England have made a strong start to the clash of the test match titans. Andrew Strauss was dismissed by the fourth ball of the match but that was the first and only time South Africa were in a strong position. Alastair Cook became the second youngest ever to reach 20 test match hundreds (behind – surprise, surprise – Sachin Tendulkar) and was still there at the close on 114 not out. There were also substantial contributions from Trott (61) and Pietersen (42), while Ian Bell looked as solid as ever as he and Cook reached the close at 267-3. Since this series is only three matches long, instead of the five a series of this standing should be a strong start is particularly important. South Africa need to get the last seven wickets fairly quickly to get back in things, while for England the aim would be to bat for most of today as well and then give South Africa a testing 40 minutes or so before the close.
The Open is in full swing at Royal Lytham & St Annes (note to any American reading this: there is no such tournament as the British Open – it started in 1860 as The Open and that remains its name). The early pace setter is Adam Scott of Australia who broke the course record yesterday with a 64, but many top names are well in contention, and there have been many occasions on which an unknown has shot the lights out early on and then faded under pressure.
The Saturday at Marxism was a truly magnificent day – even the weather was quite pleasant. On this occasion it was also World Pride day, so a number of people were taking part in that, but every meeting was still packed to bursting.
The first meeting I attended featured lawyer Gareth Peirce speaking on the subject of “The dark arts of the secret state: a decade of false narratives”. One of those who spoke from the floor talked about the coverage of PC Simon Harwell’s trial (since this meeting the trial has concluded, and the jury, disgracefully and indefensibly, have acquitted him), and particularly of the moment when he broke down in tears. Contrary to the impression given by most reporters, PC Harwell was not actually talking about Ian Tomlinson when he broke down, but about a motorcycle accident he had suffered. At the end of the meeting a book by the main speaker was being sold at a very reasonable price, and proved (as expected) to be compulsive reading. The final essay in the collection has the same title as this meeting and contains most of what was said there.
Nick Davies’ talk about “The press, power and the phone hacking scandal” As you might imagine, there were many juicy stories in this session. I will record just one, relatively unimportant but quite amusing. There was a story in the run up to the Euro 2012 football tournament about an England fan who was so worried about a poor performance by the England team that he took out insurance for neurological problems. The “fan” allowed himself to be named, which along wth a few other things prompted some digging, which revealed that our supposed “worried fan” was actually the PR manager of the insurance company!
After lunch I headed for the meeting on “The Higgs Boson: should Marxists care?” and was never gladder to arrive early since it was obvious even at that stage that the room was far too small for a meeting on this topic, which opinion was confirmed when it was soon full to beyond a level of which the safety elf would have approved. The one word answer to the question in the meeting title is, of course, yes. An interest in science is valuable in and of itself, and the discovery of the Higgs Boson is a huge development, plugging a gap in the so called “Standard Model”. Our speaker pointed out for those who talk of “wasted money” that last year the British government lavished £34 billion on defence and only £4 billion on science.
I will continue my account of this extraordinary Saturday in my next post. Enjoy the photos…
aspiblog 