1) I want you to comment on the cricket I am watching, not constantly refer to your own playing days
2) I hate cliches and metaphors but hate them even more when they’re mixed and mangled
3) I enjoy listening to calm and modulated voices, not incomprehensible screeching at the slightest hint of action
4) Your jokes are really, really, really, unfunny
5) I know the rest of the Channel Nine commentary team is horribly biased but at least they make a cursory effort to hide it

Any others, readers?

I remember reading somewhere that after winning the Adelaide test the Australian team partied into the wee hours in the hotel bar. At some point during the night Shane Warne ducked up to his room and retrieved his iPod to drop some funky beats for the party’s sake.

This begs the obvious (and slightly disturbing) question: What’s on Shane Warne’s iPod?

Let’s try and put together his playlist in comments.

It’s been a bit quiet around GrodsCorp in the last week, with the only new content being J,The’s anti-ALP braindump. I’ve been down the beach for a week getting some sun and quality book time and during that time filed away a number of GrodsNibbles in the “blog later” section of my memory.

1) Pauline Hanson desperately seeking attention and money
The broken down, has been, flash-in-a-pan, intellectually challenged, xenophobic political relic has been widely criticised for her latest bout of attention seeking through her declaration of a run for parliament in ‘07 timed, entirely coincidentally, with the launch of her new book. However, what has been totally overlooked by everyone so far is the fact that Hanson is making another bald-faced grab for taxpayer money. At the ‘04 election Hanson ran for parliament in NSW and, despite coming nowhere near victory, pocketed a neat $190,000 of taxpayer cash for her trouble. Obviously Ms Hanson has decided to stick her nose in the taxpayer trough once more which is totally cool if you’re a white, Christian, middle Australian, but not if you’re one of those filthy, bludging Aboriginals or a ghetto-dwelling immigrant.

2) ALP leadership: Hallelujah!
GrodsCorp has been calling for Beazley leadership change since 1 August 2005 and this week our wish came true. I’m no great fan of Rudd (certainly not as anti as J,The) but have been impressed by his work in this first week. He certainly seems to have high recognition in the electorate thanks to his weekly appearances on Channel Seven’s Sunrise (if you were looking for a single program that reaches “middle Australia” then you needn’t look much further) and if he can let his obvious intelligence come to the fore without coming across as academic and elitist then I think he will make an effective leader.

Would’ve preferred Julia Gillard, though. And what’s with the subservient woman thing that she did throughout the entire leadership campaign? Standing dutifully next to Rudd, the man and leader, staring lovingly and barely saying a word? You’re better than that, Julia, and I hope it doesn’t become a feature of your deputy leadership.

3) Channel Nine’s cricket Hotspot camera
What a joke. Goobermetrics calls Channel Nine’s latest effort Crotchspot because its only real use seems to be in confirming that, yes, the player’s groinal area is producing heat. Hotspot works great when the ball smacks the meat of the bat, leaving a bright and undeniable mark, but whenever the camera is called upon after a genuine edge or moment of bat/pad confusion the commentators are forced to draw little circles around invisible “hot spots” and defend the usefulness of this utterly useless “innovation”.

And speaking of commentators, hasn’t the UK’s Channel 4 coverage of last year’s Ashes broadcast on SBS put Channel Nine to shame. Wasn’t it refreshing to have actual analysis of the game last time around as opposed to the brainless and insulting schmaltz that passes for informed commentary by the likes of Messrs Greig, Slater, Healy and Taylor. Why didn’t Channel Nine spend the money they sunk into Hotspot on a respectable commentary team?

It doesn’t get much better than highly anticipated cricket on a Thursday afternoon. Well, it does: knowing that there are 24 more days of it to come.

I spent the first few hours of today’s play laying on the lounge room floor, bathed in sunlight, watching the cricket on the telly, and texting back and forth with jLo who was watching the game from a pub in London after midnight. At one point jLo wrote:

Ps. How hilarious was that first ball? Funniest opening delivery ever. Why the fuck isn’t Flintoff putting himself on?

And sure enough he picked the ball up the very next over.

Some overs later I was reading another of her texts and missed Hayden being caught out. I wrote:

Missed that because I was reading your text. Neanderthal in the showers.

In response, and referring to GrodsCorp’s relentless ridiculing of Matthew Hayden over time, jLo wrote:

Sorry matey! No great loss, really. Where was Jesus right then, huh?

Informing her that I intended to blog her comments she declared:

I am ever conscious of the fact that my texts may be blog fodder. I’ll look forward to reading it all again tomorrow.

Consider it done, jLo.