Friday 27 May 2011

Baby you can drive my car

'For goodness sake, Fantasy Bob', comes the cry, 'that's the third ancient pop song you've used as a title of a post this week.  What's happened to the essays on Mahler and Mozart that used to send us asleep?  How have you dumbed down so? You'll be saying that the IPL is better than Test cricket at this rate.'

But FB is unrepentent, Mahler's Das Knaben Wunderhorn would not quite capture the essence of this post.  FB is led back to the Beatles by the allegations at present surrounding the UK Secretary of State for Energy Chris Huhne.  Mr Huhne's estranged wife has revealed that some years ago, her husband persuaded her to admit to driving his car when it was recorded speeding so that she, rather than he, would get the speeding offence points on her licence.  Police investigations are continuing.

Fantasy Bob wishes to minimise the risk of being embroiled in such controversy in future.  He therefore wishes to make a clean breast of an incident in his past career which bears some resemblance to the allegations surrounding Mr Huhne.   

25 years ago or so, while playing for one of his previous clubs in his capacity as opening bowler and skipper, FB asked one of his team mates, a younger person, playing his first matches in senior cricket and so considerably in awe of FB, to accept against his bowling figures a number of wides that the scorer had ascribed to FB.  In his defense FB says that he had no knowledge or recollection of bowling those wides (or indeed any other wides at any time), and his own diary makes no record of what would have been an exceptionally rare event.  However the scorer had made his attribution. FB accepts that it was dishonourable to seek another person to accept the punishment of those wides and that he took advantage of this young person's innocence.  Moreover it didn't do him any damn good for the young person ended the season with a considerably better bowling average than FB anyway. 

FB has made it clear that he is willing to talk to the police to clarify the circumstances surrounding this event.  The Prime Minister has said that there is no need for Fantasy Bob to resign.

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