Re: the Scottish game
Regarding cricket: I was once a little surprised (but with hindsight it was perfectly understandable) to be wandering through Pollok Country Park (in Glasgow, Scotland (obviously)) one sunny day and stumbled across a bunch of youths from a nearby neighbourhood energetically (well, as much as you can) playing cricket. They were Scots of South Asian descent and so of course cricket was part of their heritage, and they seemed to be having a perfectly fun time of it. Apparently there are also a not an entirely insignificant number of people in Scotland, of whatever background, who do play cricket. It's not the biggest participation sport, but it's apparently nowhere near as small as you might think it would be.
I have to say, I am half interested in the idea of playing cricket (We had one great sports teacher at school who did an excellent job of introducing us to as many sports as possible, and we did play indoors cricket one week, and it was reasonably enjoyable [and you didn't get muddy] (We also had one fascist sports teacher whose gruel-like menu extended no further than rugby and cross-country running, and I'm sure he would have found a way to combine the both together if he could)), but I'm not sure that I really have the luxury of days, weeks, or even, umm, centuries, to play it (nor really the ideal weather for it here in Scotland). But the idea of a game where you don't get muddy or soaking wet, where you can stand around chatting half the time, and also drink Pimms and eat cucumber sandwiches while basking in the afternoon sunshine sounds not altogether bad to me.
But as for watching cricket (or any other sport), I'd much rather all of these were on a separate sports channel, so that they never ever darkened the schedules of normal people. And sports results have no bloody place taking up half of the News either!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
