawrence Booth duly milked it.

 

And to prove that Lawrence has indeed now passed his rite of passage as a cricket journalist, he received “an electronic hand-bagging” from Janet on MTWD this summer when he reported on the Middlesex v Sussex match at Southgate:

http://www.sportnetwork.net/boards/read/s66.php?f=67&i=35441&t=35319&sid=66#reply_35441

(see her posting 21 July 2006, 06:57 – enjoy also the banter that ensued).

 

Now, Lawrence has written a superb book, Arm Ball to Zooter, which Ged can highly commend to MTWD readers and their kin as an ideal Christmas present.  It’s a Sunday Times Book of the Week (yah, boo, sucks, Ged had one of those in 2000 but he’s still having to work and pay the mortgage) and deservedly so (Lawrence Booth’s, I mean.  Ged’s too, come to think of it).   

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2094-2426583,00.html

 

The title Arm-Ball to Zooter gives the clue – this book is an A to Z of cricket language.  Although this is hardly an original construct, the manner of delivery is extremely fresh and original.  Simon Hughes focussed on jargon-busting and many others have tried to be encyclopaedic in such books.  Arm-Ball to Zooter is different.  In “The Spin” style, it is more cliché-busting than jargon-busting.  In the fashionable style, it is more of a miscellany than an encyclopaedia.  Most importantly, it is also extremely funny.  When Ged laughs out loud that much; “the earth trembles”.  Try again; “Ged must be on drugs”.  Third time lucky; “that probably means the book is seriously funny”. 

 

For Ged, it is the miscellany element that makes this book so enjoyable.   Ceefax gets the treatment, as does Fancy Dress, Tebbit Test and John Travolta.  Anecdotes abound.  Ged particularly likes the one about Nancy Doyle, the Duchess of the Lord’s kitchen.  When Mike Brearley politely suggested that she serve up something less substantial for his girth-expanding squad, she is said to have replied “I won’t tell you how to fockin’ bat and you don’t tell me how to fockin’ cook”.  In describing Character, we are given the examples of “ability to grow a silly moustache (Merv Hughes) or say ‘Happy Days’ (Phil Tufnell) or swear a lot (Merv Hughes and Phil Tufnell)”. 

 

Each letter of the alphabet is graced with an excellent cartoon.  Nick Newman is one of Ged’s favourite cartoonists; the Penguin promotion machine might just have missed a trick by not emphasising that element of the fun. 

 

And fun is what it all is, although the book is surprisingly informative and useful.  I’m sure I’ll find myself reaching for it ahead of many “more learned” alternatives for reference.  No doubt Santa will be making many well-humoured cricket lovers happy this year with Arm-Ball to Zooter.

 

Amazon Product Details:

 

Arm-ball to Zooter: A Sideways Look at the Language of Cricket (Hardcover)
by Lawrence Booth

RRP: £12.99 Our Price: £7.79

 

Product details

Hardcover: 304 pages

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (5 Oct 2006)

Language English

ISBN: 014051581X

 

Click through here to order through Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arm-ball-Zooter-Sideways-Language-Cricket/dp/014051581X/sr=11-1/qid=1163716122/ref=sr_11_1/202-3769697-7845409

 

Price details correct at time of publishing, please check price when you click through.